Montel Samuel Jackson (born April 24, 1992) is an American professional mixed martial artist. He currently competes in the Bantamweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). As of July 23, 2024, he is #15 in the UFC bantamweight rankings.
Background
Jackson started training in wrestling at high school to get away from street life as most of his friends ended up in jail or dead. With good results in wrestling, Jackson set his goal to be an Olympic wrestler; however, he chose to stay back and take care of his sick grandparents and turned down the opportunity to wrestle in college. Jackson did an invitational wrestling match, Team USA vs. Team Japan and started training in the Olympic training center in Marquette, Michigan. His dream of becoming an Olympics wrestler would not materialize as in February 2013, International Olympic Committee (IOC) members voted to remove wrestling from the Olympic programme. During this time, one of his friends, Devondrick Bankston, was preparing for a fight against Raufeon Stots, and asked him to help on wrestling drills at Red Schafer MMA gym. At the gym, he met Gato, a Puerto Rican, who managed to talk him into competing in a Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament without a real class instructions. Eventually, Jackson gave up his Olympics dream and transitioned to mixed martial arts.