The roar of the crowd when you come out for a final is like nothing else: when 15,000 people are cheering you, a lot of adrenaline goes right through you.
I've come to the conclusion that athletes, when they say they miss the crowd, are not missing the sound of the crowd. What they're missing is the feeling inside that makes the crowd roar. It's not the roar of the crowd, it's the silence inside.
When you're walking out to the cage and fighting a guy like Vitor Belfort and you've got the crowd going crazy, most people would lose the fight right there and then. Since I've fought in a crowd that crazy and wild, I feel that nothing else is going to be like that.
When you're out there in the octagon and you've got thousands of people, millions across the world, either cheering for you to win or cheering for you to get knocked out, the adrenaline is going, so it doesn't hurt while you're out there. Now fast forward to about an hour and a half to two hours after the fight? Oh yes. It's pretty painful.
The adrenaline is like nothing else. You might be tired or whatever else, but when you get on that stage and see people reacting there's nothing like it. It's a bit god-like - that feeling that nothing can feel better.
I like to go out there and be organic and improvise off the energy I feel from the crowd, whether it's 50,000 or 20,000 or 10,000 people in the audience.
When the response to comedy becomes cheering instead of laughing, that is so irritating. It's the worst. Here's what cheering is: "Look at me!" That's what cheering is. Cheering is not "Hey, I agree with what you're saying"; cheering is "I'm liking this more than anybody else!"
I love hitting the ball, controlling the ball. And yeah, even the roar of the crowd. I enjoy the roar of the crowd probably less than some players and more than some. But I'm not out here to be a celebrity.
The adrenaline of performing on stage to a crowd - there's nothing like it.
We'll go out and we'll be playing in front of 15,000 people and say, 'Hey, we're going to do three new songs from something we just recorded' and 5,000 people get up and go get a hot dog and a beer and they don't come back until they hear the opening strings of 'The Joker' or 'Fly Like an Eagle.'
I don't just like to use punchlines anymore, especially in arenas. They freak me out. There is nothing worse than 15,000 people waiting for a punchline.
The roar of 93,000 people was just... I had nothing to compare that to.
It's a lot of fun coming out for a practice round and having the crowd behind you and cheering you on (a few) days before the event.
For every athlete, the roar of the crowd goes away, and we have to learn how to turn the page.
We teach them to take their patriotism at second-hand; to shout with the largest crowd without examining into the right or wrong of the matter -- exactly as boys under monarchies are taught and have always been taught. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place -- the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else's keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan.
The closer I get to retirement, the more I feel it will be a huge change, a shock, because athletics has been the core of my whole life. I know I'll miss the feeling of running fast, the adrenaline rush, and hearing the crowd cheering me on.
I like to listen to the crowd, I really do. The crowd helps give me that extra boost of adrenaline.