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I had no idea if I could fight when I first started. My first four amateur fights, I had never even been punched in the face or trained of any kind.
This is a making-money business, and the only way to make money is knocking people out. Lying on someone? That's pathetic to me. You gotta drop a bomb.
A lot of people say I'm reckless and I take too many shots. I take shots on the forehead. There's nothing wrong with that. It puts me in punching range.
I want the best money, and obviously the highest ceiling that you can be the best is in the UFC. But yeah, I praise Bellator. They gave me a great offer.
My only goal ever in a fight was to go in there and create chaos. Now, I want to control the chaos that hate's created. I want to fight in the right spots.
Natural human instinct, reaction, whatever, is if you're perfect, you're going to try to skate by and get by, get away with things the easiest way possible.
I praise World Series of Fighting, they gave me every opportunity I had, and at the end, they were totally professional and did everything they could to help me out.
People love the fact Chael Sonnen is saying he's undefeated. It's crazy to me that people like something like that but don't give respect to the fighters that just put it on the line.
Twenty-five minutes is a long time to stay focused. It's really something I had to work on to go in there and not get complacent for 2 seconds or 5 seconds or 1 second. That's all it takes.
I'm not here to take damage. I don't want to not be able to talk. Every single time I fight, I know that... this could be the last time that you're able to do this, the last time you're able to talk.
I wish I was fighting Jason High in his hometown. I would put him to sleep in front of all his fans. He's mainly a wrestler, but I'm an All-American wrestler. So I'm really not worried about Jason High.
I wrestled Jordan Burroughs two times - Jordan Burroughs had a hell of a time trying to take me down. I stopped his double leg numerous times. And he also, probably, fractured my sternum - from me trying to stop him.
I watch a little bit of tape to pick up small stuff, but I don't try to pick apart my opponent's game plan. I'm going to keep coming forward. I don't ever take a step backward. I get hit, and I'm right back into range.
I've been telling people I need to start smiling to my opponents and shaking hands and just being nice, so then when the bell rings, I catch them off-guard, because I used to catch people off-guard, but everyone's ready now.
When I take a right hand, I roll with it. I don't absorb every single bit of the punch. There's different ways to alleviate some of the force of a punch besides just getting out of the way. When I take it, it's on my gloves.
You could be the best in the world, but it doesn't matter. It's four-ounce gloves. I've been dropped in practice with a knee to the body. I take a good knee to the body and break my ribs in the fight, I lost. I mean, it's a fight.
I went to college, I wrestled and I took some amateur fights. When I graduated, I wanted to start using my degree, but I figured I would start fighting professionally. Then I won 18 in a row and I fought Eddie Alvarez on pay-per-view.
Barboza is up there. He's a scary fight, but I like being scared. And that's a fight that me, as a fan, would want to see. I know how much fans would love something like that. So I'll go out there and try to finish that dude with leg kicks.
To be a superstar you have to win and you have to have something special. For me, I hope that knocking people out is my something special because I can't sell myself, per se, and become a different person on camera and a different person off camera.
I am a Division I All-American wrestler, but I wrestled college wrestling matches, seven minutes long. If I was to go in there and wrestle for seven minutes of a fight, a 25-minute fight, you're not getting nothing out of me for the rest of the time.
I'm not saying I'd walk through everybody. There's some great fights for me, though, and I'd put on a hell of a show with a lot of the fighters in the top 10. My pressure is second to none, and a lot of them don't have any way to prepare for what I'm going to be bring.
I love the sport, I'm a fan of MMA, I've been a fan of MMA since before I started it, I was a fan of Eddie Alvarez before I started fighting, so just the culmination of events that have transpired in my life through hard work, through specifically hard work, it's just, I'm happy.
When I sat down and knew I was going to go to the UFC, I thought of Edson Barboza and I almost had a panic attack. And then right away I called my manager Ali Abdel-Aziz. I said, 'Ali, that's the fight I want.' I think it's the worst fight in the lightweight division for me, the scariest.
When you fight me, you aren't going to be able to be so careful. They better block their face and knock me out. I'm going to hit them, kick them. I'm going to come forward. They'll have to run, literally run, backwards. That's the only way to get away from me. And eventually you're going to run into the cage.
My pressure is second to none and my timing and attitude are second to none, and that's what I want to be recognized for; not for being undefeated, because what does that mean? That just means you won. And I want to known for my style and the way that I fight, the timing that I bring and the fact that I rely on my reactions, stuff like that.