Jackson didn’t have the usual spring in his step against Johns that he showed in beating Brian Kelleher, Andre Soukhamthath and Colares, and while the fight was close on the scorecards, it wasn’t going to be his night. On Saturday, he plans on changing that, even if he will be fighting without a crowd in attendance for the second straight time, an experience he wasn’t quite ready for on UFC Fight Island.
“It was a lot different,” he said. “Even on Contender Series, you had some fans in the audience. Over there, nothing. No background noise, no filler noise, anything. At least I’m prepared for it now. When you come into the UFC, you get the music, you get the bright lights and you get the fans. You get the oohs, the aahs, and then you go over there and you get the bright lights, you get the music, but you don’t get the oohs and aahs. It kind of messes with you. Am I really fighting? What is this? (Laughs) It didn’t really bother me; it just caught me off-guard.”
Not this time. In Jackson’s world, you move forward, deal with what’s in front of you and what happens next is solely up to you. It’s the way of a martial artist.
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“I’m always learning, always adapting,” he said. “The moment you think you know everything, you don’t know s**t. Your mind is gonna be blown and it puts you at a disadvantage because this game is ever evolving. The same way they were fighting in 2010 and 2000, it’s like leaps and bounds ahead today. A lot of these guys who are now in the UFC would probably mop the floor with a lot of the earlier guys in the UFC just because the skill levels have increased. Everyone is somewhat good at everything now. It’s like when the Gracies came with jiu-jitsu, the man with one eye is king because everyone else is blind. They didn’t know what they were doing. They weren’t ready for it.”
And when Montel Jackson and his eternal 12-pack truly arrive, the rest of the bantamweight division may not be ready for it either.
