Rampage Jackson cleared for UFC 186 after court lifts injunction

He was back, he was gone and now he is back again.

After news broke in early April that Quinton "Rampage" Jackson was to be removed from his upcoming UFC 186 co-main event due to a lawsuit filed by his previous employer, Viacom-owned Bellator FC, fans were left with their hands in the air.

Steve Bosse, a former hockey player, was set to replace Rampage and meet Fabio Maldonado in Montreal, instead. The court injunction was set in New Jersey and it had seemed that Jackson's return to the UFC after a two-year absence would be put on hold for the foreseeable future.

In a rather surprising turn of events, the injunction was lifted Tuesday afternoon by the New Jersey court and now Jackson is free to compete on Saturday's card.

"We are happy with the decision from the New Jersey Court allowing Rampage to fight in Montreal this Saturday night," UFC president Dana White said in a release Tuesday. "I am looking forward to seeing Rampage back in the Octagon."

Jackson, who earned the company's 205-pound title in May 2007 after stopping Chuck Liddell with a first-round KO, lost the title the very next summer against Forrest Griffin in July 2008. Since the loss, Jackson's career became a bit of a mixed bag. Amassing a 4-4 record in the UFC post-Griffin, Jackson was on the outs with the MMA promotion by 2013. He subsequently made the jump to Bellator, where he went undefeated in three fights.

However, his tastes quickly soured in Bellator – a regime change was said to have underlined the discontent – and Jackson was vocal about his desire to return to the UFC.

A deal was signed in late 2014, relationships were presumably mended and Rampage was scheduled for his promotional return. And after a brief hiccup with the legal system, Rampage finally finds himself back in the co-main event of UFC 186 to the surprise of fans and pundits alike.

Another surprised individual in all of this is, most assuredly, Steve Bosse, the former hockey player/journeyman MMA fighter. For as quickly as he was on the marquee, he is just as swiftly removed – Bosse is no longer a part of the UFC 186 fight card.

 

from Yahoo Sports http://ift.tt/1GgYTDm