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The following guest post was written by Rami Genauer, contributor at FightMetric.

Let's say you wake up one day and find yourself standing across the Octagon from Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. And it's not the jovial, wise-cracking Rampage either; it's the sneering, howling, intense Rampage who is ready to slam you into next Tuesday. Assuming that running away is not an option, what do you do?

To figure out what you'd be facing, FightMetric tracked all 20 of Rampage's fights in Pride and the UFC (and that one WFA show no one likes to talk about). Making some observations based on the statistical record, below are some things you might want to keep in mind. Forrest Griffin ought to study up before Saturday night's UFC light heavyweight title fight.

Be careful relying on the clinch

Many people have watched Rampage fall prey to the Muay Thai clinch of Wanderlei Silva and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua and figured that the clinch is where Rampage's game is weakest. That would be a big mistake.

Statistically, the clinch is actually the strongest part of Rampage's game.

Over the course of those 21 fights, Rampage landed 372 HiPer Strikes (meaning, the most significant kind of strikes). A total of 222 of those strikes were landed in the clinch, which comes out to 60%. That means that Rampage has landed more strikes in the clinch than toe-to-toe and on the ground combined.

It's not just volume either. His accuracy on those strikes is an astounding 82%, on 222 of 270 strikes. Rampage picks his shots well in the clinch and uses an underrated Greco clinch for maximum control.

Of course, it also helps that his opponents are distracted by the prospect of a takedown. While known as an excellent freestyle wrestler, nearly all of Rampage's takedowns come from the clinch (31 of 33 successful takedowns). And much like his striking, his takedown success rate is well above-average. Rampage landed 31 of the 46 clinch takedowns he's attempted for a success rate of 67%, compared to the average fighter who lands about 45% of his attempts.

Protect the body

Most of those hard strikes in the clinch came in the form of knees to the midsection. It's rare you'll see Rampage in the clinch for more than a few seconds without him throwing something to the body. It doesn't matter if it's a knee, a right hook, or something else, the common denominator is that he throws it hard. While jockeying for position and control in the clinch, most fighters will throw a bunch of short little shots (we'll call them "jabs") before setting up a power strike or takedown. On average, you'd expect to see a fighter throw about twice as many jabs in the clinch as power shots. Rampage is the complete opposite. He turns that ratio on its head and throws more than twice as many power strikes as he does jabs.

The body gets no rest once on the ground either. Rampage's ground game is one of keeping exceedingly busy, constantly throwing shots to whatever part of the body is available. Since he's only an average guard-passer, that means lots of time spent sitting in guard working the body. One specific thing you might want to watch out for: the hard forearm to the solar plexus. It's a Rampage specialty and one that was instrumental in his 2003 stoppage of Chuck Liddell.

Don't bet on him running out of gas

Against many fighters, a key strategy might be to try and wear them down early in the fight and take advantage when they're gassed in the later rounds. Though not known for his cardio, this would seem an unwise strategy against Rampage. He successfully went 25 minutes against Dan Henderson and has gone 20 minutes three times. Griffin has only been past the 15-minute mark on one occasion.

There's an interesting trend you see when evaluating Rampage's longest battles: his most effective five minutes of these fights tends to be the last five minutes. FightMetric measures fighter effectiveness using an algorithm that synthesizes the events of a fight to produce an effectiveness score. Here are his round-by-round effectiveness scores against Henderson, Murilo Rua, Murilo Bustamante, and Dong Sik Yoon:

vs. Henderson: 28-48-77-89-117
vs. Rua: 106-49-88
vs. Bustamante: 38-36-63
vs. Yoon: 86-99-89

Keep in mind, the latter three fights happened in Pride, where the first round is twice as long as the second and third rounds. Against Henderson, Rua, and Bustamante, Rampage fought at his best in the last five minutes of the fight and was pretty close in the Yoon fight. Rampage doesn't drop off as the fight goes deeper, he gets better.

Consider yourself lucky the fight isn't in Japan

Knees to the head on the ground were one of Rampage's best weapons. We haven't seen enough of his ground game post-Japan to know whether the addition of elbows has made up for the lack of knees.

And of course ... watch out for the slam

No discussion about Rampage would be complete without mentioning his trademark slams. While it's true that Rampage hasn't slammed any of his last three opponents and it's been nearly two years since his last one, there are still few fighters out there who concentrate so much of their power on takedowns. True to his reputation, Rampage slams well and often.

For an average fighter, slams might make up about 10% of their successful takedowns. A good wrestler might have a slam rate of 25%. Rampage's slam rate is 58%. In practical terms, it means that if you're getting taken down by Rampage, chances are better than not that it's going to hurt.