Raja Jackson’s Brutal Attack On Unconscious Man: The Full Story

​Warning: Graphic subject matter and images.

You have probably seen at least one of the clips which show Raja Jackson brutalizing an unconscious man in a wrestling ring. However, as my first sentence notes – you may have only seen one of the clips which are relevant to this situation. In a world of live streams and smartphones, it is not uncommon for situations to be well documented – whether those involved desire videographic documentation or not.

In this case, Raja Jackson, son of UFC superstar Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, is almost certainly going to wish that his situation were not so well documented as each piece of video only serves to make his actions more egregious. I have seen a troubling trend online in which a significant portion of commenters on Raja Jackson posts are supporting the blood-thirsty young man and demonizing his victim, a wrestler known as Syko Stu (Stuart Smith). With that in mind, I want to lay out a clear timeline of events with the noteworthy evidence linked for easy review.

Our story begins with Raja attending a Knokx Pro Wrestling event alongside some of his MMA team members. The first thing we should note is that Raja is a trained MMA fighter with many videos online which show him being mentored in the sport by his father, Rampage Jackson. Knokx Pro Wrestling is an entertainment-based wrestling organization, meaning that in layman’s terms, it is what most people would identify as “fake wrestling” or “fake fighting”.

For those who do not know, there is a stark line of contrast which exists between entertainment organizations (Like Knokx and the WWE) and legitimate combat sports (such as boxing and MMA). The most straightforward way to explain this comparison is that pro-wrestlers are essentially stunt men who act and put on a show by pretending to fight, while MMA fighters are trained and deadly combatants who actually fight. All indications are that Raja and his team knew this when they attended the Knokx event. The contrast between the pro-wrestling entertainers and MMA fighters presents three key points we need to remember when understanding the Raja Jackson situation.

1) Pro-Wrestlers like Syko Stu are actors – they are telling a story in real-time and while their live performance may look violent, bodily damage is never the intent.

2) As entertainers, it is exceedingly common for pro-wrestlers to “get into character” and “build the story” by pretending to be antagonistic while cameras are rolling – even backstage. The entertainer’s job is to always be building a narrative for fans.

3) MMA fighters, like Raja Jackson, are trained to know how to cause critical damage to other humans – and unlike pro-wrestlers, the damage they cause is not pretend. Additionally, MMA fighters are well acquainted with knowing when enough is enough – when a man has tapped, gone unconscious, been so damaged that he can no longer fight back, or when a ref has physically or verbally waved off the fight.

A Minor Misunderstanding

Due to his minor celebrity status, Raja Jackson was welcomed to participate in a story-line for the night alongside Knokx wrestlers. Multiple sources claim that Raja was supposed to enter the ring and do a performative body slam against Syko Stu. It was all planned as an entertaining show – not a real altercation.

Shortly before the event started, Raja was caught backstage with the wrestlers. Video shows that Syko Stu approached Raja with a beer can (not a glass beer bottle as some reports claim – a beer can which was likely a specially made wrestling prop) and crushed the beer can on Raja’s head. In the video, the two men have a brief face-off before being separated and Raja looks genuinely upset but not seriously hurt.

It must be noted that the audio captures the Knokx workers telling Stu, “Easy easy easy…He’s not a f***ing worker, bro…What the f*** was that?” This exchange, coupled with additional video evidence which we will address momentarily, clearly shows that Stu saw the cameras, saw Raja, and chose to act in character in order to build the story which was planned for later that night; a fake rivalry between a wrestling veteran and the young MMA celebrity.

The problems began to arise when it became apparent that Raja was either not aware of the storyline being built or he was unreceptive to the approach – either way, his offense was understandable. Shortly after the can incident, Stu can be seen in another video clip acknowledging his mistake and apologizing to Raja. Stu can be seen extending his hand and saying, “I apologize, I didn’t know. I thought you were a worker [wrestler]…I saw the camera…” Raja accepts the handshake, nods his head and says, “I get it…I get it now.” Another wrestler present offered clarification by saying, “We’re always working.” Indicating that the misunderstanding was simple – to the wrestlers, when a camera is present, they enter go-mode – their wrestling characters are assumed, and the story is being built.

But to Raja, the approach was jarring and unexpected. For anyone other than a blood-lusted spoiled brat, the story would end there. A simple misunderstanding was squashed between men with an honorable apology, a handshake, and a nod of the head. But unfortunately for Stu, he was unknowingly working with a blood-lusted spoiled brat.

We next see Raja in the backstage hallways, where a wrestler in a cowboy hat is comforting him by saying, “give him [Stu] a receipt…tag his s**t.” Raja nods and mumbles in response. In the pro-wrestling community to “tag” somebody is to land a legitimate hit on them – not a fake hit. A “receipt” is tagging somebody – hitting them – after they have done something unacceptable to you during the performance.

For instance, if wrestler A is supposed to pretend to kick wrestler B, but wrestler A gets carried away or sloppy, leading him to actually kick wrestler B, then wrestler B might “give a receipt” to wrestler A by landing a real punch later in the match. Within the wrestling community, this is a widely accepted and generally harmless practice which helps the wrestlers to enforce an honor-culture. The idea is “We are both performers out here pretending to fight and putting on a show for the kids. But if you hit me, I will hit you back to send the message, and then we are even.” The idea is not to spark a prolonged assault but rather to provide a brief check against an overzealous wrestler.

A Manic Response

Later that night, cameras captured Raja as he excitedly waited to get into the ring to get his revenge. He can be heard saying, “That [can] s**t pissed me off…it didn’t even hurt, it just pissed me off… this s**t crazy.” Raja, who is live streaming, goes on to say, “How many subs to knock him out?...They told me to fake hit him so I can hit him for real. People think this s**ts a f*****g game…I’ma really f*****g humble him at the end of the day. This n***a ain’t no fighter but I’m gonna have to show him like you can’t just hit a g*****n can off my g*****n face.”

After pacing, responding to incendiary live stream comments, and asking when he can get into the ring, the moment finally comes. As Syko Stu puts on his performance, Raja is signaled to enter the cage and double-leg takedown Stu.

As a reminder, the video of Raja attacking Stu is highly disturbing. The next thing cameras capture is Raja Jackson entering the ring, lifting Stu over his head (rather than the much safer double-leg takedown which had been planned), whipping him forward in an uncontrolled fashion, and slamming Stu’s back and head onto the ground. Stu seems to go limp and unconscious immediately. But that is only the beginning for Raja, who proceeds to mount Stu’s motionless body and begins hitting him.

These weren’t the soft, intentionally-inaccurate, performative hits of pro-wrestling – these were full-power, deadly, targeted shots landing on the face of an unconscious man. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… all the way up to well over 20 hits. Stu’s head bounces back and forth as Raja, visibly in a fit of rage, continues his assault.

The crowd is stunned, the ref steps back in shock, and eventually – after a significant amount of time – other wrestlers attempt to stop the assault. Multiple wrestlers push Raja away from his victim, but it isn’t enough for the 25 year-old – he fights to get back to Stu and land more shots. He wants to keep going – he wants to keep hurting the motionless man.

The moments captured on film are truly disturbing. They are full of real-world, graphic, violence – that is bad enough – but they show something else; pure, uncontrolled, hateful, rage. I do not think it is a stretch to guess that Raja Jackson was seeing red and, if others had not intervened, he would not have stopped until well after Stu was deceased.

Stu, who is now in stable but critical condition with serious injuries, is said to have suffered broken bones and to have been choking on his own blood and teeth. A GoFundMe campaign has been started to help pay the recovery of Stu, a military veteran.

As for Raja, he was caught on video shortly after the assault, seemingly still enraged and ranting, “I’m tired of everybody f*****g playing with me and s**t…calling me b***h and s**t… at the end of the day I’m gonna stand up for my f*****g self!” Raja is still breathing heavily and visibly angry as he drives away in his vehicle, his shirt blood-stained. Raja’s father, Rampage, was caught on stream lamenting that his son may go to jail and later posted to social media saying he did not condone Raja’s actions.

While the vast majority of the fighting and wrestling world has condemned Raja’s actions, social media posts are also flooded with a startlingly high number of individuals attempting to justify what Raja did. Similar to the Karmelo Anthony case, a brief look at the comments section shows that there appears to be a tragic racial divide.

As a mixed-race minority myself, I am disgusted when I see minorities rallying to support corrupt people who happen to possess a similar skin-tone, knowing full-well that if the roles were reversed, they would be crying, “racism!”. The fact that Raja Jackson is a lunatic who belongs in jail shouldn’t be a racial line in the sand, but sadly, it seems to be just that. Morals, justice, and safety don’t need to be issues that divide us racially – we should all be able to look at the evidence in the Raja Jackson case and come to the same conclusion. For those who are capable of doing so, I hope this article serves as a useful tool in understanding exactly what happened.