Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson was the baddest man in the world back in his day. A true pioneer of the game, the multi-promotion champion is one of the guys who helped make the sport mainstream and popular. So it isn’t surprising that his son, Raja Jackson, wants to follow in his old man’s footsteps. In fact, Raja is already a professional mixed martial artist, having made his pro debut in 2023 after a brief, four-fight amateur career.

On May 13, 2023, Raja appeared in his last amateur fight against Hastings McMillan, which he won by a technical knockout at the Memphis Event & Sports Center. That made him 4-0 in his brief amateur career. At the cage interview after the fight, Quinton had said that he would allow his son to go pro.

“Man, I’m a proud dad! I got to tell Raja something. I didn’t want him to know, but I said if he wins this fight, he can go pro. He’s been begging me to go pro, and I said I wanted him to have 10 fights, but he’s been doing good and training hard. He almost made weight, he missed a little bit – it was his first time fighting 155 pounds, and I’m this proud of him!” he had said.

Interestingly, the former UFC light heavyweight champion was not much excited about his son following his footsteps. But eventually, “when he started wrestling, I was really proud of him because he started late, just like me,” Quinton had said once. But, although he admitted to having taken a backseat in steering the direction of Raja’s career, how can he completely stay away, given the phenom he is?

So, lately, when Raja’s choice of diet plans didn’t go down well with him, he did not mince his words to convey that. On his Instagram account, the former UFC 205lbs kingpin shared a screenshot of a text exchange with his son. Raja was apparently telling the UFC legend the merits of a vegan diet and had given the example of the 16-13 unranked UFC featherweight Alex ‘Bruce Leeroy’ Cacares to convince his father.

This prompted Jackson to take two pretty surprising things. First was to praise Jon Jones, and then take an oblique swipe at the Diaz brothers. “Damn son you look up to the wrong fighters 😂 I’d be happier if you wanted to fight like Jon Jones 😂🤦‍♂️the only vegan MMA fighters worth a damn is the Diaz brothers, but your problem is you don’t have their body type. 😉 (Think about it),” Jackson wrote in a text.

Both Nick and Nate Diaz are, indeed, vegan. Nate especially has a fantastic gas tank and may be the most durable fighter in the history of the sport. Nate Diaz has never lost a fight; as the joke goes, he has just run out of rounds. But ‘Rampage,’ who was more a one-punch knockout kind of guy, clearly doesn’t agree with his son following a vegan diet like the Diaz brothers.

Notably, as Nate had once revealed, it was his brother who had advised him to go vegan, and that worked well for him. “My brother was, like: “Quit eating meat. Quit eating meat and cheese and you’ll start shedding weight.” So I did that and I started shedding weight. I made weight,” he had said.

To be fair to ‘Rampage’, if Raja wanted to make the case for following a vegan diet, perhaps he should have given the example of the Diaz brothers instead of the largely unknown Leroy’s achievements. But what is even more surprising, of course, is that Jackson would praise Jon Jones.

The interesting history between ‘Rampage’ Jackson and Jon Jones

According to ‘Rampage’, Jon Jones is “the dirtiest fighter ever”. Of course, ‘Rampage’ was one of the legends Jones beat to earn his GOAT contender status. The duo fought only once, where ‘Bones’ became the first fighter ever to start the fight on his haunches, so scared was he of being knocked out by the concussive power puncher.

In the end, Jones submitted Jackson in the fourth round of their UFC 135 title clash without much trouble. But Jackson feels ‘Bones’ fought dirty. The legend would demand that the oblique kicks ‘Bones’ threw at him to keep him at bay “should be called the illegal kick. It should be banned and it shows a lot about the fighter’s character that he would throw it.”

‘Rampage’, in fact, maintains Jones did him dirty to this day. But he would much rather his son want to become Jon Jones than be vegan. Game, as they say, recognizes game. ‘Bones’ does have a reputation for being a bit too eye-pokey, and then there’s his failed d–g tests, of course.

But no one can deny the man is an absolute killer, probably the greatest to ever do it, not even ‘Rampage’ Jackson. What do you think about ‘Rampage’s advice to his son?