I always trained hard in my life to win the title, and I will train twice as hard to stay at the top.

Everybody likes money. I like money. I need money to survive. But I don't love money. Money is not my god.

A lot of people tell me I have to trash-talk more, but I got here with my fists, fighting, not with my mouth.

Everybody talks. Anthony Pettis talked before the fight. Donald Cerrone talked before the fight. See what happened?

We have people around the world who live in the United States, and these people don't deserve to be called traitors.

When you put the pressure on yourself, it's not good. If you fight afraid to lose, you wind up not fighting that good.

The way I train, the way I spar, I'm out of my comfort zone every single day, and you can see the result in my fights.

I'm the former lightweight champion. I want to fight one of the top guys. I don't want to fight a guy who isn't ranked.

I fought well at 155, but I don't think I ever came close to my best at 155. I think I'll get to my best at 170 pounds.

I'm always looking for perfection. Even after training and my coaches say I did good, I always think I could have done more.

People treat you one way when you're champion, but when you're not the champion, everything changes. People treat you different.

People don't believe in me very much, but I have my teammates and my family that believe in me so much; they see how hard I work.

It was priceless. Being the UFC champion and having my kids in the Octagon, my wife, them holding the belt. That was like a movie.

Everybody needs money, but I'm a fighter. For what I make, I'm happy with what I make. The money is not everything; it's about honor.

It was tough to make weight against Cerrone, and I passed out three times making weight for the Eddie Alvarez fight. One day you get to the limit.

What made me move up to welterweight was all the effort I was doing, to look at my health and have a good life. I wanted to stop sacrificing so much.

Every night that I put my head on the pillow, I go to sleep knowing that I can do more. I'm working toward perfection. I'm trying to be the best ever.

Now that I've achieved my goal to win the belt, I want to be the best of all times. I want to be remembered as the lightweight with most title defenses.

I think things will come once I get the respect that I deserve. Keeping my belt for a long time... Things will happen like normal. I can't force those things.

I think social media is good for promotion, stuff like that, but people are so negative. People are too negative. If you read the comments, it's just too negative.

I get paid the same money if I'm fighting on pay-per-view or on Fight Pass, and Fight Pass is just getting started. It's the future. The Internet, many people watch it.

Power is natural, but it can be improved with a lot of work. It's been something I've focused on for a couple of years because I saw it as a place where I could make improvements.

I want to keep active, so when they called me to fight Nate Diaz, I agreed because I wanted to stay active. I got a little surprised because he was out so long, but he's a tough opponent.

I'm under contract. Whatever the UFC asks, I have to do because they are my bosses and they treat me very well. I can't complain about that, and it's this, man: When you have a boss, you need to follow orders.

People say McGregor is tall and all that. He's as tall as I am, or maybe even shorter. He might have a longer reach, but I've fought Nate Diaz and Cerrone, who had reach advantage, and fought Anthony Pettis and Ben Henderson.

You can promote fights - of course, you have to - you can say 'I'll beat you' or whatever, but you cannot put family, religion, anything like that in the mix. You need to separate things. That is a line a lot of fighters cross.

If you're out for two years, and you beat one guy with a full-time job, without disrespect, but we're talking about fighting for a world title. You can't just beat a guy that went there to cover some guy that got injured, and then this guy, after two and a half years, gets a title shot.

Share This Page