Listen, anyone in the heavyweight division in the top ten, there is no easy fight. I don't care what you say.

Listen man, Andrei Arlovski is a tough guy, but he hasn't fought the caliber of opponents I've been fighting.

One guy might be ranked higher, but it doesn't mean anything. Where these fights go, lots of things can happen.

The UFC has a great plan for us. I'm just happy I'm employed by them and can pay my house bills and everything.

All you can do is the same as any other fight: whoever they put in front of you, you go in there and try to get the W.

When my wife was getting a lease for her Jeep Cherokee, and I saw a Dodge Ram Sport, I thought, 'Oh wow, it's amazing.'

I understand it's promotion, but no one ever gave me a chance. No one ever thought I'd be the champ, and look where I'm at now.

You can look at it and say I'm doing this better or that better, but the bottom line is, I just learned to be mentally tougher.

What makes me so confident is my coaches, my team: they are the best in the world, and if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here.

The sport wouldn't be what it is without the fans, and at UFC 189, watching the Irish fans screaming 'Ole Ole Ole' was pretty amazing.

I want you to tell me how bad I suck and how I'm going to get knocked out and how I've been lucky my whole career. That's fine. All day.

I just work hard at everything I do. If there's something I need to learn, I stick to it, I learn it and put everything I have toward it.

I love Cleveland; I'll always want to fight there. But there's a lot going on in New York. I'd like to go somewhere I'm not known as well.

I'm just happy the city has something to be proud of. The Cavs, the Indians, the Monsters. It just shows that we are the land of champions.

I trained for about a year before I had my first amateur fight. I won by knockout, and then, for my second fight, the guy didn't even show up.

Fabio Maldonado jumped up to heavyweight for our fight, and while he wasn't ranked, he is a super-tough dude and had never been knocked out before.

I'm not scared to go to the ground. I've been wrestling my whole life. I've done a lot of jiu jitsu, but I like standing up, and every fight starts there.

It's the heavyweight division, man: there's a bunch of big guys, so anything can happen when they hit you. But I have plans, and feel I get better every fight.

In the fight with Hunt, all I can say is it was a good night for me. I'm happy to get out of there without taking too much damage, and I'd take that every time.

My day job keeps me grounded. When I show up to work, I'm not some star fighter or anything, I'm just Stipe. I'm going to keep working in my hometown as long as I can.

Cro Cop is one of the best in the world and such a great guy. It was awesome to train with him. There's nothing better than working with him, and it was a great experience.

Cleveland's a great city. I love the city. The people here are awesome. They're loyal and hard-working, and they're loyal to our sports scene, and things are changing here.

During a night shift, I'll work out twice during the day. If I have to work during the day, I usually have guys at the station who will work out with me. Then at night, I'll go train.

I've wrestled my whole life, and when I got done with college, I went back to school to become a firefighter. I liked MMA, but I didn't really know if I wanted to get punched in the face!

I'm hungrier than all of them. They didn't put in the effort that I did to get the title. So I don't care what it takes - I'm not giving up that title. I worked too hard to get it, and I'm not going to lose it.

The Hendricks/Lawler fights, those were just epic. Both were non-stop. I couldn't stop watching, and it was hard to look away. I watch those as a fan, and to see two guys fighting like that for 25 minutes is crazy.

Junior Dos Santos is one of the best heavyweight fighters of all time, and he has proven it by being a champion. That is something that I want to be in my career, and I understand to achieve that, I have to beat guys like him.

People have always worn Cleveland shirts and supported Cleveland no matter how bad the teams were or how close we were. It didn't matter. That's really all about the city. We're just hardworking people that love the city and don't care how the teams do.

Someone sent me a picture of Werdum on the ground after I hit him... There was 2:16 left, and the area code for Cleveland is 216. They played 'Believeland' that night, and the next day it snowed, and everyone said Hell froze over because the curse was broken.

I traded my 2002 Silverado in for the Trailblazer, and after my second fight, I got a win bonus. It was the knockout-of-the-night bonus, $50,000, and I paid the rest of my car off, and I gave it to my mother because I had a sponsorship with a Chevy dealership.

I do miss the Avalanche. That's the my favorite car of all time, but that Dodge Ram Rebel has overtaken the Avalanche; I just love that truck. It's got good vents in the hood; there's no running boards underneath, so I can go Baja-ing if I want to, off-roading.

There is still so much room for me to get better. Everyone in this sport evolves so quickly. You could take six months off and come back to a totally different game. That's why I'm always in the gym working. Even if I don't have a fight lined up, I'm still in there working to improve my overall game.

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