UFC
UFC 130 AFTERMATH: Quinton "Rampage" Jackson's hand injury may give shot at Jon Jones to Lyoto Machida or Rashad Evans
May 29, 2011 - 9:45:31 PM UFC 130 AFTERMATH: Quinton "Rampage" Jackson's hand injury may give shot at Jon Jones to Lyoto Machida or Rashad Evans

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

With his unanimous decision victory over Matt Hamill at UFC 130 on Saturday night Quinton "Rampage" Jackson punched his ticket for a UFC Light Heavyweight Title fight with current Champ Jon Jones. However, a hand injury that Jackson revealed after the event could allow for someone else to get that spot.

After the decision was announced in the one-sided main event - where Jackson outclassed Hamill in the striking department while stuffing all 17 of Hamill's takedown attempts in the fight - Jackson said he came into the fight with a fractured hand, and apologized for not being able to put Hamill away.

He explained during the post-event press conference that he had broken the hand while in Japan in December, goofing around with friends. He thought it would heal on his own, but then re-injured it while sparring in camp leading up to this fight.

The UFC will send him to get the injury assessed by their doctors this week, and depending on the severity of the injury and Jackson's length of time out, UFC President Dana White said they might stick someone else into the fight against Jones.

"If Rampage can't go, we'd either have to do Machida – because Machida is ready to go – or have [Jones] wait for Rashad [Evans] because Rashad wants to [fight him]," White said. "Rashad is 100 percent confident he's going to win this fight (with Phil Davis at UFC 133) and wants to turn right around and fight Jones too. We'll see what happens."

Evans was of course initially slated to face Jones before the Champ's own hand injury derailed him for longer than the UFC or Evans wanted to wait. With Jones likely ready to return in October, White said last week that it wouldn't make sense to wait until after UFC 133 to determine Jones' next challenger, as they'd need to have promotional materials taken care of before that, and thus they were looking at Jackson and Machida.

With Rampage winning but coming up injured, however, White may be changing that tune. But it's all dependent on what the doctors tell Jackson this week, and more will be determined on this situation then.

Penick's Analysis: They might wait out for the Evans fight if Rampage can't go, but I think it's more likely that they'd ultimately put Machida in that fight with Evans taking on the winner. That said, it didn't seem like it was a major issue, and Jackson didn't seem like he was in a lot of pain with it at any point, so it may not be a serious hand injury. He said after the event that he felt he could be ready for the Jones fight, so we'll just have to wait to see if that will indeed be the case.

[Rampage Jackson art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]