“My style is not like anyone’s. I’m not a typical wrestler.”

I need eight weeks, train hard, last one week make weight, and go to the war. Because when I go to the war, I have to know I am ready or no.

I want to stay humble, but I have to talk because the other guys talk too much, and I understand the crazy power the UFC PR machine has.

I don’t know about politics so much. I’m a professional athlete.

Next fight? If the UFC tell me, ‘What do you want?’ I’m going to say Tony Ferguson.

My best background is, like, smash opponents. I all the time go forward. I all the time try to take down somebody. Make him give up. This is my style, you know. This is what I do all my life.

When I fought with Michael Johnson, when I took his arm for the kimura, I can break it, but I go very slowly, be careful, because I don’t want to give him injury.

I never have a problem with the weight cut. My number one enemy is injuries because I train so hard.

I train, eat, sleep, and repeat.

They’re all fake belts. To be honest, I think real belt is Tony Ferguson’s.

I think about only me.

You have to punch hard for knockouts, and to beat me, you have to knock me out.

Of course I am tough, but I am smart, too. I’m more smart than tough. People watching my record and say that this guy is tough. This is not about tough; this is about mind. You think when you fight. This is about everything.

Where is Conor? He wanna fight with a bus. I want to fight with a real gangster. Iaquinta, thank you so much.

I don’t fight for the money. I fight for my legacy. I fight for history. I fight for my people.

I never fight for the money, but every person is different.

I don’t think about, ‘Oh, I’m finally getting my respect,’ because I don’t care about this.

I’ve always been aware that the image you patiently construct for an entire career can be ruined in a minute. It scares you a bit, but that’s the way things are.

Mercy,’ I love conceptually because I feel like you can either think about it as if it were a girl – which it sounds like it could be about a girl – but I like to picture it as ‘pleading for mercy for my career’ type of thing.

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.

You rarely come across the complete footballer, but Scholes is as close to it as you can get. One of my regrets is that the opportunity to play alongside him never presented itself during my career.

You can’t make somebody understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it.

I wanted to be an actor, like, so, so bad. I took acting classes, I auditioned for Disney, and then I realized how nervous I got with remembering lines.

One of my big, big strengths I think early on in my career was that I could learn very quickly. You wouldn’t have to tell me the things 10 times or 50 times until I would understand them. You would only have to tell me two or three times.

If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.