Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson–perhaps fueled by the alarming number of ‘Rampage wuz robbed’ noobs on the Intertubes–has done a 180 and now claims he won the fight against Forrest Griffin:

Jackson accepted defeat in humble style in the immediate aftermath to Saturday’s fight, conceding inside The Octagon: “Fair play, Forrest whooped my assâ€?.

Now it seems the former champ has had time to reconsider his view though, insisting he inflicted the greater damage.

Rampage floored Griffin in round one, and rocked him with a series of combinations throughout, before seemingly stepping off the gas when his corner appeared to tell him he was winning going into the final round.

“I felt like I won the fight. When I think back, he got the second round and maybe the fifth,� stated Jackson.

“But I was the one powerbombing, I was the one doing damage, when I got on top I was hurting him. When he got on top I don’t think he did a lot.

“I’ve got to watch it again but I kind of think you have to beat the champion. But it was unanimous.�

Claiming that you deserved to win a fight because you ‘inflicted greater damage’ is akin to Hillary Clinton suggesting she deserved the Democratic nomination because she was ‘winning the popular vote’: these may be nice things to have working for you, but according to the rules it doesn’t determine the winners and losers. The criteria for judging boxing is as follows:

a) “effective” aggression, b) defense, c) ring generalship, and d) clean and hard punching

For MMA you can substitute ’striking’ for ‘punching’ but its the same deal. Absent from this is ‘doing the most damage’. Granted, you could make a case that it would fall under a couple of the other criteria, but unless you put a guy down for the count or make him tap “doing the most damage” is a phyrric victory. The serious problem of using the same criteria for boxing as for MMA should be readily apparent, but for the moment that’s the way fights are judged.

So lets give Rampage the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Say he did win rounds 1,3 and 4–Griffin decisively won round 2 and earned a 10-8 on two of the three judges scorecards. That would make the final tally:

RAMPAGE: 10-8-10-10-9 = 47
FORREST: 9-10-9-9-10 = 47

So best case scenario for Rampage, it was a draw.

There’s no doubt that the retrofitted-from-boxing 10 point must system isn’t the best judging method for MMA and you can make a case for each fighter in every round but the 2nd. Still, Rampage wasn’t robbed by any stretch of the imagination. To suggest such is an insult to Forrest Griffin. In all fairness to Rampage, he’s being a lot more equivocal than the “Rampage wuz robbed” Internet noobs. Most likely he’s already gone into promotional mode for a rematch, and certainly that seems appropriate in this case.

Rampage changes tune, says he won @ Setanta Sports