Everybody has their own path. Everybody peaks at different times.
Dustin Poirier
I feel like I've always been a great fighter but I'm learning the patience part of it and not getting overwhelmed with emotion and adrenaline and going out there and brawling like a maniac.
I've been the underdog my whole life.
My father was a fighter. My grandfather was a fighter. It's just in my blood.
Win or lose or draw, you always go back and critique your performance and say you could have done things better. Even if I put the guy away in one round, I can go back and say I made a lot of mistakes and need to tighten up. But that's the type of person I am. Improve. Improve. Improve. When I lose I come back stronger than ever.
My whole career, the ups, the downs, the victories, the defeats, the lessons I've learned and kept rolling, that's what's made me the fighter I am today.
Adversity teaches a man a lot about himself.
I'm familiar with adversity.
I feel like I can submit Khabib, but feel like I'm going to stop him. I don't know how it's going to happen, but I'm either going to knock him out or I'm going to submit him. I'm going to finish Khabib Nurmagomedov.
I'm not a quitter, man. Just look at my history.
No matter where I came from, I'm a fighter.
Every fight, every camp I learn about myself and I get better. But every fight I get better.
Destiny doesn't make mistakes.
I'm chasing gold. And whatever fight can get me closer to being a world champion, those are the fights that I want.
Of course, every time I get beat out there, I want to avenge those losses. I'm sure every fighter does.
Years and years ago, like in 2006, my wife, I didn't have a car, she would drive me to weigh-ins, we would sleep in broken-down motels and I would fight the next day. Just me and her.
Those deep, dog fights - I love that. That's why I fight.
My goal and path is always to get to the mountaintop and be a world champion, and leave a fighting legacy.
I try to work on the small things.
This is a business. I'm a professional athlete. This isn't, 'poke somebody and start a street fight.'
They had to re-shape the head of my femur back round. They had to trim my hip socket up a little bit. I had a lot of extra bone growth just from years of stressing it out. Because of that bone growth, it caused an impingement in my hip, which tore my labrum off the bone.
All weight cuts are hard.
I want the title. But these hands are working hands, and sometimes you've got to get them dirty.
I'm a complete fighter and I'm not scared, I'm very willing to use every part of the game to get the win by any means necessary.
When your body quits on you, it doesn't matter how mentally tough you are.
I want to fight the fights that fans want to see.
Grit, determination, the right amount of crazy, self belief - everything it takes to be a champion. I have that.
When I'm in south Florida I'm training, resting, training. I'm working on my craft out here, very tediously. That's what I come out here for.
Any time Nate Diaz fights, I'm tuning in, I promise you.
I feel like everybody's who fighting, young fighters and still learning and growing, that should be their goal - to be the UFC world champion.
If you move in and out, throw shots and use angles and the guy's feet are planted, you look a lot better.
I'm proud of everything I accomplished in this sport.
Seven years is a long time, and seven years of fighting the best guys in the best organization in the world, the biggest organization in the world, it hardens you. You don't stay seven years without evolving. It doesn't happen.
Every fight is like a different landscape of what you go through. But sometimes it's small injuries. Sometimes it's lessons you walk away with. Every fight is different but they all hurt, for sure.
I probably should have been fighting at 155 for a long time, but I was so close to the top at 145.
I think a lot of fighters are cutting way too much weight.
Normal pain is no problem, that just comes with the job.
That grit of fighting is addictive, I'm scared of it. It's a very weird thing.
It's not hard to look great against a guy who isn't moving a lot.
I come from south Louisiana where everyone has a blue-collar work ethic.
I've just been in a lot of big fights, and I've been in some good spots and some bad spots.
It's MMA. Anything can happen. Nothing's for sure.
Fighting comes down to who you are as a person. With B.J. Penn, he has no problems, not a hard upbringing and came up with money or whatever and he's just a fighter, he enjoys the fight and he refined his skills so I don't think it necessarily has to be a rough upbringing for guys to be great fighters.
My dream is to be the best fighter at 155 pounds in the world.
Yeah I do think featherweight is done for me. It sucks because I worked hard and fought a lot of hard fights and did a lot of things right to move up the rankings and I have to abandon all that moving to 155 starting fresh.
I don't talk bad about people who I roll with.
There's always the pressure to win. That never goes away, but being a main event, I want to go out there and put on a great show for the fans and live up to being a main event. That doesn't really stress me out or pressure me anymore. The fight is enough.
You can't just be only going to the gym when you sign a fight contract or you'll just be the same fighter every time, just more experienced.
I'm not fighting just to fight. I'm fighting to be the world champ.
Cutting to featherweight took months of intense weight cutting and training. Going to lightweight, I can fight more often.
