I've wrestled my whole life.

I wanted to be champion. I know fame comes with that.

I didn't think I was much of a public speaker.

We bought a dog, and we financed it - a $1,400 dog. We had no money, so me and my wife had to put our names together with our credit just to finance a dog.

I've never had anything. I just wanted to one day live comfortable. Like, be able to go out to lunch with my friends without being like, crap, I don't know if I can afford this bill right now. I shouldn't be doing this. That's all I really wanted.

I'll never underestimate 'GSP.'

I feel like anyone at middleweight, when I have a full training camp, I'm going to go out there and finish them. That's my mentality.

There's only so much you can control when you're fighting, so the things you can control - like your fight song - are pretty important. So you want to pick that wisely.

As I got older, I lived right next next to the Long Island Railroad, so in junior high and high school I'd just jump on the train with friends and head to the city. We'd run away from the conductors, hide from them in the bathroom. It was just what you did.

Winning the middleweight title was an amazing feeling.

If you get into the habit of cutting corners, they start to add up.

I try to have the same mindset in my practices as I would for my fights.

I put a lot of pressure on myself to be the best.

There's always going to be people talking so you just have to focus everyday and be the best fighter you can be in the Octagon on the day of the fight.

I'm open-minded and never think I know everything. I actually feel like I know nothing, and that allows me to learn on a different level.

I watch something in the gym, try to do it and may not get it. When I go home that night and my wife is talking to me and I'm not answering her, it is because I'm visualizing that thing I'm working on. I'll do that all day long. Before I go to bed I'm still thinking about it, and that happens until I can see myself doing it.

It's an entertainment sport, and we go out to entertain the fans, but at the end of the day, what really matters is your influence on others.

You want to help people and make the world a better place in whatever way you can. I've tried to share the things I've learned, and for me it really is all about being a role model.

It's a very tough sport. It's a fickle sport. The fans are definitely tough. But it's also kind of motivating.

A lot of my career I'm out of the gym, I'm injured and I'm blown up.

I feel like smaller countries, other countries, they cheer, they support their people no matter what. We need to get a little bit more supportive of our people.

We have a lot of great stars and so many different things, some of the other countries don't have that. So when they get somebody, they support them to the death. America, I kind of think we take it for granted sometimes.

I've fought all these top Brazilians. They're all supporting their people, Anderson Silva, they're supporting him. Lyoto Machida, they're all supporting him. I didn't have the full support of America. Not everyone American was rooting for me because I'm from America. If they were rooting for me, it's because they were a fan of me.

I want to fight the best possible people.

I want to have the biggest challenges in front of me and conquer them. That's why I wanted to fight Anderson Silva when nobody else wanted to fight him.

I want to beat people who people think I can't beat.

I want a rematch with Mousasi more than anything.

I'm going to win the belt at middleweight and I'm going to go up to 205 and win the belt there after I dominate the middleweight division for a little bit - that will happen.

You don't want to fix things that aren't broken, so that kind of stops you from make changes.

I grew up in a decently tough neighborhood.

I grew up getting bullied and fighting a lot.

My brother was probably one of the toughest kids from my neighborhood and he didn't make it easy on me. He made sure I was getting beat up as much as possible growing up. If he wasn't beating me up, he was making his friends beat me up.

I think any type of setback you have, any tough time you've got, getting through it is what makes you who you are. It makes you a tougher person. I think whatever you've been through in your life makes you a tougher person. I'm very grateful for the background I have, every tough situation I've been through because it's made me who I am.

Coming off all my wins I had a lot of criticism.

My 'if it's not broken, don't fix it' type attitude might have held me back and made me complacent.

When you get hurt it's hard to judge when it's the right time to pull out of a fight.

I put a lot of pressure on myself.

Look at the guys I've fought. Anderson Silva. Lyoto Machida. Vitor Belfort. All those guys are much quicker than Luke Rockhold and I did just fine.

It's just an honor to be part of an apparel brand like Reebok.

I never even imagined having my own shoe.

Wrestling background, you never talk trash.

To become a world champion, to defeat Anderson Silva, to accomplish my goal in one night, it was a super surreal feeling.

Money, autographs, I had no desire to even do that. I fell in love with fighting and those types of things became attached to it.

I love competing.

When I speak and say I am the best in the world and have the capability to dominate everybody in my weight class, I really believe that.

I've kind of grew to enjoy fighting legends that I got into the sport watching and admiring.

I took my first fight in the UFC on short notice. I took my first big fight against a top-five guy on ten days notice.

People gotta realize as a fighter you want to become a champion because you get paid way more money. So the belt is very intriguing for that reason.

To win the belt from Bisping, the hardest problem for me would be to train hard for him because he stinks. I'm just kidding, he's really good... No, I'm lying.

To walk around and people ask me who the champion is in my weight class and I have to say Michael Bisping, it's a little embarrassing, but that's just the way it goes.