Montel Jackson picked up his first UFC win at UFC 232, defeating Brian Kelleher by way of first round submission.
There was a lot of complaints from fighters and fans alike after UFC 232 was moved to Inglewood, but Jackson was just happy to fight in the end.
“I was just happy the fight happened and they didn’t get canceled. I was super happy man, I know a lot of people were upset because they could potentially get hit with a 30% income tax specific to California. So a lot of people wasn’t happy, but the way I looked at it was like ‘hey listen, you can lose 30% or you can lose 100%. and no one gets paid.’ Its like, you gotta weigh your options man. Go with what makes sense, I know a lot of people spent a lot of money on their camps and some people traveled and some people brought coaches in. It was just a big investment, like I really didn’t care man…I was just trying to fight,” says Jackson in an exclusive interview with Fightful’s James Lynch.
The reason that UFC 232 wound up getting moved was that the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) found an abnormality in Jon Jones’ drug test.
Jackson did miss weight for the event, but says a lot of blame for that rests on a faulty scale from a 24 Hour Fitness.
“Like there is no excuse or no reason, but we went to a 24 Hour Fitness and they had this scale that was off. I was thinking it was like a pound heavier and it comes back to be like a pound and a half heavier, like give or take either way. It could be two pounds or it could be a pound, we accounted for that..but the last time I came out of the sauna, I was like 137 on that scale. So I’m thinking like I’m under and this is at like 11 o’clock, so we jumped on a van…like a shuttle and we were heading back to the hotel for the weigh-in. Once I weighed in on the UFC scale and I was like two pounds over and you got like an hour (to cut the rest of the weight), I had less than an hour…I had like thirty minutes, forty five minutes or whatever. So I just jumped in the little sauna box and I had got down to I think around 136 point something…137 almost, I just stayed in there the rest of the time. I got out and thought ‘alright, I should be somewhere close.’ I was still sweating, I did not even check a regular scale. I went to the official scale and it was like almost 137 and I was like ‘f*ck.’ I just contribute that stuff to not having a good scale, it caused me to mismanage the time I had to spend in the sauna. If I knew I had like another two pounds (to cut), I just would’ve stayed in the sauna for an extra thirty minutes and lost the weight,” says Jackson.
There is no word yet as to when Jackson will compete in the UFC again, as the fighter now holds a 1-1-0 record in the promotion.
