Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Guys in our sport bump their gums quite a bit, and they get you to think they're these huge tough guys... they're these gangsters, that they'll fight anybody, anytime. And then when you get in front of a person like me... the crickets start to come out. They don't really wanna fight.
I guess you could say I fell into it. The main goal was to be successful and to make my family proud. Back then, MMA was just getting started, and there didn't seem to be a ton of rules. It seemed pretty brutal, and I was still pretty focused on wrestling. But I decided to give it a shot.
If a guy isn't in a position to fight for a world title, or if he's not in a place where I can intercept his road to the title, don't offer him to me. I'm not in this to just fight guys for the sake of fighting. I'm not in this to make friends with the people who work in the organization.
There's some ignorant people in the world, and if I spend time trying to convince people to think like me, I'll be wasting valuable time I could use to be growing my business, perfecting my craft as a fighter, watching film, studying, or just enjoying time with my family. Or just sleeping.
There's something about somebody who does something special in the UFC that they're allotted certain freedoms and wiggle room around the rules. I'm just not in that category. So if I want to fight Georges St-Pierre or Nick Diaz or Nate Diaz, then it's all the hooplah and all the talk about it.
My goal is to go out there and dominate. We all know if I'm in a position and I see my opponent hurt by landing good striking, I'm going to try to get him out of there. If I'm in the top position or in the position to finish by submission, I'm going to look for that. I don't feel the need to prove the haters wrong.
Growing up as a kid, in elementary and middle school, I was always getting in trouble. Always getting suspended. I got suspended for 90 days for fighting beginning my freshman year, so I missed Homecoming, and that's when I turned the page. I went on honor roll and had good grades after that. It was the changing point.
I want to be compensated. If I'm working at the post office, and I'm sorting the same mail as the person to the right, and they're making $25 an hour and I'm making $21, I need to know what is this person doing so much better that he's getting $4 more than me. That's just knowing the market and being a smart businessman.
For me, it's about the legacy, being the best fighter and a champion who takes all comers. I'm going to make more money outside the Octagon, after my career, than I make in it. But it's making it difficult for me to achieve my goals when I have unnecessary stumbling blocks like my promoter saying damaging comments about me.
What got me into MMA first was that I was a wrestler, and I was a gangbanger getting into trouble a lot and getting into fights. I grew up in a family of 15 in a four-bedroom house. It was dysfunctional, so that alone made me want to be an MMA fighter. It's really the only sport where you gotta basically depend on yourself.
Fighting, especially at this level, is about getting through adversity. You position yourself mentally to go out and take on obstacles that stand in your way. In the Octagon and in life, you face tough situations and have every chance to quit, but the more adversity you push through, the more likely you are to be successful.
If you get into an armbar and someone locks it down on you, it's easy for you to tap out, but sometimes dealing with certain things, fighting through certain adversities, and being that I've been in some of the toughest situations in life, it just gives me an edge on my opponent that I'm going to torture him and beat him up.
I love playing Rick Ross' 'Port of Miami' album. Jeezy's 'Thug Motivation 101' is a classic in my opinion, and I still listen to that album to this day. I'm a big fan of OutKast, so pretty much any album they put out is great in my opinion, but I find myself listening to 'Aquemini' a lot. Anything Kendrick Lamar does is great.
I've beaten Jordan Mein. I've beaten Tarec Saffiedine. Some people might have said I beat Stephen Thompson. I beat Robbie Lawler. These are the greatest strikers in our sport, but I'm the only one out of all those guys that outstruck the best strikers, and I still don't get the credit for being the best striker in our division.
In the past, I said I didn't want to speak on certain issues because the second I said one thing about race, then 'Tyron's playing the race card.' But if you really think about it, what is the race card? The race card is that the man held me down, I had unfair circumstances, and I wasn't able to be successful because I was held down.