“A lot of people want to discredit me.”

“A lot of times, losing a fight is tough. In your darkest hours, I guess your true colors show.”

“Anthony Johnson hits harder than any other person, no doubt. Every time he hit me, it made me kind of, like, fly all over the place. He was trying to take my head off.”

“As a champion and one of the best fighters in the world, guys should always step up to the plate and want to fight Jon Jones.”

“At the end of the day, I'm a man.”

“Being able to go forward has been good, you know? I'm lucky to have that ability, to pressure guys and make them falter and wilt.”

“Cain's an animal, man. Cain's a competitor. I want to spar with Cain because I know if I'm able to hang with him here in the gym, once I get out there in the cage and fight, I mean, I've already gone toe-to-toe with Cain Velasquez, you know?”

“Fvery time Anthony and I are supposed to fight, the lines come out, and it's like we're dead even. It's like people don't know what to make of a fight between Daniel Cormier and Anthony Johnson, when in reality, it should be very easy to know what to make of a fight between me and Anthony Johnson.”

“Gustafsson is a stud, man. He's a good fighter.”

“Guys play basketball and get hurt, and that's probably the easiest sport on the planet. We're actually fighting every day. We're wrestling; we're grappling.”

“How can you train if you're constantly worried about getting injured?”

“I believe that I will represent this sport in the best light possible. I won't mess it up. I won't get myself in any trouble.”

“I do believe, whenever this is all said and done, we won't talk about Mickey Gall, the guy that beat CM Punk; we'll just talk about Mickey Gall, the guy who is a top 10 fighter, a good welterweight or maybe a great welterweight.”

“I don't mind playing spoiler.”

“I don't mind Ryan Bader thinking he deserves a title shot.”

“I grew up in Louisiana. We have red beans and rice, and there's a Popeye's on every corner.”

“I had a really dark time after the Olympic Games... But then I said to myself, 'This is a sport that's blessed me with a home, with an education, with some money. I can't hate this sport. This sport took me out of Louisiana. This sport gave me a chance when so many people don't get a chance. And I love this sport.'”

“I have definitely worked on that... being efficient and also being smarter with my pressure.”

“I have to be smart. You cannot be going in there, trying to go forward and pressure guys, and be taking damage and getting hurt on the way to doing it.”

“I know what I've done, and I know who I am.”

“I love Mike Tyson. I was a fan, as everybody else was. The moment somebody stood up to him, he didn't do so well. And that's the same thing with Anthony Johnson. The guy's a bully. He wants to intimidate you; he wants to dominate you. He wants to knock you out. But what happens when you don't knock somebody out? What happens?”

“I need to be competing. Coaching is good, but I like to be in the fire.”

“I think I'm as good if not better than everyone else.”

“I think Mickey Gall's going to be really good.”

“I think that Amanda Nunes and Julianna Pena and Valentina Shevchenko... they've showed how much this level has gone up in female fighting in a very short period of time.”

“I usually fight a lot. 2015, I fought three times. I fought three of the best guys in the entire world.”

“I want to be regarded as the best guy in the world, and I want to beat the best guy in the world.”

“I want to be the best.”

“I was a fan of Jon Jones. I thought he was great.”

“I was into basketball, but then once I found contact sports, it was over. I never played basketball again in my life.”

“I went and worked at a TV station in Stillwater. I was actually account manager for commercial accounts, selling ad space and everything.”

“I went out there, and I fought Anderson Silva, and you know what? I got a big W, and that's massive for my career going forward.”

“I went through a training camp; I worked extremely hard. I prepared for UFC 200. This was the big one. This one meant everything to me.”

“I will tell you with 100 percent confidence, Jon Jones is not deep in my head. The fact he actually thinks that, it makes me smile every day.”

“If I didn't have the wrestling name that I have, I wouldn't have gotten the financial contract that I got with Strikeforce or the long-term contract or the television contract. That's all because of wrestling.”

“If I would have won that Olympic gold medal, I would have gotten a job somewhere coaching at a university, and I would be totally content with my life.”

“If there's an opportunity for me to compete at something, I'm there.”

“If you say John Smith is the greatest wrestler in Oklahoma history, now that's big.”

“If you value your wins and you value what you've done over the course of your career, then you wouldn't want people harboring over a loss, even though you fought extremely well.”

“If you're the UFC champion, you're the best in the world at what you do, and I get the opportunity to do that.”

“I'm gonna live my life the correct way, and I'm gonna be a champion the kids look up to and hopefully aspire to be like.”

“I'm honored to be one of the guys that is seen as a leader of this great team - a team that has stood the test of time. AKA is one of the only teams that has been around since the beginning of the MMA explosion, and it's a huge honor for me to be named captain.”

“I'm letting competition drive me, and when competition drives me, I don't think anyone can compete with me.”

“I'm not a guy that really likes to pile onto somebody. Doesn't really matter who it is.”

“I'm not on a slander campaign to ruin Jon Jones publicly. That's not what I set out to do.”

“I'm not really worried about what Anthony Johnson does. I have to worry about what I do to prepare myself.”

“I'm so bad at baseball, I can't even hit now.”

“It is my job to sell these fighters. I'm now a business partner of the UFC. What I do directly affects my paycheck. I try my best. I just don't want people to be indifferent.”

“It's all matchups, and I knew that I matched up well against 'Rumble' Johnson.”

“It's like I cannot separate myself from Jon Jones.”

“It's unfair to think that we can do what we do with the intensity that we do it and expect injuries to not happen.”

“It's very difficult to make a 100% turnaround. It's tough when you actually do exhibit patterns of bad behavior. You need to have a very strong support system of people who are willing to keep you in your place if you're going to overcome these things.”

“I've always been a rough kid.”

“I've dealt with a lot in my life.”

“I've done nothing but show up and fight, go to work inside the Octagon, outside the Octagon, and do things right. But people want to talk about me and discredit me.”

“I've done nothing wrong. Some people just don't like me. Maybe I'm somebody that's easy to dislike, but I don't get it. Whatever. I'll do what I do.”

“Legacy does matter to me, and I want to leave a good one in MMA.”

“My confidence comes from knowing I do the right things in my life. I do the right things in the gym. I do the right things all together.”

“My confidence comes from me, not from Jon Jones. I can't draw my confidence from another person.”

“My confidence comes from my fights and my training.”

“My little girl's in Heaven. She's my angel, and I can draw from that.”

“My resume, my career, and my legacy in this sport means more to me then collecting some checks.”

“Ovince Saint Preux needs to know that not only me but every other guy at the American Kickboxing Academy are ready and open to open those doors in trying to help him accomplish his goals.”

“People always get confused. They talk about coaches. The reality is, these coaches and managers that everybody thinks are in so much control, they work for us. They're our employees.”

“People like to call themselves fans of fighting and fans of the sport, but if you're a fan of fighting, how can you not like watching Demetrious Johnson? He's the best at it. He's the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world. Why wouldn't you enjoy watching that guy perform? He does a phenomenal job every time he's in there.”

“Some people just don't like you; you cannot satisfy everyone. But I've got a lot of supportive fans - people who do like me, do enjoy what I do.”

“The only thing that can ever make a Louisiana boy feel better is Popeye's.”

“Throughout my entire life, I've always been a captain. I was the captain of my high school team. I was the captain at Oklahoma State University. I was the captain of the 2008 Olympic team.”

“We've seen smaller guys in main event fights, and they do well. It just takes the right combination of people I think. I think Dominick Cruz v. T.J. Dillashaw could have main-evented a PPV and done pretty good.”

“When I said I could beat Alexander Gustafsson in a standup fight, people laughed at me. They thought, 'No way.' But I believe in what I'm seeing every day.”

“When you look at my record at 10-0 as a professional and look at Jon Jones' record when he was 10-0, who was his toughest guy? Stephan Bonnar, and he did not finish him. I have fought higher-caliber opponents at this stage in my career than Jon did in his at 9-1; His tenth fight was Matt Hammil.”

“Who I have fought and how I have fought, it says something about me.”

“Wrestling is a hard sport, but it's only a sport.”

“You can love me, you can hate me, but just don't be indifferent. Care about it enough to watch.”

“You don't get to the highest levels of the sport without having the basics in order.”

“You don't see many Jon Jones's.”

“You have to be a champion in all facets of life.”

“You have to be very vocal about being willing to fight anyone.”