Rampage Jackson's Not So Great Moments In Reporter Harassment

After Rampage Jackson’s UFC 130 victory over Matt Hamill, he took some time to do interviews. He spoke with MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani and rehashed their beef from two days earlier. Rampage was trying to make Helwani nervous in both interviews and probably accomplished that. He has a history of making reporters uncomfortable. Case in point, he also motor-boated MMAHeat’s Karyn Bryant on Saturday night. It’s the latest in a long line of Rampage’s greatest feats of harassment.

Here he is a couple years back grabbing Heather Nichols who was there to interview him for Cage Potato.

In this clip he acts like a dog and humps a Japanese reporter. As you can see, Rampage knows no  boundaries with female reporters. Of course, he also knows no boundaries with male reporters either.

Here he is two years ago getting physical with Helwani. (Around the minute and 4-minute marks.)

Hell, Rampage has even put his hands on someone that was representing The Big Lead. Way back in 2008, former commenter Bucktown Skins Fan sat down with ‘Page for an interview. At the end of the conversation, Rampage slapped BSF off camera. You can hear the slap during the text segues between questions.

Back to Saturday’s Bryant incident. Cage Potato pointed out that this would be a good time for the UFC to institute sexual harassment classes for their fighters. Bloody Elbow took the incident as an opportunity to condemn the blogosphere’s overall treatment of women. (A tiny blog battle broke out from there, but I’ll save you the details.)

I’ll try to say this without taking a false moral high road. Rampage Jackson shouldn’t be allowed to do things like this. If Rampage were in any other sport in the world…. From basketball to lacrosse to jai alai to bowling and anything in between PTI and Around the Horn would be stuck on the topic for a month. Columnists would be lining up to see him suspended. The UFC needs to step in and tell Rampage that he can’t touch people.

This is a classic case where MMA fans are lucky that the sport hasn’t been taken to “the next level.” Dana White said this weekend that the UFC is in heavy negotiations for a deal that will finally bring the UFC to network television. When that happens, we probably will see the next level of fame and notoriety for our beloved bloodsport. People are going to start noticing Rampage more for his action both in and out of the octagon.

Update: Here’s one more of Rampage putting his hands on a reporter. This time, Yahoo!/ESPN Radio guy Steve Cofield.