Raleigh, NC —Bantamweight Montel Jackson (9-1) looked just a little worse for the wear after a three round scrap with Felipe Colares at UFC Raleigh on Saturday night. Just a little.
“It’s just this, this knuckle got scraped in the cage. That’s just about it,” he said, speaking to reporters backstage including Cageside Press.
Jackson clearly won the striking game throughout. Which earned him a unanimous decision on the scorecards. The lopsided scores — 30-26, 30-26, and 30-25 — told the story. But Colares refused to be put away.
“People like that, they got to go to sleep. There’s nothing else,” said Jackson, who is now on a three-fight win streak inside the octagon. “You can’t look for the ref to stop it, you can’t look for a doctor’s stoppage. You got to put him to sleep, unfortunately, but that’s the name of the sport.”
His approach to the fight, said Jackson, was to “just see what he got to offer, and take advantage.” And there were no surprises, not even his opponent’s toughness. “Nothing surprised me. Based off my coaching, my coaches told me that’s what I should expect. At that point, edging him out on striking, I kind of figured he had to go for some Hail Marys, which was probably going to be a submission of some sort.”
As for what comes next for the Dana White’s Contender Series winner, Jackson didn’t bite when asked for a name. “No man, I leave that to the matchmakers. I just work on my training.”
Watch the full UFC Raleigh post-fight press scrum with Montel Jackson above!
