Wrestling has positively impacted my life in many ways, but perhaps the one singular thing that I gained from wrestling that stands out the most is wrestling provided me with the opportunity to learn mental toughness!
Know what is in your heart. But definitely go to school and learn as much as you can, and if wrestling is still what you want, find a good wrestling school and kind of learn as much information about it as you can. If I did it, this tiny thing, anyone can do it.
I remember when I had just left WWE and I was wrestling in England and Germany, I could just tell that this influx of this new wave of wrestling was coming much like it felt when I began wrestling back in '99.
If it all just happened overnight, you would never learn to believe in what you cannot see.
I was just lucky to be there ahead of the curve to be the driving force behind bringing this amazing style of wrestling from Japan that combined Lucha Libre, American professional wrestling, Canadian professional wrestling and Japanese wrestling all into one beautiful mix that fans worldwide absolutely can't get enough of.
People think I'm an overnight success. No. It's just that you all found me overnight.
I want to be an artist that grows slowly. If you appear overnight, there's a chance that you will also just disappear overnight.
Sweet But Psycho' blew up pretty much overnight after my 10-year struggle. It's hilarious when people say it was overnight, because it was not overnight.
Wrestling used to be interesting. There was a bit of sham involved, of course, but there was some real wrestling involved. They're just characters now. It's unrecognizable. There's no fighting in American bloody wrestling. They just yell at each other and jump around like overweight ballet dancers.
Wrestling can be anything... There's some forms of wrestling that I'm not too big a fan of, but I'm not going to say it's not wrestling because it is wrestling.
Kurt Angle was amazing. He was the person who got me into pro wrestling. He found me when I was at the Olympic training center just wrestling, amateur wrestling.
Everybody wants the quick fix, but it doesn't happen overnight. You have to be willing to put it out there. I call it 'the secret to being an overnight success,' which means there really isn't a such thing as an overnight success. ! The secret is you work really hard for 10 years, and then you become an overnight success.
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.
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.
I quit wrestling in 2006 because I just got lost. My mom didn't want me wrestling. I was wondering if I was going to make it in wrestling; I got injured in a match. I was 19. I was away from home, living in Florida, and I just got lost. I couldn't face it, so I stepped away.
The wrestling world is unique. There are things that happened, and there are things that didn't happen, but in wrestling, you just say they all happened. Some of it's fun to let stay out there - it adds to the mystique and wrestling lore.