All of my fights, especially all of my UFC fights my whole career, I’ve never been in there without any kind of impingement and pain wrong with my back.
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.
That’s what really gets me going, thinking about my past. I think about all the tough times and bad times I’ve had in my life and I bring all that into the Octagon. That’s only because it’s hard going in there trying to fight someone who didn’t do anything to you.
My heart outweighs all the talent. If they’ve got more talent, I believe that my heart will still overcome that. You’ve got to have heart to step inside the octagon anyway.
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.
