Michael Bisping
Once I started fighting in UFC, things took a big U-turn. After my second fight, I came home and paid my mortgage off.
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 had held titles in all the major U.K. organisations, but we were struggling to make ends meet. There were times you don't have a fight lined up, and the bills are stacking up.
I've beaten a lot of great fighters, but people say the big ones, I've lost them all. I don't want to go down as a guy who loses his big fights.
When everybody fought Anderson Silva in the past, they were terrified of him. Absolutely terrified. That's part of the reason why he was so successful.
I hit as hard and as fast in the first week of camp as I do in the last week of camp. So it doesn't matter if it's two weeks' notice or 10 weeks' notice.
One of my proudest moments is definitely UFC 105 in Manchester when I stopped Denis Kang in the second round.
Without wishing to sound arrogant, when I was younger, I used to win every single martial arts tournament I ever entered. I used to enter the under 14s and under 16s, win both gold medals in those, and then go in the men's tournament just for experience, and end up getting a silver medal.
I used to be weak - as did all British fighters - with wrestling, because we don't have high school wrestling or college wrestling here.
You've got to sell fights; you've got to be entertaining.
I'm in a sport where, on their day, anyone can beat anyone else if they are at the top of their own game.
People give me advice all the time, and I don't take a blind bit of notice.
I used to do traditional weapons training, and I wasn't bad with a sword.
I've already been KO'd, embarrassed. Nothing is going to be worse than that, so what's to be scared of?
People write me off, and yet then, when I fight people, my opponents have a completely different opinion of me afterwards.
Of course it's an honour to be fighting at UFC 100, but I don't sit back and think about that. For me, it is only ever about winning.
I want to be the first British person to lift a UFC World Title.
The underdog status suits me just fine.
I worked in factories, slaughterhouses, as an upholsterer. I did demolition work, was a postman, was a tiler, a plasterer. I even sold double-glazing door-to-door. But I always dreamed of being a world champion, first of all as a boxer.
In MMA, I found my calling.
Stefan Struve's an amazing talent.
It seems, whenever there are two Brits fighting in the UFC, we always seem to put on a good fight.
It seems like every problem you can have with an eye, I had.
Fighting in England, for me, is the height of my career. It really is.
I started learning jiujitsu when I was eight years old. I had a lot of success and won ever competition I even entered.
I went to college and did advanced electronical engineering, not really knowing what I wanted to do. It bored me to death, so I dropped out.
I'm generally an optimist, but of course, when you've been with the UFC for a decade and still not had a title shot, there is a little part of you that wonders if it will ever happen.
The mind controls everything; it really does.
I fought Dan Henderson in 2009, and I lost, and that was at UFC 100 - UFC 100 was the biggest pay-per-view the company's ever done. 1.6 million pay-per-view buys, watched all over the world, and of course, I get knocked out cold after talking lots of smack leading up to the fight. So I got my just desserts in that one.
Big respect to Dan Henderson.
People say sometimes that I'm distracted. I'm not distracted. I'm being smart. I'm capitalizing while the iron is hot. That's why I'm trying to do movies. I do the podcast. I do a radio show. I work on FOX. I have a gym; I have a lot of things going on. That's because when I'm done, I want to be set up.
I am very, very hungry to compete.
I always support British athletes of all sports, including Tyson Fury. I think he's a great boxer. However, if he's calling out UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez, then quite frankly, he's living in a fantasy world and needs to come back to reality.
I think it's just in human nature: if you've got two guys fighting, and you don't really know them, you're going to root for the guy who comes from your country.
You can push my buttons all you want and say whatever you want about me, and that's fine... fighters do that.
For me, 'The Ultimate Fighter' has been massive. I think it is a fantastic vehicle to find the new talent of tomorrow.
'The Ultimate Fighter' has found lots of great talent.
There will always be a place for 'The Ultimate Fighter.'
I often put my foot in it a little bit sometimes.
As the UFC was getting bigger and bigger, I realized it was a potential career there, and that's what I did.
I can wrestle a little bit, but I'm not Chael Sonnen.
Obviously, every fighter wants to be the world champion, and that's what I want to achieve.
As a fighter, you know when you connect with a really good shot because you feel the impact on your fist.
I've had ups and downs in my career, and if you look at it as a bookmaker, the odds of me becoming a world champion were never in my favour, but I never stopped believing in myself and never stopped trying.
For so many years, people have used the expression 'poster boy of British MMA,' but I've never seen myself as that; I certainly never described myself as that.
I always wanted to be the champion, and I had belief in myself that I could achieve it. But along the way, of course, you've also got to be a realist. You lose a couple of fights here and there, and you think maybe it's not going to happen.
All I do is fight, consistently, the best guys in the world, and sure, I've lost a couple here and there, but I've certainly won the majority of my fights. There are those who pick and choose opponents and try to pad their record along the way, but I've never done that.
If you're taking performance-enhancing drugs and you get caught, in my mind, you should be banned for life.Collection: Drug
We're man enough to step in there and fight our hearts out and you have to be man enough to deal with a loss.Collection: Heart