People are stubborn, and sometimes even if change is good, people will always oppose change.
Ben Askren
When someone decides to come into the UFC, and they don't have a combat sports background, you're kind of thinking, 'Does he really understand what he's getting into?'
I don't care about having a fancy car. I don't have a lot of the wants and needs that a lot of people have where I would need to make a $1 million a fight.
Colby Covington has a very low IQ. He says a lot of stupid things, and it's almost embarrassing that he represents our country that way.
I try to wrestle one time a week with good, solid people.
I have a great relationship with the whole Missouri athletic department. I made friends with everyone from the administrators to the janitors and everyone in between.
If you're competing right, if you're doing it right, competition should be a very selfish pursuit.
I've got more skills in my pinky finger than half the damn guys in the UFC.
A Division I college wrestling team has so many guys at such a high level it'd be like having every single guy in the gym being a top 10 UFC guy, and that's who you're competing against every single day. Most everyone has been wrestling since they were 5 years old. It's been their dream to wrestle in college. There's such a high level of intensity.
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.
Some people, they don't get a few takedowns, they start getting nervous, and they fade. That's just not in my character.
When I came through the ranks in wrestling - in high school and college - those systems have been in place for 100 years, and they're fairly standard training across the board for all the colleges.
I have nothing against Bellator at all.
I'm not hugely monetarily motivated.
When you're competing, you need to be selfish. You need to think of yourself first.
Some people who come from high levels in other backgrounds where they're used to being the best or used to being on a kind of pedestal, it's hard to kind of lower yourself again and just be one of the grunts. I kind of enjoyed that challenge in MMA.
I'm open to any welterweight on Planet Earth.
Nate Diaz sucks.
If I want a kid to be good at a front headlock - which, if you're gonna wrestle at a high level, you need a good front headlock - I'm gonna put him in there 50 times in that practice.
Andrey Koreshkov is not well-rounded. He's been taken down and mounted and has his back taken by Lyman Good, which tells me he's a terrible grappler. He isn't well rounded. He's a good striker, but that's it.
It's just funny because I think a long time back I was not a fan favorite at all, and now people have followed my journey, have seen the struggle and the perseverance I've had, and they can relate to that.
My two things I always said is, No. 1, I'd be retired by the time I had my first kid, and No. 2, I'd be retired by the time I was 30.
Young guys kind of have this chip on their shoulder of, 'I want to prove something,' right? 'I've got to prove how tough I am. I've got to prove how good I am.' And man, now as I'm getting older, I think it's almost sad when guys my age and older still have that chip on their shoulder.
Obviously, in a sport like golf, we see Tiger Woods fall off. There's not really too much damage he can take from that, although when you watch him and he sucks, and you're like, 'God, you used to be so good but you suck now,' it's disconcerting as a fan.
Dana White's a scumbag. I don't take anything he says with any value.
I don't hold grudges.
There's more to life than fighting.
Having the letters UFC behind my name is not the be-all, end-all it is for someone. Some people think once they get into the UFC, that's it.
There are conferences every year where all the major coaches get together, and they talk about the issues in wrestling, what's going to happen. There's a major governing body, U.S.A. Wrestling, which oversees a lot of the issues. The organization is there in wrestling to make a very well-balanced, organized system.
There's no honor in faking an injury. There is no integrity, because you are lying about it.
I don't care if you're an Asian fan or an American fan: I'm happy to perform.
I have a really hard time with people telling me what to do.
As long as I'm speaking the truth, I'm going to be OK with what I'm saying. That's kind of how I've lived my whole life.
I don't like Jay Hieron very much. He just bothers me, the way he talks, and he thinks very highly of himself.
One of my best qualities is my persistence.
In MMA, all of these coaches are doing their best.
I don't think I could ever make 155. I made 163 for the Olympics, and that is a super low weight for me. I'm a fairly big person, and for me to make 163 was incredibly difficult.
I trained with Jorge Masvidal when I've been training MMA for 2-1/2 months in Coconut Creek, Fla., in, like, December 2008. I was beating him up then!
If you think about who retires during their prime, the number of athletes who do that is very small.
While it may not have been the flashiest or the most creative, I brought a very unique skill set, and I executed in a fashion that very few have done before me and, I think, very few will do after me.
If I'm coaching at my academy, and we were drilling the front headlock, we don't just say, 'OK, now go five-minute goes,' because how many tries are they gonna get at going at the front headlock position?
I'm not willing to compromise my goals for monetary value.
In college wrestling, you see a lot of talented athletes come in and fail because Division I class wrestling is the pinnacle of wrestling in America.
The worst 24- to 36-hour period of my whole camp, the part I like the least, is the part where I've gotta cut 13 to 15 pounds of water weight.
Obviously, everyone knows it is hard to hang it up, but I'm definitely going to try and do it the right way and not like how combat athletes have done and hold on too long for every last fleeting moment. I don't want to be one of those people.
I'm not really a soccer fan. I understand they have skill and all that running up and down the pitch and what not.
You need to take care of yourself first, and you can't think of others quite as much if you want to be a successful competitor.
Wrestling is a worldwide sport. It's totally international.
Colby Covington is an idiot. He is so stupid.
I'm more of a purist competitor, and I enjoy the fighting aspect of it, but people enjoy my personality, and they enjoy that I tell the truth.
