My first ten fights or so it was like that. I was just so scared. You can see if you go back and watch them that there are moments where I just stop and look around, like, what's going on here? I was so scared for all those fights.
The Hendricks/Lawler fights, those were just epic. Both were non-stop. I couldn't stop watching, and it was hard to look away. I watch those as a fan, and to see two guys fighting like that for 25 minutes is crazy.
Every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching
men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared.
I just want fights like that. Fights that get me excited. Fights that are going to be exciting.
I have a lot of mental issues that I just am so fearful of things, which I shouldn't be, right? Scared of heights. Scared of buildings falling on me. Scared of the dark. Scared of crowds. Those are my biggest issues. I'm just scared of people. It's just - in general.
I don't watch every fight; I am not huge on watching fights on TV. Because I did it my whole life. But I do watch the big fights. I follow the little fights too, sometimes; I just don't have to watch every single fight that happens.
I don't watch a lot of featherweight fights yet some of those fights are the best fights ever.
The thing is, I'm never scared. It's just in the blood, really. My family come from a warrior clan background, the Rajput tribe from the Punjab, and that could be one of the reasons. Going into fights just seems normal to me.
I think a lot of people miss what I've done in the MMA world. How I was able to market and control the industry so that people wanted to watch my fights. If you look at the fights I've been involved in - in the SEG UFC, in Japan, for Zuffa and today, they have been fights that have turned companies around.
Not everyone is going to love you. Not everyone is going to like what you do, and you see a lot of people don't want to let go of the bands that they love. They don't want to move forward. They don't want to let new things come in; they're scared of change. They're scared of new bands taking over their genre. They're just scared of change.
If you look at my fights, you see I finish a lot. It's just how I like to go and I'm always looking for a way to end it.
I like movies that work on two levels - like The Simpsons, kids can watch it and adults can watch it. Teenagers can watch Hostel and if they want to see a blood and guts violent movie they're going to have a great time. They're going to scream and yell, it's a great date movie because they're going to squeeze their date and their date is probably going to be too scared to go home... so you take them home and put on Dirty Dancing and everybody wins.
I'm never scared, so I don't watch horror movies. Back in the day, I was. I was scared of 'It' - you know, the one with the clown. That's the thing I found scariest in my life, but since then, not really - I don't watch them.
Hopefully in 2011 the fans will get to see some fights that they want to see. Manny Pacquiao Vs. Floyd Mayweather needs to happen, and so does David Haye Vs. Wladimir Klitschko. The fans deserve to see fights that they want to see and not just the fights that the promoters want to see.
I didn't have any idea of what I was getting into by going away to college. And I was scared. I was scared of failing. I was scared of it not being for me because I was going to be one of the first people in my family to go off to college.
I look at a lot of my fights and I'm like, 'man, that was too greedy.' I can even look back on my fights, even the good ones where I got the knockouts, and think, 'I should have probably toned it down a little bit.'
If you look back at my fights, if you pick three or four fights in a row, it's possible if you watch my style I'm fighting a different type of style every single fight.