During his time as a martial arts athlete, Rampage Jackson was fortunate to train with some of the very best on his way to the top.
Notably, during his extremely memorable UFC stint, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson trained out of the Wolfslair MMA Academy and honed his iron on several of the sport's biggest stars.
The former light heavyweight champion reached the very top and was considered one of the biggest stars in the sport in his time. However, he has since revealed that his downfall started because he stopped training so hard.
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Rampage Jackson claims Michael Bisping trained harder than anyone he's ever seen
After becoming such a well-known superstar, Rampage thought he didn't need to train as hard, which led to an unfortunate losing streak under the UFC banner, which led to him leaving the promotion in 2013 when he signed with Bellator .
Despite this, the 46-year-old has remained in the sport since his subsequent retirement in 2019, discussing fights on his podcast 'The Jaxxon Podcast'.
During his time as an athlete, Rampage has claimed that he has never seen anyone train as hard as former UFC champion Michael Bisping. Originally, Jackson labeled Tito Ortiz as the fighter who trains the hardest, but then he was joined by Bisping for several fight camps.
In 2007, Bisping first met Rampage when he was called upon by his team to help Jackson prepare for his fight against Dan Henderson. That marked the 46-year-old's first title defense at 205 pounds and he left no stone unturned in his training at Big Bear.
“I first met Rampage in 2007 when you were training for Dan Henderson, Big Bear 2007 because of that camp I live at here (in America), really, if it hadn't been for that I would never have come to California ,” Bisping explained.
“We became teammates. I liked it there so much that I liked his team, so I joined the Wolfslair because of Bisping. I'm going to tell you that Bisping was the toughest training fighter I've ever seen in my life and I thought, 'I have to train like this.'
“Before him it was Tito and he trained twice as hard as Tito,” Rampage responded.
Throughout his UFC career, which included many ups and downs, Bisping earned a reputation for never giving up in pursuit of his dream of becoming a champion. And it was all backed up by brutal training.
Rampage Jackson remembers a training partner cutting his eye before Jon Jones fought
A few years later, Bisping and Jackson were still teammates after Jackson's world title loss to Forrest Griffin.
The star went on to pick up a pair of wins on the bounce after suffering some losses and get a title shot against then-light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones.
Before that fight, Bisping again helped Rampage during his preparation and they recalled an unfortunate moment when Jackson was cut off by one of his sparring partners.
“You never had a problem with me, but there were a few people who leaked their pants. Remember Tyson Jeffries? He jumped over the ring and ran down the street,” Bisping said.
“Yeah, that was for (my) Jon Jones camp, right? He hit me with a spinning fist, I thought it was a spinning elbow and he cut my eye right before my fight,” Jackson explained.
Fortunately, the two never crossed lines with each other and remained friends when both of their careers ended.
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