A Quote by Tito Ortiz
Back when the UFC first started, I wanted to see what MMA was all about; at the time, I was training with Tank Abbott, and so I went to see him fight. While at the fight, I saw this guy fighting that I just crushed in high school wrestling, and I thought, 'Hey, I'm a street fighter, and I have a wrestling background,' so I gave it a shot.
Related Quotes
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. I saw it on TV and I just knew that I wanted to do it.
I feel like I started with wrestling, and a love of pro wrestling, that lead me to MMA and the UFC. And now it's come full circle back to pro wrestling.
In MMA you have to take one fight at a time but I want BJ Penn. The fans want to see it and, while I'll fight whoever the UFC tells me to, I want a shot at BJ.
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 grew up in one of the most prolific high-school-wrestling programs in the country, and MMA fighters are more successful when they have that amateur-wrestling background.
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.
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.
A lot of coaches in MMA focus on MMA wrestling. My coach, his high school team is ranked 10th in the nation. Izzy Martinez is very connected to the wrestling community.
In my first fight, I acknowledged it. I'm a professional wrestler, this is who I am, who you know me as. But guess what, I've also been wrestling since I was 5 years old - real wrestling - amateur wrestling, Olympic wrestling.
Wrestling was you wrestle in college and you become a high school coach. That was it for wrestlers. We just started to realize there is a legitimate career choice we can choose to use all our wrestling skills we spent our entire lives learning. There is something we can do it now, it's MMA.
Stylistically, every fight in the division is a hard fight. Lyoto Machida is unorthodox, Jon Jones is long and tall with good wrestling, Ryan Bader has good wrestling. You can't pick one and say, 'I want to fight him.'
I don't want to be one of those guys who says, 'No, I won't fight that guy' or 'I won't fight the guy there; I need to fight him here,' or that sort of stuff. The UFC says, 'This is who you're fighting next,' and I say, 'Cool. Let's do it.'
Everybody wants to see this fight. Everybody wants to see these fireworks. They want to see that explosiveness. They want to see me throw Khabib on his back and get that five-point motion with this U.S.A. wrestling. Because if wrestling was easy, it would be called Sambo, my friend. Straight up, I'm going mop that dude up.
When I went to college, I came across MMA. My first reaction was, 'No, I don't want to fight. I just want to learn jujitsu.' I didn't know what UFC was; in my mind it was this violent, ugly sport. But when I watched my first amateur fight, I fell in love with the sport and thought it was beautiful.
MMA and the UFC have taken all of the pro wrestling fans because it's pro wrestling from 30 years ago, just in an Octagon and the fights happen to be real. But they're marketed exactly the same way.
Everyone thinks Australia and New Zealand MMA fighters don't have that wrestling base, whereas a lot of Americans and other countries have, with them being able to do wrestling at high-school levels.
Related Authors
Allen Iverson Quotes
American
Athlete
Andy Murray Quotes
Scottish
Athlete
CM Punk Quotes
American
Athlete
Conor McGregor Quotes
Irish
Athlete
Georges St-Pierre Quotes
Canadian
Athlete
Jack LaLanne Quotes
American
Athlete
Jillian Michaels Quotes
American
Athlete
Jon Jones Quotes
American
Athlete
Kenny Smith Quotes
American
Athlete
Kevin Durant Quotes
American
Athlete
Rafael Nadal Quotes
Spanish
Athlete
Ronda Rousey Quotes
American
Athlete
Scottie Pippen Quotes
American
Athlete
Shaquille O'Neal Quotes
American
Athlete
Stephen Curry Quotes
American
Athlete
Usain Bolt Quotes
Jamaican
Athlete