UFC
"Rampage" Jackson says he wasn't excited with Matt Hamill replacing Thiago Silva as his UFC 130 opponent
May 17, 2011 - 7:00:34 PM "Rampage" Jackson says he wasn't excited with Matt Hamill replacing Thiago Silva as his UFC 130 opponent

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

If you're not thrilled about the upcoming UFC 130 main event between Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Matt Hamill, don't worry, you're not the only one lacking excitement for the bout.

Jackson says he wasn't excited with the replacement fight after the UFC pulled Thiago Silva from the event for failing his UFC 125 drug test, but added that there's not a lot that excites him in general.

"Thiago Silva is the type of guy I would love to fight because he has great stand up and he comes to fight most of the time, so I was looking forward to fighting a guy like that," Jackson said in comments made to Ariel Helwani at MMAFighting.com this week. "Matt Hamill wasn't on my radar at all. I wasn't excited at all. But then again, not a whole lot gets me excited."

For Rampage, he's coming into the fight against a guy that he feels he can beat already. He doesn't need to psyche himself up for the fight, but believes that is precisely what Hamill has been doing with comments recently that he would break Rampage's will on May 28.

"He's just got to jive himself up so he actually thinks he can stay with me. If you've seen my fights over history, I don't think my will gets broken too often for anybody to even say that," Jackson said. "Matt Hamill is a great wrestler and stuff like that, but I've got more experience than him and I've fought a lot tougher people than he's fought. He's got a while to go before he can say he can break anybody's will."

Jackson said he still plans on delivering an entertaining fight on May 28, despite his own personal reservations for his opponent, and expects to bring an aggressive and exciting gameplan into Las Vegas for the fans.

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Penick's Analysis: One thing Rampage needs to be careful of is getting too confident about this fight and not respecting Hamill. He knows Hamill's got his wrestling, but Hamill can give him troubles in this fight overall if he's not fully prepared for him. It's a possible trap fight for Rampage if he doesn't have his head in the game, but ultimately I still favor him to win and believe he'll come out to put on a show in the main event. With two straight main event fights that he felt didn't go the way he wanted, I think he'll be out to shake that up a bit and to pick up an exciting and decisive win for the first time since knocking out Wanderlei Silva at the end of 2008.