Rampage was an elite fighter for sure, but you can't deny how lucky he's been to land on the right side of every split decisions he's been part of.
Ninja Rua
Murilo Bustamante
Ryoto Machida
Matt Lindland
Satoshi Ishii
He's had 5 splits, and got them all.
And, IMHO, he either should have lost them (like the Lindland one, textbook draw, and since Matt was a full weight class lighter than Jackson, he should have gotten the nod), or got some draws.
Lots of people see that he has victory over all these people on fight finder, and don't even bother to watch the damn fights before making their little rankings.
Even some of his best finishes have some * next to them, like when he got flash KO'd by Arona, and despite the Brazilian complains, the ref didn't do shit, until the slam/headbutt combo. Arona has an excuse for every single on of his losses, so I usually don't pay much attention to his whining, but Jackson did have Ricardo's teeth mark on his forehead, and it's pretty obvious anyway when you watch the replay.
Props to Rampage for beating French kickboxer Cyril Abidi twice in K1; Abidi wasn't a world class elite kickboxer, but he used to only lose to the elite. So Rampage beating him the first time was kind of a big deal.
He also had some great wins without any * in MMA, against Igor, prime Hendo [close fight though], prime Randleman, prime Chuck x2, Fabio Maldonado, slightly-out-of-prime King Mo (that was "post-Newton beat-downs" King Mo but still), prime Minowaman, and even completely washed up Wanderlei Silva.
Now that they're 2-2, we need a fifth bout to settle the score; and if anyone deserves to win a Quintology, it's Rampage
