My junior and senior year in college is when I first realized what MMA is and really started liking it. I went the other route - I went into the entertainment field and started wrestling professionally, and I did that for about 11 years.
In my first fight, I acknowledged it. I'm a professional wrestler, this is who I am, who you know me as. But guess what, I've also been wrestling since I was 5 years old - real wrestling - amateur wrestling, Olympic wrestling.
When I started wrestling, I sucked. I hated losing, so I started doing pushups and more squats, and then I did summer wrestling and learned different styles.
I've been wrestling since I was 18 years old. And within the first five months of my wrestling career, I'd already had three concussions. And for years after that, I would get a concussion here and there, and it gets to the point that when you've been wrestling for 16 years, that adds up to a lot of concussions.
I thought the Rousey match was the best major league debut in the history of wrestling. They did the right thing at the right time at the right pace and took people on a roller coaster ride. That, to me, was a pro wrestling match. I couldn't find fault with it, except I wish that Ronda had come out with her game face on when she did her entrance.
I started full-time training when I was 10, signed professionally when I was 14, and won my first match at the same age.
I used to be weak - as did all British fighters - with wrestling, because we don't have high school wrestling or college wrestling here.
I'll be honest, when I first started pro wrestling, everybody else did clotheslines better than me. They did everything about pro wrestling better than me. But when it comes to fighting, getting nitty and gritty, I'm the man.
Wrestling can be anything... There's some forms of wrestling that I'm not too big a fan of, but I'm not going to say it's not wrestling because it is wrestling.
I always said to myself when I first started wrestling that I was gonna put absolutely everything into it - into becoming the absolute best pro wrestling that I could be.
When I was Cedrick Von Haussen, the champion of Liechtenstein, I was only 18 years old. I was super, duper young. I started traveling around for wrestling when I was 16, so I had only been wrestling a few years at that point.
I feel like I started with wrestling, and a love of pro wrestling, that lead me to MMA and the UFC. And now it's come full circle back to pro wrestling.
My family has been in the wrestling business for over 70 years. I'm a third-generation wrestling promoter, and years ago, when I fist started, there was a wrestling audience in the United States in 22 regions.
I started wrestling when I was five. I lost my first match and cried in front of my dad, and I never wanted to do that again.
Starting at 16 in Australia at Riot City Wrestling, I learned a lot about myself and wrestling in general.
I did high school wrestling. I was first in the state of Florida and ninth in the nation in folkstyle. Freestyle and folkstyle wrestling I did for years.