The following is an email response to the Nate Marquardt interview we did earlier this week from a man who has spent time with Greg Jackson and his fight-camp.
My name is Joshua Dawson. I spent some time at Jackson's camp prior to his merger with Winklejohn (who also trains Holly Holm, the female boxing champion), and had the opportunity to meet both Rashad Evans and Keith Jardine.
I just wanted you to know that Greg Jackson is one the nicest people I have ever met in my life. He is very humble, very polite, and above all, shows his humility towards people. I am deaf, and was born and raised in Albuquerque as Jackson was. Jackson took the time to teach me – without charging me for private lessons – many of the grappling skills at his gym. In fact, Jardine's pre-fight comments prior to his last fight surprised me because Jackson is the epitome of humility and kindness. His wife is also great friends with one of my best friends, and again, they are humble people.
The string of losses has less to do with Jackson's camp, I feel, and more to do with circumstances beyond his control. The Diego Sanchez vs Josh Koscheck fight probably only illuminated the fact Diego needs a little better stand-up game; Jardine's most recent fight demonstrated that he needed to take his opponents far more seriously – especially with the fact Jardine probably thought he was immune to being knocked out. As we saw, he is just as likely as anyone else to be knocked out. In any case, I am hoping Evans wins against Ortiz simply because Evans is also a very nice and humble human being. He took the time to chat with me during his busy training schedule, as well.
The world needs more people like Jackson and Nate Marquadt. I now live in Colorado Springs and have yet to travel to Denver to visit Nate's gym, but I will soon. I am so happy that the sport has taken off and that there are people like Jackson who preach humility in their gyms. I don't know that the Shamrocks teach humility because I've witnessed some of the arrogance the fighters from that gym displayed in normal, regular life.
Anyway, thank you for a great interview with Nate, and for addressing the question about the successive losses by Sanchez (Koscheck fought not to lose, and as we all know, he was terrified to grapple with Sanchez) and Jardine. Here's to hoping Evans wins.
More importantly, here's to hoping you do an in-depth interview with Greg Jackson.
Greg Jackson for President in 2008.
:o)
Joshua
Send Joshua feedback on his above comments via e-mail at [email protected].
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