I've been in there with, to me, some top-tier guys, and so has Trout. You can't take that away from him at all. He's fought all of the top guys, everybody.
I got to experience fighting some really good guys, like Demian Maia and Tyron Woodley who are top guys in the division. It was on a big stage, those fights. It gives me experience with top-level guys.
I was a defensive lineman coming out of high school who was considered amongst the top maybe the top six guys, top five guys, and wanted to prove to my team that I was going to be a top guy going into college.
I was a defensive lineman coming out of high school who was considered amongst the top... maybe the top six guys, top five guys, and wanted to prove to my team that I was going to be a top guy going into college.
Guys like LeBron, Chris Paul, Kobe... They all speak to me. It's just insane that all these top tier guys who have been in the All-Star game for so many years actually know who I am. I mean not in a million years did I think that Kobe would speak to me.
For me, it's more important to bring my level up and make sure that I can compete against guys in the top 100 and top 50 instead of maybe being 120 or 130 and not being able to compete with those guys.
I have always fought top guys.
Everyone deals with criticism in a different way. Some guys read it, some guys don't really listen to it, some guys try to stay away from it, some guys get angry about it.
Guys like Rey Mysterio Jr., Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, guys like that, they've inspired me. They made me want to do this. Those guys were three of the top cruiserweights that you can name.
I want to fight the top guys in the world. Guys who have names. Guys who I don't mind trying to make a mark off of me by them trying to win, which, they're gonna become losers.
Bisping is a tough guy. You can't write him off. He's good at everything. He's been able to beat some of the top guys out there because he can expose their weaknesses.
I want one of the top three, but if they aren't available, we'll pick someone else. There are some good young fighters, undefeated guys, and guys with wins and losses on their record.
Listen, man, everybody has their own journey, obstacles, and some people get built through promotional companies to be a star, but really haven't fought the best guys out there. And then you have guys that really earned their spot and that happens to be me.
I could easily be defending my title against top contenders in the Top 10, but if they haven't been champions or their record's not perfect, it doesn't really excite me. It doesn't motivate me. But that's why I'm facing guys like Dejan Zlaticanin, Sergey Lipinets, undefeated champions.
Because the Arnold Classic is such a big show, a guy who hasn't been getting a lot of recognition all of a sudden does that show and arrives in good condition and is able to take out some of the top guys, it then puts him up there in the running for the Olympia title. So he can get more recognition that way.
When you think about the guys who started Twitter, and the Google guys, and the Facebook guys and the Napster guys, and the Microsoft guys, and the Dell guys and the Instagram guys, it's all guys. The girls, they're being left behind.
At one time I was one of those guys looking at the guys on the top saying 'I want to be like that.'