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For me, being world champion, you have to put your body through these extreme tests, day in and day out. So when Sunday comes around, that's the day when I pamper myself. I might get a massage or go to a spa.
To score in the World Cup final is not a small story, of course. Every footballer dreams of it: first to become a world champion and then, even better, to score in the final. This happened to me, and I'm glad.
In the Olympics, everything goes back to square one. The world champion or the world record holder or the ninth last year are fighting for the same medal, and you have got to go there like it was the first time.
Even though I say to myself that I was seven-times World Champion, the voice in my head says, 'You can't play this shot.' It's completely mental - quite literally. My confidence is sapped every time this happens.
It's not been a bad life, and I do know that I could never have been a world champion. All I ever wanted to do was be the best I could with what I had, which wasn't very much, really. And that's what I think I did.
One of the things that first attracted me to chess is that it brings you into contact with intelligent, civilized people - men of the stature of Garry Kasparov, the former world champion, who was my part-time coach.
The Olympics is a special event and winning is very important. For me as a world record holder and world champion, the only thing I am missing is the Olympic gold medal and that is what I want to achieve in my career.
I believe that I will be the WWE World Champion one day. I know that a lot of people say that; it's easy to say. If I were to go away without accomplishing that task, I would feel unfulfilled, to be completely honest.
The boys, they are laughing: 'Oh, you are boxing. Very funny.' But I always challenge when people are laughing - 'I'll show you one day.' After getting five times world champion, they are all quiet. And they respect me.
I never put it to where I say, 'I'm just this big pay-per-view star,' or 'I wanna be the No. 1 pay-per-view star that got all the ratings.' No, I was just like, 'I'm gonna be a world champion. That's what I'm gonna be.'
I think I could have become an outstanding professional baseball player, but I don't think I could have reached the heights that I have in football - being one of the very top players in the game, being a world champion.
I love short track. I competed in short track, I was a world champion in 1986 but at that point in time it wasn't in the Olympic Games so I moved into long track. Short track is a blast to skate and it's a blast to watch.
There are hundreds of young fighters whose handlers believe them to be a future world champion or the next great heavyweight or another Sugar Ray Robinson. The young men who inspire these beliefs are known as 'prospects.'
Who would have ever thought that, within a couple months of getting into the WWE, that I'd be wrestling in the main event for the world championship? Then, nine months after getting here, actually being the world champion.
I came from nothing and I have a chance to do something that happens once in a lifetime. There are only a couple people who can wake up and say that they're a world champion, a multimillionaire, and a successful superstar.
It's impossible to describe Messi. I like him so much, and I always say I feel so sad because he never won the World Cup with Argentina. It is an award he deserves because a world-class player like him must be a world champion.
Carlos Molina is a great fighter. He's a world champion. I give him all the credit for even just choosing me to fight him and giving me the opportunity. I'm going to be well-prepared, well-disciplined in the ring when it's time to go.
I worked in factories, slaughterhouses, as an upholsterer. I did demolition work, was a postman, was a tiler, a plasterer. I even sold double-glazing door-to-door. But I always dreamed of being a world champion, first of all as a boxer.
I trained and trained and went up against Kurt, then being a world champion in '94, and after that I did Tommy's tour and then my tour and all this stuff and just trying to deal with it all. And now, I've just kind of backed off a little.
I don't get why people look at me the way they do. They doubted me the first time I became a world champion. Then, I fought Sadam Ali, who was a boogeyman in the division at the time, and won my second title and they were still doubting me.
I'm not here to be mediocre. I'm not in the UFC just to get a paycheck and make a living. That's really not what I'm here for. If I wanted to make money, I would have gotten out of the sport and done something else. I want to be a world champion.
I'm the type of guy where I feel like if you throw me in against the guy that's gonna be my hardest match-up, I think that's gonna bring out the best in me, and I know that the best of me can beat anybody on any given day to become the world champion.
So much of boxing is to do with your mental state. Evander Holyfield talks about spirit. I definitely have that spirit and feel like I've got something special inside me. It's about me bringing it out, controlling it and using it to become world champion.
You work for years and years to make the Olympics, then something goes wrong and it's all gone. But that doesn't mean you can't still make your mark in another way. Losing in the Olympic Trials made me that much hungrier to become a world champion as a pro.
When I first came in, I won a world championship pretty fast. Then I worked with John Morrison and Daniel Bryan, became King of the Ring, went back to 'SmackDown,' became the world champion again, won the Rumble, did a lot of things, went away after an injury.
There was a question in my mind, because I am black, if the fans would accept a black world champion. 'Bash at the Bash' was a topsy-turvy night. Finally, when the 1-2-3 came, the fans erupted. All my questions were answered; they really did want to see me win.
It's definitely hard to live up to expectation. Especially early in my career, everyone was expecting so much from me, everyone was comparing me to my father. They didn't understand that they're comparing me to a world champion, which is very unfair as a novice.
When you become a world champion and you defend your title for five or six years, and you have fifteen defences of your title, and you round up most of the other belts - and you feel you're the best of your generation at the time - nobody can take that away from you.
I'm looking at the belt on the top of the bag across from me, and it still hasn't fully hit me. There are multiple stages to all of this, but I know that every time I walk into a gym or go to a new locker room since I won the title, I've felt like the world champion.
I've been asked many times, do you regret never having been the world champion, you know? I kind of laugh. I say well, you know, this business is a work. It's like, none of those guys are ever really the world wrestling champion. The titles are props in this business.
I knew I was a world champion and a top contender at the highest level for over a decade, but I think I'll be remembered as somebody that was an ambassador for the sport, someone who helped build something bigger than myself, and also for the team I've been able to build.
You get these young kids who are training their whole life to go to the Olympics. To go there and not fight someone else like them but fight someone who has might won an Olympics before, been a world champion, and is just coming back to fight some kids, I think is insane.
The ultimate goal for me is to be the world champion - it's all I've wanted to do since I was a kid - so when the money that comes with it is life-changing, yes, that's nice, but get The Ring magazine belt, being considered the world champion, is something money can't buy.
I never really felt I had the same respect as my male team-mates. My opinion wasn't worth as much. I used to sit quietly in meetings and not say anything, as I knew my opinions would be disregarded. And that's after I had become Olympic champion and multiple world champion.
Financially, I've done very well doing what I do. I've got plenty of money in the bank. I've got gigs with FOX doing analyst work, media work. The UFC has been very kind to me. Ultimately, however, I want to be world champion. I have to achieve that to validate my entire career.
I have a really strong opponent in Randy Orton. A former multi-time world champion. He's held just about every title under the sun. And he's done it all in a major way. He's basically wreaked havoc and ran roughshod over the WWE for quite some time. Some people might forget that.
To not only be a cancer survivor, but to return to the sport of boxing, because, I mean, this is not basketball, this is not baseball, this is not a sport you play. This is a sport where you can die in the ring. So it says a lot to me to come back and be a world champion in that aspect.
Basically my whole life revolves around soccer. I don't take many vacations. Everything just gets put on the back burner because of my training. I miss out on a lot of weddings and family functions. But at the end of the day, I'm sitting here as a world champion, and it feels pretty good.
As a World Champion, it is important that you face the #1 contender. That is what makes it sport and not entertainment; otherwise, what are the girls fighting at 145 lbs. training to work towards if they know they will never be given a title shot, even if they become the best in the world?
I've been training super hard at the Lopez Taekwondo Academy in Houston, which belongs to my brother Jean. For me, I think confidence is the biggest thing; it's all mental. I train with the best of the best, including my brother Steven, a five-time world champion who won Olympic gold medals.
In 2017, I boxed in front of a home crowd in Sheffield and became the WBA super-middleweight world champion. After four attempts I had finally fulfilled my childhood dream, and the experience was as great as I had always imagined it would be. It was without doubt the best moment of my career.
Everything I do is for my parents, None of this matters without them. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be here... If it wasn't for them, if it wasn't for the structure and the backbone that I have, I wouldn't be able to mess up and keep coming back and sit in front of you as a world champion.
Vince Russo stuck up for me in WCW when it came down to who should be world champ. From what I've heard, there was a meeting, and Russo stood up for me. I would not be six-time world champion if it were not for Vince Russo. I would not even be one-time world champion if it weren't for Vince Russo.
It is true - maybe with five or seven points more, I could be five times world champion. But on the other hand, I could have zero world championships, and zero wins or zero podiums, because F1 is an extremely competitive environment. So I just take the positives, and I am happy with my achievements.
Maybe I wish I could be out there on the big occasions playing like I did at my peak, but I certainly don't miss the six and seven hours a day practice that went hand in hand with being world champion in the nineties - or losing to guys knowing that it would never have happened when I was at my best.
I didn't have to win, and winning wasn't important to me. Being world champion wasn't important to me. What was important to me was entertaining the audience, and whether that meant winning, losing, singing, or whatever it was on the live show we were doing every week, which was awesome, I was game for it.
I've been through so much damn adversity, I've had so much critiqued on me. From being the undefeated world champion to never really getting the love or the respect I feel I deserved when I was on top and then finally getting knocked down and then everybody jumping on top, trying to kick me while I was down.
I was only 24 years old when I won my first Olympia. To be that young and the world champion was a lot of pressure. When I won the 8th one, I had the record. I was on top: that was the absolute best that I ever looked onstage, the best training and prep that I had done, and I had no regrets. I knew it was time to walk away.
We have big goals at Bayern and always want to go as far as possible in each competition and win silverware. But it is great to have won the World Cup. You are a world champion for your entire life. A lof of people talk about it and it remains very special. But it's not like I think about the World Cup each morning I wake up.
I'm a professional world champion. Of course if you're a world champion, you're working harder than everybody else. You're making the commitment, and you're making the sacrifices. If it were easy, everybody would be able to do it. Everybody would be able to be world champion, but everybody can't be. Everybody doesn't have it in them.