Even the losers get lucky sometimes. Even the losers keep a little bit of pride. They get lucky sometimes.
I made promises to myself and my family that I'd be in the UFC before my first daughter was born, that didn't happen. I was almost at breaking point a week before I got that contract, I was going to go back to concreting - that weekend I get my major sponsor, which was huge, and I end up getting my UFC contract the weekend after that.
I feel for the guys in UFC who helped open the UFC up. Obviously, I'm getting blackballed there by the UFC, so I'm kind of feeling on both sides. If a promotion or somebody in that promotion decides they don't like an individual, then they get to make up the rules, and the fans don't get a say in it at all.
Rampage Jackson came to the UFC with a brain. He came to the UFC with a huge following from being in Asia with Pride. He was a personality before he came to the UFC. You don't see them putting marketing money behind him to blow him up.
Before I got in the UFC, I wrote down on a piece of paper a goal that I was going to make it to the UFC in 2015 and then I'll be the world champion before 2017 so I'm right on track. I pull out that piece of paper all the time and look at it. It's motivation.
Even the losers get lucky sometimes!
Anyone in the UFC, that should be your goal, to get the UFC belt and to fight for that title.
Every company that wants to sponsor a fighter in the UFC has to pay a sponsor tax to get inside the Octagon, and that's why many fighters in the UFC struggle to get sponsors. In Bellator, we don't have that.
Having the letters UFC behind my name is not the be-all, end-all it is for someone. Some people think once they get into the UFC, that's it.
I'm just tired of the unethical people, the scumbags, all that. Maybe that's how all businesses are run, but in MMA, I've been in the UFC, Legacy, and Bellator. The UFC was the best, and even they didn't treat you that well.
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.
Even though the UFC is millionaire, trillionaire, we have to live our reality. Unfortunately, the UFC makes all that, we don't. But I'm happy with my job, happy with my salary.
The culture war is between the winners and those who think they're losers who want to become winners. The losers think the only way they can become winners is by banding together all the losers and them empowering a leader of the losers to make things right for them.
I'd love to get that Mayweather fight. Not even for the money, just for the fact of proving us UFC fighters got what it takes to get in that ring.
I'm just really not even that huge of a UFC fan. If you go on my Instagram or Twitter, you will notice ... people that I've actually met and hung out with, you know, I'm not like a huge UFC guy.
I always wanted to become a student of the game and at least get six to eight fights before coming to the UFC.