Sure, however some of the fighters he slaughtered back in the day (Chuck, Arona, Hendo etc) were pretty bloody solid - even by todays standards. He just seemed to have the x-factor back then. Now, not so much..
He didn't change much, really...
The Hendo fight was very close (there was a lot of controversy around here, and Quinton was bigger)
, and the Arona KO, as cool at it was (+ Arona was the only guy I disliked during the PRIDE days) it was caused by a head-butt, and Page had been flash-ko'd by Arona's kicks just before, so it's controversial.
Also, Rampage was not as dominant as that even back then, he didn't turn from a KO machine with that look in his eyes to a timid wrestler.
He made the same mistake in the King Mo rematch than he did in the Rashad bout.
"Old Rampage" also won several decisions that could have gone either way like:
-the Bustamante split decision (scored it for Murilo back then, and Quinton had some weight on him),
-the Ninja Rua fight, people tend to exaggerate it now but still, very close fight but Ninja should have gotten it
PRIDE didn't want to have 3 Chute Boxe guys (who were adamant about not fighting each others) in the tournament, so it might be a factor, who knows...
-the Matt Lindland split decision, it was the perfect definition of a draw, and in that case you tend to give it to the smaller fighter, Lindland in that case)
Then in the "modern era"
-7 years ago, a split decision against Machida.
-2 fights ago, split decision against Ishii
Rampage is a MMA pionner and had some great fights, but he got lucky all of his 5 split-decisions turned in his favor.
So Jackson has always been kind of consistent to me...
