To stay in the UFC while fighting top opponents... tell me one easy fight I had in the UFC. I have a history in the UFC.
I don't want to be one of those guys who says, 'No, I won't fight that guy' or 'I won't fight the guy there; I need to fight him here,' or that sort of stuff. The UFC says, 'This is who you're fighting next,' and I say, 'Cool. Let's do it.'
Give Tony Ferguson a title fight. He needs it!
Standing and playing next to Tony Williams was pretty amazing. One of the things I learned about being a band leader from Tony was that he would never, ever tell me what to play or do.
I remember talking to Alex Ferguson about Tony [Blair] and Gordon [Brown], and he said: "Why doesn't Tony just get rid of him?" But if you sack someone in football, they can't turn up to training the next day. In politics they're still on the pitch. Gordon would still have been a big player.
I signed a contract to fight at UFC 187, so I'm going to fight at UFC 187, whoever it is against. It's the same thing.
If you're going to make as much money as you are, when you're fighting someone else, that's the one thing I always tell people is I would never turn down the truly rightful No. 1 contender in my division, because the UFC can actually strip you. They can say, 'You're not going to fight the No. 1 contender. We can strip you.'
Bellator offered me a job. UFC never offered me an opportunity to fight. There's no question that UFC is the top. It's a machine. A lot of people, including myself, have helped build the UFC to where it is today.
I don't want to fight in UFC just because I was a champion in UFC. I'm gonna have to earn it. It's gonna have to be how I fight.
Really, it was either fight in the UFC or fight in the WWE. There wasn't the option of both. That was a key factor. What am I going to do? I didn't want to juggle two careers anyway.
You can say what you want about the Stephen Thompson fight, but you cannot disregard that me and Stephen went five rounds in a technical fight. Apparently, he's one of the best strikers in the UFC, Stephen Thompson.
In the UFC, you are only as good as your last fight. It's really a fight-by-fight type of career in the UFC.
In MMA you have to take one fight at a time but I want BJ Penn. The fans want to see it and, while I'll fight whoever the UFC tells me to, I want a shot at BJ.
Whoever has lost a fight in the UFC and hasn't wanted to fight that guy the next day shouldn't be in the sport.
After the Ronda fight, I wasn't sure what the UFC held for me. I think coming out of that fight, I didn't know if losing that fight meant that I could get cut because I knew the rumors at the time was how easily fighters could get cut from the UFC.
The UFC wants me to fight. The people want me to fight. I don't want me to fight.