Being the undisputed world champion is a relief. We instituted a unified chess title, I am the absolute world champion.
This fight means the world to me. It's what I've been dreaming about since I was 10 years old to win a world title. I'm going in their with nothing less than a victory. I think it's safe to say the fight is not going the distance and it's going to be a fight of the year candidate. He's going to come to fight, I'm coming to fight and I plan on leaving September 8th as the new world champion
... in itself the title of world champion does not give any significicant advantages, if it is not acknowledged by the entire chess world, and a champion who does not have the chess world behind him is, in my view, a laughing-stock.
That's my aim. To fight for a world title and become a world champion.
You can win a world title now ranked as seven, eight or nine in the world, and say you are a champion, because you have a version of it.
When I was about 12, I realised I wasn't going to make it as a top footballer, but I won my first British ABA title at 13. From then on, I wanted to be a world champion.
I've been laughing with my brothers about it. Paul and Stephen both won the British title before me, but I'm going to be the first world champion in the family.
I was world's champion in every aspect of the life. Whether it was sitting in a steak house eating a steak or getting onto the edge of the ring with two or three people standing there, it was all the same to me. I was world's champion, and for that reason, I was world's champion.
When the natural gas industry was knocking on my door, they were knocking on the door of millions of people. And that became something that Americans really needed to focus on.
I turned pro as a 20-year-old, won a world title a year later, and remained a world champion ever since.
I set out in the beginning to be the heavyweight champion of the world. From a very young age, I was going to be the heavyweight champion of the world. Nothing else was a problem to me. That's what I'll finish doing.
Everything in the business is based around the idea of a World Championship. WWE, World Heavyweight Championship, Universal Title, the ROH Title, or the IWGP Title - they are all World Championships. The best of the best.
Whether it's the NXT title or the United States title or the Intercontinental title or the World title, if I have that title, then that's the most important one.
I don't have an issue with what you do in the church but I'm going to be up in your face if you're going to knock on my science classroom and tell me I got to teach what you're teaching in your Sunday school. That's when we're going to fight... There's no tradition of scientists knocking down the Sunday school door, telling the preacher 'that might not necessarily be true.' That's never happened. There are no scientists picketing out front of churches. There's been this coexistence forever, so to have religious communities knocking down the science door, there's something wrong there.
I feel that when you are a world champion, your title has to be taken away from you.
As a World Champion, it is important that you face the #1 contender. That is what makes it sport and not entertainment; otherwise, what are the girls fighting at 145 lbs. training to work towards if they know they will never be given a title shot, even if they become the best in the world?