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.
A.J. Styles
That's my main goal: to win a world championship.
Aaron Donald
Having different people come together and be on a team and win a world championship is literally, I think, the definition of being American.
Abby Wambach
The minute you step off that podium is the minute you start preparing for the next world championship. That's kind of how I work. You celebrate for a brief moment, then you move on.
When you look back at the former Ring of Honor world champions, whether it be Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Samoa Joe, Nigel McGuiness, the list goes on and on. These are the guys that built the lineage and importance of the Ring of Honor world championship.
Adam Cole
The first time I won the Ring of Honor World Championship, I was a kid - I was 23 years old.
There's no better way to start a year than to become the first-ever three-time ROH World Champion.
Being the first-ever three-time ROH world champion is pretty surreal.
I was very proud after winning the World Championship the first time, so to win it three times, and consecutively, would be great.
Adrian Lewis
I think that winning a third World Championship would really take me up to another level in the sport.
The worst I encountered was Peter Manley talking behind me as I threw during our world championship quarter-final back in 2006.
It was very hard when the newspapers were chasing me. It was also very weird. I know I'd just become world champion but shouldn't they be following someone who has done something wrong?
I'm two times world champion, I've got nothing to prove to anybody.
Everybody gets a bit tired now and then but that's what being a world champion is all about. You just deal with it.
One World Championship is not enough. Probably eight is not enough. I've set a target of 10 and I'd like between eight and 10.
I always wanted to be a world champion, all my life. At 13, I told my mom I would be a world champion.
Adrien Broner
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 a huge deal to have the chance to be a four-division world champion at 26 years old.
At the end of the day I'm still a four-time world champion at four different weight classes and I'll still be in the history books.
Listen, you can't just come in to boxing and be a world champion. You've got to be born with it.
At six years old, I told my dad that I would be world champion, and on Nov. 26, 2011, I am.
I'm a four-time world champion, so I don't want to hear anything about my losses.
If somebody ask me to do something for my country, I will. If there's a world championship, I go.
I have been waiting to win a world championship since 1985. I've had three cracks at a world title - in karting, I finished third at Le Mans; that hurt because it was very close, but then in Formula One there wasn't really an opportunity to finally crack it, so it's third time lucky.
If I would have listened to other people back in 2000 telling me I should have stopped playing basketball because of a kidney disease, I wouldn't have won a world championship.
I know people didn't think I'd become a world champion - even people probably in my own camp, my own team, didn't think I'd become a world champion this quickly.
Of course I will turn professional at some stage. Then I want to be a world champion and finish up a legend and be out of the sport by the time I am 27.
I was world champion. For me, chess is my life. It is everything.
I have won Russia at least 16 world championships. I have fought for my country.
We need strong personalities and only one world champion to attract sponsors.
If, in our first match for the world champion's title, I had managed to make the score 6-0, there would have been no Kasparov as a good chess player at all.
I'm a five-time world champion in two different weight classes. Man, it's amazing.
I started chess around the age of seven. I was inspired by the game, but soon legends like Kasparov, Karpov, Fischer, Anand and many other world champions captivated me.
For the moment, I am more focused on classical chess rather than rapid and blitz, as I am hoping to make my move in the classical World championship cycle.
People never believe it when they find out I'm a karate world champion. They don't see me as the type because I'm small and blonde.
I don't want to become world champion and lose it immediately. I want to become world champion, take over the division and take it from there.
Mayweather has been hit the least out of every world champion in history and that is the art of the sport; to hit and not get hit.
When I told people my plan was to knock everyone out in the amateurs and become world champion as quickly as I could as a professional, a lot of people said it was impossible.
My only drive was to be the best dancer in the world, but I never won the world championship.
I don't get grumpy at a 'Strictly' level, you understand. We're just making a television show - the person I'm dancing with can't dance; they're doing their best, and we're not going to win the World Championships.
I've won a world championship, I know how that feels. I don't know how it feels to win a gold medal. I want to feel that; I want to know that.
A guy like AJ Styles is obviously a great talent and he's going to go out there and put on a performance that's befitting of a man who is the World Champion.
I could be a world champion.
Jiu jitsu is a great art for self-defense. But jiu jitsu alone won't get you to a world championship in the UFC or even a winning record sometimes.
My greatest moment in my whole career is when I became the first non-Brazilian to win the Brazilian jiu-jitsu world championship. That was my greatest moment.
They were ridiculous times. After I won my world championship in 1976, I went to Japan.
I vowed I would do everything I could to stop the Isle of Man counting towards the world championship. And it was stopped, so they love me in the Isle of Man.
In wrestling, if you want to be the best wrestler, you show up at the U.S. Nationals. If you win that, you go to World Team Trials. You make the World Team, you go to the World Championships, and we all know who the best is at the end of the year.
If I'm able to win the world championships when I'm not even at my best, then with another year until Rio, maybe I could even become Olympic champion.
The World Championship gold was a surprise and took a lot of pressure off in terms of qualifying for Rio, but I still need more points, and winning in Manchester would be massive for me.
