I'm not willing to compromise my goals for monetary value.
— Ben Askren
Man, I competed 40 times in three months when I was wrestling, my whole life.
Young guys kind of have this chip on their shoulder of, 'I want to prove something,' right? 'I've got to prove how tough I am. I've got to prove how good I am.' And man, now as I'm getting older, I think it's almost sad when guys my age and older still have that chip on their shoulder.
I think people realize that I'm one of the best welterweights, whether I'm number one or number four or number five or number six.
My view on wrestling in MMA is changed a lot since I started really doing it.
I've been around the block. I travel a lot to gyms.
I don't care about having a fancy car. I don't have a lot of the wants and needs that a lot of people have where I would need to make a $1 million a fight.
Some people, they don't get a few takedowns, they start getting nervous, and they fade. That's just not in my character.
I don't think the number of followers has anything to do with how good I am fighting. That said, I am good at fighting, and I do have a lot of followers.
Listen folks, if you want your son to grow up to be a man, don't have him run around on a field kicking a ball; get him wrestling.
I'm not really a soccer fan. I understand they have skill and all that running up and down the pitch and what not.
I've got more skills in my pinky finger than half the damn guys in the UFC.
I've never feared anyone or worried what they said as long as what I'm telling is the truth, and I'm not telling lies about people.
A lot of wrestling interviews are boring, plain and simple. They don't say anything you never heard before. Your basic wrestling interview is, you ask me how am I going to do, and I say, 'I'm going to do my best. I'm going to wrestle hard.'
I fight with good strikers every day.
When someone decides to come into the UFC, and they don't have a combat sports background, you're kind of thinking, 'Does he really understand what he's getting into?'
Obviously, in a sport like golf, we see Tiger Woods fall off. There's not really too much damage he can take from that, although when you watch him and he sucks, and you're like, 'God, you used to be so good but you suck now,' it's disconcerting as a fan.
There's more to life than fighting.
A male athlete's peak, I believe, should be somewhere between 26 and 30.
When I say something, I generally stick to it, no matter what it is in life.
In wrestling, if you want to be the best wrestler, you show up at the U.S. Nationals. If you win that, you go to World Team Trials. You make the World Team, you go to the World Championships, and we all know who the best is at the end of the year.
Wrestling is a worldwide sport. It's totally international.
If your coach ain't got your back, who's got your back?
I don't care if you're an Asian fan or an American fan: I'm happy to perform.
I'm more of a purist competitor, and I enjoy the fighting aspect of it, but people enjoy my personality, and they enjoy that I tell the truth.
I don't hold grudges.
When I'm thinking of sports, when I'm thinking of a boy growing up and being a man, I'm thinking of three things - honor, integrity, and toughness.
I just don't get hit a lot. That's what I'm good at.
If I want a kid to be good at a front headlock - which, if you're gonna wrestle at a high level, you need a good front headlock - I'm gonna put him in there 50 times in that practice.
As long as I'm speaking the truth, I'm going to be OK with what I'm saying. That's kind of how I've lived my whole life.
I'm going to win a gold medal.
Andrey Koreshkov is not well-rounded. He's been taken down and mounted and has his back taken by Lyman Good, which tells me he's a terrible grappler. He isn't well rounded. He's a good striker, but that's it.
I wasn't granted the opportunity to fight some of the best guys in the world. And that was something that was not on my end by any sense of the imagination.
If you think about who retires during their prime, the number of athletes who do that is very small.
I love running my business, and I love wrestling. I love helping kids.
It's like, hey, I've done what I could do, I've accomplished a lot, and now this - especially with wrestling - if this next generation wants to pass me up, great job. Good for them.
So I think there's a lot of people who are really interested to see how good I really am, because they know I'm good, but they're not really sure how good. They want to see that, and there's definitely interest in that, but because of some other people's shortsightedness, maybe it never really happens.
I try to wrestle one time a week with good, solid people.
Squash - definitely a rich's person sport, and it's only played in a handful of countries.
I got in MMA for one reason: to see if I could be the best in the world.
One of the big things is I try not to worry about things I can't control.
I speak plainly, I don't beat around the bush, and I'm just genuine.
It's just funny because I think a long time back I was not a fan favorite at all, and now people have followed my journey, have seen the struggle and the perseverance I've had, and they can relate to that.
There's no honor in faking an injury. There is no integrity, because you are lying about it.
Having the letters UFC behind my name is not the be-all, end-all it is for someone. Some people think once they get into the UFC, that's it.
If I'm coaching at my academy, and we were drilling the front headlock, we don't just say, 'OK, now go five-minute goes,' because how many tries are they gonna get at going at the front headlock position?
I don't like all the cheating that's going in mixed martial arts. I don't know what percentage of high-level fighters do it, but I think it would be a significant amount.
Obviously, everyone knows it is hard to hang it up, but I'm definitely going to try and do it the right way and not like how combat athletes have done and hold on too long for every last fleeting moment. I don't want to be one of those people.
I don't like Jay Hieron very much. He just bothers me, the way he talks, and he thinks very highly of himself.
If you're competing right, if you're doing it right, competition should be a very selfish pursuit.
