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.
The only reason I want to climb up the rankings – beating the champion and beating guys in the top five – those are the guys that get the endorsements and get the most money and get paid the most. That’s the only reason why.
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’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.
I’ve been in that situation three or four times before where I’m losing the fight – the fight seems almost over with – and I knew I had to finish him and stop playing possum as much.
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.
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.
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.
