Rampage: 'My biggest regret is even starting this sport'

If given the chance, Quinton Jackson would have stayed put in his native Memphis.

Seventeen years, a UFC light heavyweight title, and a bevy of coveted scalps into an enviable career, "Rampage" was recently asked by ESPN if he had any regrets. Now blessed - or cursed, rather - with the gift of hindsight, the 38-year-old said he would have happily helped run his family's construction business in his hometown instead of strapping on the 4-ounce gloves.

"I would have to honestly say that my biggest regret is even starting this sport," Jackson said, per Bloody Elbow's Nick Baldwin. "I think I would’ve lived a different life if I would have stayed home in Memphis and worked at the family business. I’d be closer to my family and growing old with them instead of living out in California with all of my family back at home. My little sister’s all grown and stuff now; I left home when she was like eight. My dream was to go and be a fighter. But then now when I look back on it, I wish that I just stayed back home with my family."

The Tennessee native made his bones across the Pacific in PRIDE FC, where his personality and fan-friendly fighting style earned him endless adulation from the Japanese faithful. Jackson's popularity skyrocketed further upon joining the UFC in 2007, where he KO'd Chuck Liddell to win the light heavyweight crown in just his second walk to the Octagon at UFC 71. He went on to pick up wins over fellow stalwarts Dan Henderson, Lyoto Machida, and Keith Jardine, to name a few, before joining Bellator MMA in 2013. And yet, his illustrious career remains a poor substitute for the lost family time, said Rampage.

"I gained a lot of fans, I made a lot of money, but I feel like I lost my family. I don’t see them, I don’t know them. My parents are getting older, and I’m living in California away from them. I have my own family here - my kids and stuff - but I miss my cousins, my parents, and my sisters and brothers."