Rampage Jackson’s reported money problems
Published by on July 31st, 2008 in Current Events

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By Zach Arnold

“Bottom line, somehow, someway it all involves money.”

That quote, courtesy of Josh Gross in Sports Illustrated quoting an anonymous friend of Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, has stirred up a hornet’s rest in regards to speculation about why the business relationship between Jackson and boxing trainer Juanito Ibarra has ended.

Jackson, who is scheduled to be in court on August 15th based on his traffic escapades last month in Southern California, has a lot of personal issues to deal with. After losing to Forrest Griffin on July 5th in Las Vegas, Rampage reportedly fired his manager and trainer (Ibarra). Ironically, Ibarra was so confident about Jackson beating Griffin in their July 5th fight that he went on national television, claiming that he would retire for good if Rampage lost.

Being fired and unemployed is apparently as close to retirement as Ibarra will get.

What makes the allegations about Jackson having money problems with Ibarra interesting is that this story should come as a surprise to no one. There were advance warnings about potential financial problems that Jackson was facing, primarily in the form of a $10 million USD lawsuit filed in New York state court. The lawsuit, filed by White Chocolate Management (a Florida corporation), claimed that Ibarra was stepping in the way of WCM being able to secure business deals for Jackson. WCM, according to the lawsuit, was one of many corporations that Jackson agreed to work with as a non-exclusive business partner in order to obtain sponsorships and other business deals. In exchange for any business deals brought to the table by WCM, the company would receive a 20% cut of the earnings. The lawsuit by WCM alleges that Ibarra rejected several deals brought to the table by WCM, which in effect ‘sabotaged’ the contractual arrangement between the two parties.

Althought WCM has business deals with several fighters in MMA, the company’s relatively low public profile and more behind-the-scenes-oriented structure created a situation where this $10 million USD lawsuit went under the radar. The lawsuit was filed in late 2007, a little over seven months ago. With the alleged break-up between Jackson and Ibarra having occurred, it will be interesting to see how WCM’s lawsuit against Jackson proceeds. Is a settlement worked out in which the parties then target Ibarra, or will Rampage owe both Ibarra and WCM money?

When reading the text of the lawsuit document filed by WCM’s legal team, some of the deals that WCM supposedly brought to the table for Jackson sound pretty big. Some of the business deals listed in the lawsuit involved a t-shirt deal with Walmart and a book deal with a $20,000 USD advance,

The break-up between Jackson and Ibarra is now the second high-profile split that Rampage has had with a trainer in his career (the first was with Colin Oyama, who was Jackson’s trainer during his PRIDE days). Unlike Oyama, Ibarra was not only a trainer but also a spiritual leader and manager for Rampage. Jeremy Lappen, former WFA boss and current Elite XC boss, represented Rampage during his days at Triumph Entertainment. With obvious money and legal woes impacting the way Jackson is currently behaving, the big question on everyone’s mind is how will UFC President Dana White will handle the situation.

When Jackson was arrested for his traffic incident last month, White immediately put up the money to get Rampage out of jail. According to Josh Gross of SI, it seems as if Mr. White had several things to discuss with the former UFC Light Heavyweight champion. One of those supposed talking points involved setting up a match between Jackson & Wanderlei Silva for this November. There is a great and twisted irony to the idea of booking Jackson/Silva III. Silva annhilated and pummeled Rampage so bad in their PRIDE encounters that Jackson took time off after the second KO loss and ended up finding God. (I should know — I was part of the radio interview team in which Rampage broke this news to the world.) Even though Jackson/Silva III will happen in a cage instead of a ring, you would have to make Silva a favorite going into the fight given the past history between the two men. A third loss to Silva could send Jackson’s UFC career spiraling out of control, much like it did after the second loss sent Rampage’s career in PRIDE spiraling out of control as well.