Several days ago Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson appeared on The MMA Hour, saying “Matt Hamill wasn’t on my radar at all. I wasn’t excited at all. But then again, not a whole lot gets me excited.”

Then Hamill, on a five fight win streak, appeared on the same show, and offered some pretty standard pre fight prediction. “I know I’m going to break his will – I know I’m going to beat Rampage. I’ve been training real hard and my conditioning and my skills and technique, striking and kicking are a lot better.”

That was enough to fire Rampage up.

“My main motivation is to win,” Rampage said on a Thursday teleconference, “but I think Matt made a mistake when he said he’s going to break my will and I’m going to overlook him. That lit a fire up under my ass. That made me train a little bit harder so I can break his will, and make sure I can outclass him.”

“Honestly in the beginning, fighting him, I wasn’t 100 percent motivated as I would be vs. someone who had beaten me before or something like that. But when he said that, that motivated me as much as I’ve been motivated in a fight.”

“If anybody’s smart, they want to have an exit plan from MMA or any full contact sport. You can tell which fans are smart and which ones are kind of ignorant if they just think you’re going to fight and just be done. What happens after you get done fighting? Just run away? I don’t understand what they think. That stuff doesn’t bother me at all. It’s my life, it’s my family I take care of. I have my goals and my plans. Things I want to do to make me happy. That’s all I care about is me and my family. The fans? I’m just here to entertain them, but do I care about them the same way as I care about my family? Hell no.”

For his part, Hamill says “I don’t blame Rampage for thinking that way. “I’m only ranked 17th in the world right now, and I think Rampage should be thinking about fighting the top five guys in the world.

“But the opportunity came up for me to face him, and I feel that I can beat him. I just want to thank Rampage for giving me the opportunity.”

“I thought Rampage wouldn’t take the fight because I’m not one of the top guys in the division as far as the rankings go. I figured Rampage would be eyeing Rashad Evans and a rematch with Forrest Griffin. I thought that Rampage would believe I’m not in his league.”

“This my chance to prove that I am in his league.”

“He’s going to be outwrestled and he’s going to be taken down. There’s just no way around it.”

“I’ve always tried to take it one fight at a time. I feel like I’m in the semifinals of a wrestling bracket. And I’ve never lost in the semifinals of a wrestling bracket.”

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