A Quote by Junior dos Santos

For sure, the UFC and MMA became way bigger than boxing. — © Junior dos Santos
For sure, the UFC and MMA became way bigger than boxing.
In my teenage years, I started kickboxing, then did a little boxing. When the UFC and MMA exploded in the early 2000s in the U.S.A. and Japan, I saw a way to make money and a career.
I made an instant connection with boxing right away. Boxing became such a part of me. I ate boxing, I slept boxing, I lived boxing. Boxing was a way of expressing myself because I was not that outspoken.
MMA has evolved. When you look at an MMA fighter's skill set, boxing has to be a big piece of it. All of them have a boxing coach now and strive to have a good stand-up game, knowing that to be a complete fighter, you have to tend to your striking skills.
MMA is not jiu-jitsu. MMA is not boxing. MMA is not wrestling. It's a different kind of style of punching and wrestling and grappling on the ground.
For a lot of MMA fans, especially in the UFC, they didn't know who I was... unless you're really involved in women's MMA.
Many MMA fighters have tried boxing before, even just sparring for a few rounds, but no boxer has done MMA rounds. There's just no way for them to do that.
There's a reason why MMA is only three five-minute rounds, or five fives when it's a title fight. MMA is so much more demanding on the body - the wrestling, the changing levels, all that takes a lot out of you. Boxing is a breeze for us after MMA.
People shy away from it [MMA] because they think it's a brutal, brutal sport, and I've said, 'Guys, MMA is safer than football and boxing,... And people tell me they don't believe it. Am I not the most credible person to give you the answer to that?
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.
Every time you have a huge fight in wrestling, in boxing, in MMA, both guys are sure they're going to win. They really believe it.
My dream became bigger and bigger. And the box got bigger than the message, than the Gospel.
It's gone, boxing's gone. What is there in boxing? Who is there to talk about, who is there that people go, "Yeah I want to fight him?", and fans go "I wanna see that fight"? There's Floyd Mayweather, and he is 38, 39, he's maybe got one fight left. What else is there? He'll have a last fight or two and a couple of guys will get a few million dollars, but way less than I'm gonna be getting in future. This sport is getting bigger all the time, and I am making it bigger.
I think that Ronda and I had similar paths in MMA; she became a bigger star than I ever was, but a similar thing happened, where the backlash from the fans happened after you slip up once kind of makes you fall out of love with it.
Obviously, CM Punk is a really big draw for the UFC. He's going to bring a lot of eyes to the UFC, and the better he does, the better it'll be for all MMA fighters as far as sponsorships and stuff.
I think people in the MMA world don't like boxing because it's not as exciting as MMA because you don't get big slams.
I started doing MMA and boxing at the same time - I always wanted to try an MMA fight to see what it was like. I had one fight, and I was hooked.
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