Hamill Sees ‘Rampage’ As Key to His Future at LinesMaker

Hamill Sees ‘Rampage’ As Key to His Future

Matt Hamill on Sat­ur­day night is look­ing to prove that the old say­ing “be care­ful what you wish for” doesn’t apply to him.

Hamill (10–2) made a wish to get a fight against for­mer UFC light heavy­weight cham­pion Quin­ton “Ram­page” Jack­son (31–8), one of the biggest names in the sport. He not only got it, he also landed his first pay-per-view main event at UFC 130 from the MGM Grand Gar­den Arena in Las Vegas after injuries can­celed the sched­uled light­weight tilt between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard.

“I expect to win and I expect to win impres­sively,” Hamill, who is deaf, wrote in an e-mail cor­re­spon­dence. “We know what a great fighter Ram­page is, but we also know that he is quite one-dimensional. He looks for the big punch all the time. We feel we have pre­pared the per­fect game plan to beat Ram­page, and it is now my job to go out there and exe­cute that game plan.” When Hamill asked for Jack­son as an oppo­nent, he did not expect his wish to be granted.

Jack­son responded to rumors of the bout by pub­licly stat­ing he didn’t want it. UFC pres­i­dent Dana White made the call that it was the best fight avail­able for this date and that Hamill deserved a shot at one of the big boys. Jack­son ulti­mately agreed.

“He thinks ‘Ram­page’ wouldn’t take the fight because he’s [Hamill] not one of the top guys in the divi­sion as far as rank­ings go,” said Duff Holmes, who works with Hamill on ver­bal inter­views. “He fig­ured ‘Ram­page’ would be eying Rashad Evans and a rematch with For­rest Grif­fin or what have you. So he thought that ‘Ram­page’ would believe that this match is not big league. But it’s (Hamill’s) next chance to prove that he is in his league.”

Jack­son has been using Hamill’s words to as motivation.

“My main moti­va­tion is to win, but I think Matt made a mis­take when he actu­ally said that he’s going to break my will and that I’m going to over­look him,” said Jack­son. “It actu­ally lit a fire up under my ass and actu­ally made me try a lit­tle bit harder, so I can break his will.”

“I think a win over ‘Ram­page’ Jack­son is huge for me,” said Hamill, who is a 5-to-2 under­dog on most sports books. “He’s beaten the best in the world and is a great fighter. He’s knocked out Chuck Lid­dell and Wan­der­lei Silva, and he’s just beaten Lyoto Machida. He’s a top con­tender. If I beat him, I am a top con­tender. This could be my last fight before I get a title shot.”

For Hamill to win, he’s going to have to rely on his wrestling game as the back­bone and come in as the bet­ter con­di­tioned fighter against an oppo­nent who has his­tor­i­cally been suc­cess­ful against wrestlers. Jack­son, phys­i­cally very strong and with knock­out power in both fists, also grew up as a wrestler. That back­ground has allowed him to neu­tral­ize most top-level wrestlers, a num­ber of whom are of higher cal­iber than Hamill. Only one beat him — Evans, a fighter much faster and with a stronger stand-up game than Hamill.

“I believe the win­ner of this fight will be the guy that is com­fort­able in more than one area of the fight, and I believe I am that guy,” said Hamill. “I am not afraid of get­ting hit. I think I’ve proved that, and my strik­ing is get­ting bet­ter and bet­ter. I have also really improved my BJJ and would like the fight to show all my skills.”

Hamill, 34, is com­ing off a win over Tito Ortiz on Oct. 23. He’s still rough around the edges as a stand-up fighter. But a highlight-reel, high-kick knock­out over Mark Munoz showed he can’t be labeled as just a wrestler.

His box­ing isn’t fluid, but he’s got a good chin, although he read­ily admits he can’t expect it to per­form magic against a knock­out puncher like Jackson.

On paper, Hamill is the only fighter to have beaten cur­rent cham­pion Jon “Bones” Jones. But even he doesn’t see that dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion on Jones as a real win because Jones dom­i­nated the fight until being penal­ized for throw­ing ille­gal elbows.

“I don’t regard the Jones win as a real win, of course I don’t,” said Hamill about the Dec. 6, 2009, fight in Las Vegas. “But maybe he will want to fight me to clear that up. Maybe Jon Jones wants to clean up his record like Ander­son Silva does with [Yushin] Okami [who won a DQ over Silva before the two were in the UFC, and will be rematched in August]. I’ve got a lot to prove against Jones and I want to be world champion.”

Hamill has fought four main-event cal­iber fight­ers in his career. Jones over­whelmed him, but Jones has over­whelmed everyone.

Hamill beat Ortiz, his coach on ‘TUF’ sea­son three, via deci­sion, get­ting stronger as the fight went on. But Ortiz is a big name from the past, not a cur­rent prime foe.

His two losses are to Rich Franklin and Michael Bisp­ing. Franklin was a for­mer train­ing part­ner and the guy who really got him into the sport. Hamill was clearly not him­self men­tally in the fight.

“Rich is a great friend of mine, and it was very hard fight­ing him,” Hamill said. “I strug­gled to find the right frame of mind nec­es­sary to face him in the Octa­gon, and as a result, I lost the fight. Rich is one of my clos­est friends in the sport and is a really nice guy, so it was never going to be easy fac­ing him. He also hap­pens to be a very good fighter.”

Hamill and Bisp­ing were rivals on the real­ity show, and because that sea­son was so highly rated, both came out of it as instant stars. Hamill was injured in a win and unable to con­tinue in com­pe­ti­tion, and Bisp­ing won the show.

Their fight at UFC 75 in 2007, because it was on the most-watched major tele­vi­sion fight card in UFC his­tory, is one of the more mem­o­rable matches of the last sev­eral years. Hamill, a strong under­dog, went to Bisping’s home turf in Lon­don and lost a split deci­sion that to this day is regarded by many as the worst fight deci­sion in UFC his­tory. Just like nobody con­sid­ers the win over Jones a real win, few regard the loss to Bisp­ing as a real loss.

“The Bisp­ing fight in Lon­don was a set­back,” Hamill said. “I thought I won and it is great so many fans think I won. Actu­ally, I like watch­ing Bisp­ing fight. He is doing really well and when he does well, it makes me look good. Six weeks after our fight, he had a split deci­sion with Rashad Evans, and that makes me look good.”

Hamill is best known by UFC fans as being the only deaf fighter on the ros­ter. He debuted five years ago on “The Ulti­mate Fighter” real­ity show as a strong wrestler and a com­plete novice at the rest of the MMA game. He’s one of the sport’s most pop­u­lar fight­ers because he’s a walk­ing feel-good story, some­one who over­came a hand­i­cap at birth and has suc­ceeded in two tough sports. He is regarded as a gen­uine hero within the deaf community.

This fight has an inter­est­ing nar­ra­tive. Jack­son, who turns 33 next month and insists he’s not fight­ing past 35, is look­ing at mak­ing the tran­si­tion into act­ing. He got a huge career break when he landed the role of B.A. Bara­cus in last summer’s “The A Team” movie.

Hamill’s lim­i­ta­tions seem to rule out act­ing as a post-fight career option, but he’s on the other side of the coin movie-wise. His life story is chron­i­cled in a new doc­u­men­tary, “Hamill: The Movie.”

The film has been awarded best pic­ture at about half a dozen film fes­ti­vals and a the­atri­cal release is ten­ta­tively sched­uled in the fall.

Hamill likes to watch the movie before a fight, say­ing it helps moti­vate him and remind him exactly who he is and what he has accomplished.

“I have watched it a lot,” he said. “It brings up a lot of pos­i­tive mem­o­ries for me, espe­cially with my grand­fa­ther, who passed away. He was a huge inspi­ra­tion for me. Watch­ing the film makes me very emo­tional. It shows me how far I have come and how hard I have worked. The film was a great honor and I still can’t believe it actu­ally hap­pened. If I inspire one deaf kid who feels like I felt when I was young, I will be happy.”

Related Posts:

• UFC 130 Main Event Results — Jack­son Roll; Ram­page Deci­sions Hamill
• ‘Ram­page’: Hamill Will Pay for His Words
• Ram­page Jack­son Not Excited with Matt Hamill for UFC 130
• ‘Ram­page’ Jack­son to Receive ‘in the Moment’ Treatment
• Tweet of the Day: Craig Bres­low Embraces the Future

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