Dana White's a scumbag. I don't take anything he says with any value.
— Ben Askren
I think Georges St-Pierre should go down to fight Tyron Woodley. I think he has a chance.
My main motivation is to prove I'm No. 1 in the world.
One of my favorite topics to read about my whole life has just been famous athletes, and a lot of those have been combat athletes.
If my team and family are happy for me, I'm not going to let what some fans think affect me in any way.
I don't think I could ever make 155. I made 163 for the Olympics, and that is a super low weight for me. I'm a fairly big person, and for me to make 163 was incredibly difficult.
I don't really want to be famous.
When I couldn't sign with the UFC, I think my goal of being Number 1 in the world went out the window. There's just no way of doing that at Welterweight without being in the UFC. I could go 50-0, and as long as it's outside the UFC, I'm not going to be Number 1.
You need to take care of yourself first, and you can't think of others quite as much if you want to be a successful competitor.
You know what, the thing about Bellator was, I beat everyone they had.
If you can't say where you're going, you're not going to get there. And I've known all along where I'm going, and sometimes the road takes a few curves that you didn't see, but you've got to stay the path.
I'm open to a super fight.
My two things I always said is, No. 1, I'd be retired by the time I had my first kid, and No. 2, I'd be retired by the time I was 30.
I want to go and fight the best guys in the world and show people I'm the best. And hey, if something doesn't go my way - I don't think that's gonna happen. I realize that's a possibility in competition, and that's what happens.
A Division I college wrestling team has so many guys at such a high level it'd be like having every single guy in the gym being a top 10 UFC guy, and that's who you're competing against every single day. Most everyone has been wrestling since they were 5 years old. It's been their dream to wrestle in college. There's such a high level of intensity.
When I came through the ranks in wrestling - in high school and college - those systems have been in place for 100 years, and they're fairly standard training across the board for all the colleges.
I'm not hugely monetarily motivated.
Nate Diaz sucks.
Colby Covington has a very low IQ. He says a lot of stupid things, and it's almost embarrassing that he represents our country that way.
I'm dominant positionally, and my hands got power.
If you can't play the good guy, sometimes you've got to play the villain.
I just like taunting people.
In college wrestling, you see a lot of talented athletes come in and fail because Division I class wrestling is the pinnacle of wrestling in America.
I have nothing against Bellator at all.
People who are great at what they do, they do it the same way no matter who the opponent is.
When you're competing, you need to be selfish. You need to think of yourself first.
Every single time you compete, I don't care what it is, you want to perform the best you can, and I feel like I'm doing that.
I'll sell a million pay-per-views if you're smart enough to market me the right way.
I'm open to any welterweight on Planet Earth.
People are stubborn, and sometimes even if change is good, people will always oppose change.
I don't give a damn about my record.
In MMA, all of these coaches are doing their best.
One of my best qualities is my persistence.
I'm just a straightforward kind of dude.
I wouldn't fight Tyron Woodley; we go way, way back.
Colby Covington is an idiot. He is so stupid.
Some people who come from high levels in other backgrounds where they're used to being the best or used to being on a kind of pedestal, it's hard to kind of lower yourself again and just be one of the grunts. I kind of enjoyed that challenge in MMA.
I think a lot of fans don't know MMA that well. They don't understand the subtleties.
I think I'm the best in the world at 170 pounds, so why would I need to go down? If, at some point, I beat everyone at 170, I'd consider going up. If I've eliminated all my challenges, yeah, at that point I would consider going up.
I like coaching a lot.
I have a great relationship with the whole Missouri athletic department. I made friends with everyone from the administrators to the janitors and everyone in between.
If you look across my career, whether it be mixed martial arts or wrestling, it's very, very, very rare that I lose to someone that I'm not supposed to.
Dana White ain't going to take care of you the second after you can't make him a whole bunch of money.
I have a really hard time with people telling me what to do.
While it may not have been the flashiest or the most creative, I brought a very unique skill set, and I executed in a fashion that very few have done before me and, I think, very few will do after me.
I think every promoter's job is to pump their athletes up. Like, you see, Dana White did it all the time with branding people: all of a sudden, they're the best thing since sliced bread, just because that's the promoter's job.
The worst 24- to 36-hour period of my whole camp, the part I like the least, is the part where I've gotta cut 13 to 15 pounds of water weight.
I trained with Jorge Masvidal when I've been training MMA for 2-1/2 months in Coconut Creek, Fla., in, like, December 2008. I was beating him up then!
There are conferences every year where all the major coaches get together, and they talk about the issues in wrestling, what's going to happen. There's a major governing body, U.S.A. Wrestling, which oversees a lot of the issues. The organization is there in wrestling to make a very well-balanced, organized system.
I don't try to hide my feelings or what I think.
