Partial source: MMAWeekly
– Quinton “Rampage” Jackson’s decision to back out of his scheduled December fight against Rashad Evans so he can play B.A. Baracus in The A-Team movie has caused a series of main event changes and shuffling that could force UFC to drop an entire event from its schedule.
Dana White said Thursday that he was planning three events for November but that it is now unlikely to happen due to Jackson.
“Thanks to [expletive] B.A. Baracus, I couldn’t [expletive] pull it off,” White said. “B.A. [expletive] me. The collateral damage that was done by him doing this thing was unbelievable.”
This could have major ramifications in the battle against Strikeforce, as they have announced a November 7th CBS show headlined by Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brett Rogers. UFC will now likely not be able to run counter-programming against the big Strikeforce event.
“You have no idea how much collateral damage was done by [Jackson] pulling out of this thing,” White said. “It literally screwed up the rest of our year. We’ve got B.J. Penn fighting in Memphis, you know what I mean?”
White said he thought he had talked Jackson out of doing the movie, but the situation quickly changed.
“What happens is, [Jackson] calls up and says he’s doing this movie. I said, ‘No, you’re not. You’re going to fight Rashad in December. You do whatever you want to do after this fight. You want to retire and become an actor? You want to join the monastery? I don’t care what you do after this fight, but ‘Rampage,’ you’re going to fight this fight.’ He said, ‘OK.’ Then he had his manager fly in from England and met me at the hangar before I was leaving to go out of town to tell me that he wasn’t going to (fight Evans). [Rampage] and I haven’t talked since.”
White said he couldn’t force Jackson to fight.
“You can’t make anybody fight,” White said. “I can’t force anybody to fight. You don’t want to fight, then you’re not going to fight. And you don’t want a guy going into it whose head isn’t in to fighting, anyway. If you’d rather be on the set of ‘The A-Team,’ then you definitely don’t belong in the octagon.”
White admits that he and Jackson now have a problem between them.
“I feel like he [expletive] me,” White said. “I’m not even talking to ‘Rampage.’ I’m really, really upset with ‘Rampage.'”
As for Rashad Evans, White doesn’t know what to do with him now.
“[Evans] is really messed up over this whole thing,” White said. “He wants to fight ‘Rampage.’ When you get your mind set that this is who you’re going to fight – he’s bummed out about it. I think he’s going to need a little recovery time before we decide if he’s fighting ‘Rampage’ or somebody else.”
