On August 23rd, 2025, a scripted wrestling event in Los Angeles turned into a shocking real-life assault. Raja Jackson, son of celebrated MMA fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, stormed the ring during a KnokX Pro Wrestling Academy show and slammed local wrestler “Sycho Stu” Smith to the mat before pummeling him with a barrage of punches in the face and jaw. Stu was hospitalized with severe injuries. Hours before the incident, the footage went viral, and what might seem like a sideshow scandal is, in fact, a troubling parable about young men, masculinity, and the absence of virtue today.
To outsiders, the instinct is to scoff: It’s wrestling. It must be fake! But this incident was real. Raja Jackson’s eruption illustrates a vacuum of emotional regulation, discernment, and role models. And that vacuum is now filled by hollow influencers such as Andrew Tate molding the minds of young men and leading them to a counterfeit masculinity.
Tate, a former kickboxer turned Manosphere icon, preaches a brand of masculinity built on domination, material excess, and contempt for weakness. In his worldview, failure’s purely personal and success is measured by how many others you can dominate. It’s an ethos that confuses aggression with strength and cruelty with leadership. This vision has proven intoxicating for countless young men, especially those who feel adrift in a culture prone to sneering at their concerns or telling them to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps.” Unfortunately, that vision leads down a path of destruction, both of the self and others.
But there’s a positive vision of manhood worth defending. Masculinity at its best means responsibility, valor, wisdom, temperance, humility, generosity, and stewardship. Expressing oneself with assertiveness as opposed to aggression. Understanding the difference between leadership and domination. Displaying courage that’s balanced by discernment and self-control.
That’s not just a baseless opinion, but rather a vision that has run through the great works of human culture for centuries. In The Iliad, we see the tragic costs of Achilles’ rage and how they stand in contrast to Hector’s model of civic courage on behalf of his people. In The Odyssey, Odysseus survives not by indulging his impulses but restraining them, mastering his own desires and anger through cunning and self-control. In Beowulf, strength is celebrated when wielded in defense of community, even as the heroic code also honors personal reputation. And in the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh, the proud king comes to realize that true greatness lies in humility and the acceptance of human limits. These timeless lessons were once taught and celebrated. Today they’re neglected, leaving a void in which men like Tate prosper.
The Los Angeles wrestling incident dramatizes this void. Backstage, Raja Jackson was encouraged to become an active participant in the show despite having no training. In the hours leading up to the event, Jackson was brought backstage as a guest by his friend, the wrestler AJ Manna. Jackson had no clue about the culture or etiquette of pro wrestlers. And “Sycho” Stu had no idea that he wasn’t a pro wrestler. When Manna hit Jackson over the head with a beer can, things escalated. Wrestlers engage in that type of behavior as a form of “ribbing” or prankery. Jackson wasn’t aware of that. The situation almost got bad right then, but cooler heads prevailed for the time being. Still, allowing a non-wrestler behind-the-curtain was a lack of discernment.
It was only hours after this that the situation flared up again. After the initial confrontation between Jackson and Stu ended and Stu apologized, another wrestler suggested doing an “angle.” In wrestling speak that means a scripted moment or storyline for the show. The idea was to have Jackson, a non-wrestler, interfere in Stu’s match.
Jackson’s aforementioned wrestler friend, AJ Manna, then told him before the match to run in at some point and give Stu a “receipt.” Rough him up a bit. Again, a pro wrestler told a non-wrestler to get involved in a match and play rough. Jackson knows nothing about how wrestlers pull punches, how they take “bumps” to prevent injury of their opponent, etc.
And then, shortly before the incident, Jackson was looking at his phone. He was on a Kick stream and multiple users were “ragebaiting” him. He was repeatedly called a “bitch” by not only random people watching the stream. It wasn’t the first time Jackson had heard that insult. His father had used the term against him in the past. All of which may go a long way in explaining what Jackson had to say on his stream after being escorted out of the wrestling event: “I’m not no fucking bitch, bro,” he huffed, "At the end of the day, I’m gonna stand up for my fucking self.” His words reveal the psychology of a man wrongly equating self-respect with uncontrolled violence and mistaking violence for strength.
Meanwhile, others failed too. The wrestlers who allowed an untrained outsider into their performance showed poor judgment. Those who hesitated before stopping the beating lacked valor. And the mentors in Jackson’s life who belittled him rather than guiding him failed in their duty of stewardship. The end result? There’s a man in the hospital, a wrestling promotion and school disgraced, and a young man likely facing criminal charges.
This isn’t just a wrestling story. It’s about what happens when we forget what manhood should mean. Being a man isn’t just about being tough or knowing how to fight. It's about the values we hold and practice in our day-to-day life. The ones passed down from fathers to sons for ages.
That horrific video illustrates more than a man sent down to a mat with a sickening thud and pummeled with a disturbing flurry of punches. It's a snapshot of what happens to a society where strength is severed from self-control, where ego replaces humility, where cruelty masquerades as leadership, and where violence fills the gap where our most cherished virtues once stood. The lessons of this story aren’t new, they’re as old as Achilles’ wrath. The problem is we’ve stopped teaching them.
If we want to prevent more Raja Jacksons, young men armed with muscle and anger but devoid of wisdom, we must restore a positive vision of masculinity. Not Tate’s shallow posturing, the kind that sounds tough on YouTube but ends tragically when practiced in reality, but the enduring virtues: valor, temperance, stewardship, and courage rightly ordered.
What happened in Los Angeles wasn’t just “wrestling gone wrong.” It was a glimpse of what happens when a generation of young men is cut off from virtue and handed only ego, rage, and internet streamer-approved “masculinity” in its place. Fights in combat sports may only last a few minutes, but the fight for what it means to be a man in the 21st century will last a lot longer.