I fought from the time I was eight years old, sometimes three, four fights a night. We did it to eat, and we did it because we were just tough kids.
I had my first professional fight was in 2001 in Venezuela - it was also my first international trip away from Brazil. It was a great experience. Then in 2005, I went to Finland and won. The next year there was a tournament in Brazil with three fights in one night. I was the underdog and won all three fights.
I'm always like this after fights - I can't sleep, I'm only getting a couple of hours a night for three or four days then all of a sudden I'm wiped out for a full night where I don't even move.
Back in the day, you used to have to fight three or four fights in one night with no dodging nobody, and that's what the sport got built on.
I used to go to fights in Japan, mega shows at soccer stadiums. They would have all kinds of martial arts fights in one night.
People know what to expect from me. When it comes to Roderick Strong, you're going to get everything that I have in my being, and there will be fights that will be like no other fights of the night.
One of the things that I'd like to get back to that I did as a younger actor was to work on, you know, a rep season for a summer where you did two or three Shakespeares, and you'd do a couple of either new plays or classic plays, and you did a different one almost every night.
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.
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.
People don't understand: I've had 37 fights, three to five fights every year, for 17 years. That does something to somebody. These suspensions are the only vacations I've ever had.
Look at my track record for showing up to fights. Look at my track record of finishing fights. Look at my track record of getting fight night bonuses. Ask yourself if you think that if the UFC decided to truly put marketing dollars behind me that they couldn't sell me or my fights.
To do eleven fights in four months is pretty crazy. In some shows that we do in Asia, there are three or four fights over a six-month period, so you have time to recover and gain your stamina.
If they didn't have ten fights a night, it was a bad night.
Saying that fights in Japan were fixed and that me, along with other guys like Silva, Minotauro, etc., did not win those fights legitimately is an ultimate and absurd nonsense.
Happy Days, which we did for 11 years, we did with three cameras in front of a live audience. Very special. We had a party every Friday night. The boys, Ron, Henry, they grew up on that show.
I did a lot of smoker fights and fought pretty much every week since Pat wouldn't let me fight until he was sure I was ready. I was also boxing and so I had 30 unofficial fights or more of those.