A Quote by Mauro Ranallo

I'm a fan first and foremost. I get caught up in the drama, the emotion of what is happening, whether it's a boxing match, an MMA fight, a kickboxing contest, or a WWE matchup. I want to tell the story and paint more pictures.
I got to fight the greatest-of-all-time in my weight division - not once but twice. I was watching this guy when I was 16 years old when I first started kickboxing. I wanted to fight Aldo in a kickboxing match. A couple years later, I came to MMA and wanted to fight him. 10 years later, I got to fight the man twice.
For me, boxing's like checkers, and MMA's like chess - there are so many ways to win the match. It's not barbaric; it's boxing, kickboxing, Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling, cardio and it's all reached such an amazing level. As fans learn more about the sport, they just fall in love with it.
The controversy was that Chad Dawson thought he was in an MMA fight and not a boxing match.
If I was mentoring a young fighter, I'd tell him to spend more time on boxing. That doesn't mean I would ignore kickboxing - you still need to learn the defenses - but in stand-up, it's hard to beat good, solid boxing.
I've always wanted to create drama in my pictures, which is why I paint people. It's people who have brought drama to pictures from the beginning. The simplest human gestures tell stories.
I've been a heavyweight in boxing, in kickboxing. I'll do it in again in MMA.
I had 33 kickboxing fights, 37 MMA fights, plus 44 amateur boxing fights, which most of them were international. I will keep fighting as long as I feel good, but I will repeat once more, any fight could be the last one.
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.
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.
I've always said the thing about MMA that a lot of fighters don't understand is people care more about the story, about why a fight's happening, than the actual fight.
It takes two guys to tell a story, paint a picture, so our audience can be entertained and brought into the match. You need to suck people in emotionally to a match, and it takes both parties to paint that picture.
Sometimes emotions can win fights. Sometimes letting your feelings out in a fight can win you the fight. When it means the world to you, it's not just a sports contest - a boxing match for money or belts.
Whether it's Brad Pitt up there, if there's a good moment up there, and you get pulled into the emotion, you're not thinking, 'Oh, that's Brad Pitt. He's an actor, and he's famous.' That's kind of the nature of storytelling, right? You sit around the fire and tell a story, and you can get sucked into that story.
When you write a business fable, people get caught up in the story and don't get judgmental about what you're teaching them. If you're teaching a bunch of concepts, people get skeptical and say, 'Where'd you get that research?' But if you tell them a story, they get caught up in it while they learn.
If you go to any fight, whether MMA or boxing, there's a whole musical soundscape to these events. There's pre-event pump up/psych-up music, there's fighter introductions, there's between rounds, so my musical needs are really diverse.
While wrestling in college as a junior, it came to a point where wrestling just wasn't enough for me anymore. I love wrestling, but I felt like I was missing something, and so the striking part about MMA, the boxing and kickboxing, was what got me really interested in MMA.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!