You have 20 fights, you should know what it takes to get yourself ready. If you don’t feel like you’re ready, you let your coach know ‘hey we need to work on a little bit more of this.’
It’s like I say all the time, it’s the heavyweight division. It doesn’t matter if the guys a black belt or if he’s a world-class boxer. We still have a 50-50 chance.
I wanted to start in boxing, but you have to train a little harder to be a boxer. A lot of those guys can take punches. MMA, you only have to hit someone so hard to knock them out.
A lot of people said I would never make it, and this and that, I’d never be a top 10 fighter, that I’d never fight for a title. Just stuff like that. Achieving all those goals and being the person that I am, this is going against everything everyone said I couldn’t do.
I look at all my opponents, and they could be something else. They could go out and get a normal, regular job. I look at myself and I can’t do that. I have a strike on my back. I can’t have a normal job. So, I’ve got to fight for everything I’ve got.
If I’m the champion, the whole UFC division should be ashamed of themselves for a guy that had no damn skills being the champion. They should all just go relocate somewhere.
It would be cool to let people know that it doesn’t matter what kind of background you have in your past, that you can still make something out of your life.
It’s all the stuff I’ve been through in my life. From family struggles, people doubting me, things I went through as a child and going to prison, they all played a factor in who I am today. It really made me a better person. Going through those situations can make or break you as a human being.
