Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I knew I had to just keep believing, never lose sight of my purpose. As a fighter, you need to be delusional in a way. It keeps you going.
People would ask me about my legacy, and I would tell them my legacy is what I did. You can't change it. It's just what you do or what you did.
When I got into the sport and wrote down my goals, it was never to be a UFC main event or to be a on a UFC main card. It was to be the UFC champion.
Cruces is like my town, where I grew up, where my heart is... All the teachers and coaches and people who have really influenced my life are from there.
I bought a house after the Loveland fight. I wanted something grown up like an elephant or some flowers to put on the mantel. I decided I need a UFC belt.
That's how you continue your passion and find inspiration; getting new ideas, getting new looks and new visions. Those are ways to evolve and stay passionate.
I've gone through a lot to get here. I'm doing my job. And that No. 1 ranking next to my name says I'm doing my job better than a good percentage of everyone else.
This sport is crazy, it moves along and we all have a short memory. No one realizes when fighters are out. They just remember their last fight and how they look now.
All we have is our talent. That's what's great about the division, you can see things that 125-pound guys can do that some other guys can't. All we have is our skill.
I can explode from both stances as a fighter. I can get up into my southpaw, give one good jab, sprawl, then get up into my orthodox, sprawl, go into southpaw and jab.
That's why we're here: to leave a legacy that'll be remembered long after we're done. And what a great start to my legacy, man, being the first UFC flyweight champion.
I never compromised my integrity by playing a character. I didn't tweet anybody something crazy. I was just myself, kept winning and stayed ready. I didn't sell my soul.
Some people, honestly, as simple as it sounds, aren't going to log in and put in all their information to get a fight on Fight Pass. I mean, they're just not going to do it.
Obviously becoming champion is always going to be my goal and something I want to accomplish, but I can't control being the champion and winning and losing. You can't control the result.
The destination is the belt, but you never arrive at just the belt. You're always on the way to something else. You never truly arrive anywhere. But winning the belt, it's a nice pit stop.
When you're fighting the best, best guys in the world, there's no glaring weaknesses. There's X-factors and there's small openings that you have to prepare for better and that's really it.
This is a lonely sport, the more family, the more laughs, and the more fun you can have, the better. At the end of the day, though, it's one man's journey to try and be the best in the world.
For me... I feel like gratitude has really helped me to keep perspective on everything. The gratitude of doing what I get to do. The gratitude for my everyday life. The gratitude for simple things.
When you appreciate something and you're grateful for it - like going in to work everyday or just your partner or your job - you just do it that much better because you're lucky that you're doing it.
If I went out there and felt the best I ever felt and fought the best I've ever fought and lost, I would have to reconsider things and think differently. I would have a different outlook on my career.
You never want to get injured, of course. That's just not what you do, but in the scheme of things 12 years of professional fighting and having to sit out nine, ten months for an injury is not that bad.
You have to go out there and fight as hard as you can. You have to go out there and work as hard as you can and do the right things. Then you go out there and perform and either it's good enough or it's not.
Once you stop having fun doing it, you start to lose a lot of focus and a lot of motivation. Where, when you love what you do you and feel lucky every day and excited, it helps every little aspect of fighting.
Of course, in Joe Jitsu it is about a lot more than fighting. It depends on their style, their confidence, the way that their hair falls in the morning, the way that their clothes look. It's more state of mind.
I never thought I was going to lose the first title fight. I was literally obsessed with the outcome only, and I couldn't imagine any other way possible. I thought I was going to explode and die before I lost. But I lost.
It would mean a lot, but it's weird, because what's the title? It's an extra line on your Wikipedia page and a medal that says you won on that particular night. It obviously symbolizes more than that, but those are the things people think about.
That was always the top martial artist - the Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt. Once I started beating them, I knew I had what it takes to form a new martial art. That's when I came up with Joe Jitsu, my namesake, so my legacy lives forever through the martial arts.
I remember this one time I had a dream about me writing a screenplay, and when I woke up, you know those dreams that feel so real, but I woke up and I was like, 'Oh my god I have this amazing screenplay I need to write down as soon as I wake up' and then I woke up and I was like what the heck was I dreaming of?
I was sitting in the nosebleeds eating hot dogs and watching Georges St. Pierre win the world title from Matt Hughes. Like never in my wildest dreams if someone would have tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'Hey, seven years from now you're going to be down there doing the same thing' would I have believed them.