LAS VEGAS — The UFC held a pre-fight press conference today in anticipation of Saturday’s UFC 114 event. UFC President Dana White served as the host of the event, which featured Rampage Jackson, Rashad Evans, Michael Bisping and Dan Miller.
— Rashad says it won’t be difficult to control his emotions because he’s a pro athlete. Rampage says the same thing. He’s here to do a job and despite how he feels about the guy, he’ll keep his cool.
— Bisping echoes those sentiments. Says that all the emotion goes out the window when it’s time for the fight because you have a job to do.
— Rampage said Bisping helped him understand more about Rashad during training. Says Rashad doesn’t have very much strength. He says he hasn’t talked to Mr. T about the new A-Team movie, but the director told him that Mr. T saw the movie and was happy with it.
— Rampage says he’s motivated to win the fight even more because he wants another shot at Shogun. He’s still focused on this fight, but it gave him a big boost during training. Rashad says the fight with Rampage is his title fight and he’s not worried about anything that happens after that.
— Rampage says that training with Bisping is good for him because he pushes the pace and keeps him going at a high level.
— Bisping says it’s almost always his opponent who starts the trash talking, and so he retaliates. Says Dan Miller has been very respectful and is a good guy, so he’s had no reason to talk trash. He took all that energy and focused it on his training instead.
— Rampage says he doesn’t care about race at all. His main thing is to entertain people. Says that he got emotional when Rashad got in his face and he reacted with the “black on black crime” line. It was a heat of the moment thing. Rashad says it’s a good thing that two black fighters are in the main event of a card of this magnitude. Says that Rashad perpetuates stereotypes sometimes. Rampage says that’s his opinion and if he wants to make it a race issue when they are the same race, that just shows what kind of person Rashad is. Says he’s going to be him, be real and go on with his life. Says it doesn’t bother him at all.
— Rashad says his main motivation is his love of fighting. Rampage is a good fighter and he’s looked up to him in the past. Rampage says he’s motivated by his will to win and to entertain. Says if he loses the fight, his family back in Memphis will make fun of him, so that’s extra motivation to win.
— Rampage says he trained harder for this fight than he’s ever trained before, and he’s trained to finish it.
— Rashad says that Rampage stopped evolving a long time ago and compares him to an older Tyson who relied on his power to win fights.
— Dana says that they’ve never had more requests for tickets than they have for this show.
— Dana explains why Rashad turned down the original fight with Rampage. Rashad’s wife had just had a baby and he didn’t want to be apart from his family. Rampage says he just had a baby, too. Says he’s a fighter and he’s not the one who had the baby, so he has to keep fighting to make money.
— Dan Miller finally gets a question. Says Bisping is a great fighter, but he thinks he can take him down and submit him. Bisping says he’s going to kick Miller’s ass. Says that every other black belt he’s faced said they would submit him and they ended up with their faces bashed in. Miller says he’s hungry coming off two losses and he’s going to get the win. Bisping begs to differ.
— Rashad says he has nothing to prove. The game plan is to go out and win the fight. He’s going to go in the cage and see what Rampage gives him. If Rampage can’t stop the takedown or can’t stop him from advancing his position, he’ll have his way with him on the ground. Rampage smirks at this comment and says that people seem to forget about his wrestling background. He doesn’t like to fight a boring fight so people forget that he actually can wrestle. He’s not scared to be on his back against Rashad, either. He’s fought way better wrestlers than Rashad like Matt Lindland and Dan Henderson.
— Dana says Koscheck/Daley was one of the nastiest grudge matches they’ve ever had, but this one ranks right up there. Says the nastiest time for fights like this is the weigh-ins because they guys are irritable and nasty because they’ve been cutting weight. Well, Rampage is always irritable and nasty. Rampage says he’s done with all the trash talk and he’s going to do all of his talking in the cage. He says he didn’t even start the trash talk, but when Rashad got in his face he had to respond.
— Rampage talks again about how hard he trained for this fight. He trained hard for Wanderlei Silva, but he trained much, much harder this time around. He trained five rounds like it’s a championship fight. Says it was a bad idea for Rashad to get under his skin.
— Dana says the Primetime shows do help with ticket sales. This one has a lot of hype because it’s done the highest ratings in company history. Says there will be more Primetime shows but it has to be the right fighters because the cameras are in their face all the time and they have to be willing to flow with it.
— Rampage says that when he quit the UFC, he was angry. When he’s angry, he tends to do and say whatever he feels. At that time he didn’t care if he ever fought again, but he started to miss it pretty badly. Says he’s going to miss fighting when he’s retired.
— Rashad says he’s not concerned about Rampage’s size or strength. He’s the smallest light heavyweight out there and everybody is usually bigger than him, so it’s something that he’s always dealt with.
— Rampage says he didn’t receive the Snuggy that Rashad sent him. On the day the Snuggy arrived, he’d had a bad day training, so his management kept the Snuggy from him.
That’s it for the press conference. They’re awarding the Tequila Cazadores Authentic Spirit award to Diego Sanchez now.
