MMA Bay has more from Quinton Jackson. It seems to me like he's already thinking about going back on his retirement, but it's worth reading his thoughts in full. Here's a snippet:
"The bottom line is I’m thinking, ‘What should I do?’ My family is standing behind me 100% and my kids are too young to even care. All my kids know is I’m always gone and I’m not spending much time with them and I even asked my dog how does he feel and my dog said, ‘Who the hell are you, I don’t know even know you no more. I don’t even know you, why you even talking to me?’ My dog just looked at me, licked his nose, lit up a fart and walked out my room."
"Everybody knows I’m doing this A-Team movie and now I’ve got a lot of other movie offers and it’s for big money. So I’m thinking, ‘What should I do? Should I let an organisation disrespect me, tell me what I can’t do, make loads of money off me and call me a baby?’ I love the fans. I really do love the fans and I’m thinking, ‘Should I go out there and give them what they wanna see?’ The fans buy the Pay-Per-Views, they give you the strength to go out there and put on a show because their cheering for you but I’ve grown to like making movies. This movie is really fun, I get to shoot people and that something I’ve never done before because I’m too nice of a guy. But every time I shoot somebody I see Rashad’s face over and over, like I get to shoot Rashad thousands of times and it’s fun. I get to beat people up. I can put anybody’s face on them and beat the hell out of them.
"People are coming up to me with all these other movies and I’m thinking, ‘Man, do I really wanna bust my ass in training every day, have all these injuries, worries about whether I look good and whether I’m going to win?’ I don’t have that with the movies, I already know what’s gonna happen, it’s scripted so there’s just no worries. At the end of the day I go home, I can just kick back and enjoy myself. But I can’t lie, my heart is with fighting. When I meet my good fans on the street and they say, ‘Oh man, you’re the reason why I got into the UFC’ or I see a fan wearing my t-shirt it, means a lot to me. It means a lot to me that the fans like m e and my fighting style and I really respect that. That’s a part of fighting that would keep me there and keep me motivated."
There's a lot to unpack here, but I think it's worth noting that nobody has really considered the possibility that he has multiple offers and isn't leaving fighting just for one movie.
Quinton Jackson has never lied about his motivation for fighting. For years he's said the same thing: he fights for the money. He's inexplicably good at fighting considering his weak training camps and unwillingness to train seriously; one wonders how good he would be if he had the work ethic of someone like Georges St. Pierre. But that's not Quinton. His heart isn't in fighting the same way GSP's is.
There's a lot more over at MMA Bay about his motivations and thoughts on the future. I am positive he will return to fight Rashad Evans in the Spring, but after that, who knows? If he really does have multiple movie offers, it might make sense to take the Rashad pay day and then go pursue those options.
