I'm proud of everything I accomplished in this sport.

I probably should have been fighting at 155 for a long time, but I was so close to the top at 145.

Cutting to featherweight took months of intense weight cutting and training. Going to lightweight, I can fight more often.

Yeah I do think featherweight is done for me. It sucks because I worked hard and fought a lot of hard fights and did a lot of things right to move up the rankings and I have to abandon all that moving to 155 starting fresh.

I think a lot of fighters are cutting way too much weight.

Every fight is like a different landscape of what you go through. But sometimes it's small injuries. Sometimes it's lessons you walk away with. Every fight is different but they all hurt, for sure.

I come from south Louisiana where everyone has a blue-collar work ethic.

People I grew up with, my family, work in the oil fields. Everyone works a labor job - construction, concrete. All we know is work. It's a physical culture.

It's not hard to look great against a guy who isn't moving a lot.

I knew I had the ability to become a world champion, I knew I did. I knew I just needed the opportunity.

Grit, determination, the right amount of crazy, self belief - everything it takes to be a champion. I have that.

Fighting, you have to be selfish.

My goal and path is always to get to the mountaintop and be a world champion, and leave a fighting legacy.

Winning solves everything.

I feel like everybody's who fighting, young fighters and still learning and growing, that should be their goal - to be the UFC world champion.

This sport is a crazy thing, and what happens, it's unpredictable.

Now I'm with the American Top Team, I'm a better fighter, I'm a more patient fighter, I've improved in every aspect.

I want to fight for the real belt, not the interim title.

If a champ has to take a long layoff then I think that's the only time interim titles should be introduced to the division.

The cut made me hate the process of getting ready for a fight. I was focused on how to make weight instead of how to beat my opponent.

I want to fight the fights that fans want to see.

I'm not really chasing rematches.

I'm a complete fighter and I'm not scared, I'm very willing to use every part of the game to get the win by any means necessary.

Of course every fighter, whether they admit it or not, they have aches and pains and they go into fights hurt.

If you're training for a fight, you're going to be pretty much, there's going to be days where you're hurting.

Normal pain is no problem, that just comes with the job.

I've just been in a lot of big fights, and I've been in some good spots and some bad spots.

The way I feel, I'm the best in the world.

I think I fought my first fight in Zuffa in 2010.

I'm the kind of guy that grows, and that's what I do everyday in the gym. Work on new stuff and stay relevant.

When I'm in south Florida I'm training, resting, training. I'm working on my craft out here, very tediously. That's what I come out here for.

I'm not a matchmaker, I don't know the logic behind the decisions they make.

I've said it before, I'm not a matchmaker, I don't call the shots. I just prepare and fight the guys after I sign the contract.

Seven years is a long time, and seven years of fighting the best guys in the best organization in the world, the biggest organization in the world, it hardens you. You don't stay seven years without evolving. It doesn't happen.

That grit of fighting is addictive, I'm scared of it. It's a very weird thing.

My dream is to be the best fighter at 155 pounds in the world.

Fighting is what I do.

My father was a fighter. My grandfather was a fighter. It's just in my blood.

My whole career, the ups, the downs, the victories, the defeats, the lessons I've learned and kept rolling, that's what's made me the fighter I am today.

Any time Nate Diaz fights, I'm tuning in, I promise you.

I want to fight guys I'm excited to watch fight.

I'm not a small guy.

All weight cuts are hard.

Destiny doesn't make mistakes.

The champs are the guys who can do it the best, to lock it in for 25 minutes and do what they plan to do.

I have a pretty high fight IQ.

Just because I haven't fought wrestlers doesn't mean I'm not wrestling in every camp.

I'm not a frontrunner. I'm a complete fighter.

They had to re-shape the head of my femur back round. They had to trim my hip socket up a little bit. I had a lot of extra bone growth just from years of stressing it out. Because of that bone growth, it caused an impingement in my hip, which tore my labrum off the bone.

I just want fights like that. Fights that get me excited. Fights that are going to be exciting.