We are all fighters, every single person who walks this earth is a fighter, everything that lives. To live is to fight. And we just fight in different arenas.
You never know yourself until the chips are down. True strength is not measured when your at your strongest, but when you’re at your weakest.
All the trials and tribulations have paid off. In life, you have setbacks...When you're in your valley, that's when you're tested the most -not when you're at your peak.
It's about feeling alive in the moment because your adrenaline is going, your thinking about that present moment, you're not somewhere else, you're not thinking about what's going to happen 10 minutes from now, and that's the reason why I love fighting, it's when I'm in there. I feel free, I feel like there's no other place I want t be. I can't even think of anything beyond that second. That's why I'm drawn to the fight, because I love the presence of it, where it brings me mentally, it's the purest thing for me.
My mother is my hero just because, what life becomes about is overcoming adversity, and I watched her overcome so many things in life but still able to smile. See it's one thing to overcome adversity and to be scarred and to carry that with you but when you have somebody overcomes adversity and they're still able to smile that's something else. That's true strength.
To live is to fight. We just fight in different arenas.
I am a student of whoever I can learn from. I don't see myself in position like I'm above anybody else and I can never learn, or no one can ever teach me anything. You learn a lot from guys who are just starting off sometimes.
To me, to live is to fight. It's about persevering. It's about testing yourself. It's about not becoming complacent.
My main job is to go and have fun. When I do that, everything just seems to fall into place.
I am a student of whoever I can learn from.
Before a fight I'm always afraid... before I used to have a hard time just dealing with it because I would try to run away from it, but then as I competed more I understood the fact that this is how I'm supposed to feel.
I don't fight to prove that I'm tough, I know I'm tough. I fight because it's inside of me.
Life is a celebration… I try to enjoy it as much as possible.
A lot of people are lazy when it comes to making up their own mind about something, you know? If you're labelled one way then they think thats how you are. It takes too much time to really look into things.
If I go as hard as I can in practice, make sure it's a lot harder than than a fight, then the fight's going to be easy.
Being a great fighter is having a perfect balance of having that toughness, skill, as well as that mental capability to be able to out-think you opponent.
I'm a UFC fighter, a macho-type sport. I am a heterosexual guy in a tough macho sport, which is exactly the reason I feel a duty to say I support gay marriage and gay rights. I have nothing to gain personally from supporting this issue, and that's the point. Society as a whole is better when there is equality, and I want to live in a country where everyone has the same rights because we all benefit from that.
As an athlete you have to be coachable. And being coachable is a humbling thing.
One day these will just be memories that I haveso I try to enjoy it as much as possible
