My body of work speaks for itself.
— Jorge Masvidal
It's a blessing and a curse. I feel like I've gotta fight every dude that stepped foot on 'The Ultimate Fighter.'
I'm not involved in too many wars, where I'm just constantly getting hit, hit, hit.
My coaches know when it's a big fight, I'm at the gym because if they give me some pretender, another actor, I might not take it.
I never think past any man, because every guy has two hands and every dude wants to hurt you.
Back in the day, you used to have to fight three or four fights in one night with no dodging nobody, and that's what the sport got built on.
I came to 170 and I got motivated and finally they started giving me ranked opponents.
I'm a guy who's in there everyday with world-class grapplers feeling that pressure.
I do a very strict diet.
I just like to fight, man. The place doesn't really bother me.
The more I tour the world, the more I see that people are just like me. They love violence.
I'm not Ben Askren or a lot of these fighters. I've never called a reporter like, hey, I want to be on your show, book me, you know?
I'm just not going around disrespecting people.
I'm not the type of dude who kicks somebody when they're down.
I don't want to fight no up-and-coming guy, no guy that's 15-0 but hasn't faced anybody yet.
You know I could get hit with a baseball bat and it don't mean nothing.
It's simple, I'm a fighter, but on top of that I have to entertain the people.
Over everything, over friendships or anything, is my kids - and obviously fighting for that belt is my kids' future. It doesn't sound too nice, but if my mom had the belt, she better give it up because my kids gotta eat. If I'm willing to fight my mom, imagine a good friend.
I get along just fine with Woodley. He's actually showed me a lot things in the past, and I've worked with him in the past training to help him get ready to fight. There's no hard feelings if me and hit had to scrap.
A guy like Anderson Silva is one the greatest champions we've had.
The bigger the fight, the better.
That's the biggest act of cowardice, faking injuries.
You guys might not know who Yves Edwards is, if you don't, shame on you, go do some research.
Man, I never got to fight a ranked opponent at 155, and that wasn't because I wasn't winning.
I feel like if they added a few weight classes it wouldn't change up the dynamics of the sport. You can still have champions and it wouldn't be like boxing. Boxing got messed up, because they've got so many belts, so many unifications. It's crazy.
I want to fight the guys that are world-class beaters. That's who I want to get in there with.
I want the biggest fight, no matter where it's at.
I didn't get a lot of questions asked earlier in my career, I guess. But I've always been the same guy, more or less.
I got taught respect because if not, somebody's gonna make you respect them.
I don't come from this technology world.
A fight is usually longer than five seconds.
We're already going to fight, we're going to test each other's will. We don't need everybody talking.
I'm a dirty south goon - damn right, I ain't no West coast gangster.
In every fight the strategy is to baptize and take their soul - that's always the strategy.
For some reason, that's the title they're giving me: ''The Ultimate Fighter' Destroyer.'
I've known Woodley for nine-plus years, ten-plus years. We've worked out together plenty. He's one of the guys who used to slam me all around the place. I was at 155, he was at 170 pounds and he was just the wrestler that is a superpower. So that was one of the dudes that got my wrestling a little better from going with guys like that.
I'm not going to kill my body, my lifestyle just to go to '55.
The things that I rely on, USADA doesn't have a problem with them. I'm gonna continue to be the same athlete that I've always been.
When you're up-and-coming in your career, yes, maybe you have to dodge certain guys. 'Hey, my wrestling isn't good yet, let me get it on-point and then I'll come back there,' or, 'I'm not going to fight that guy right now,' because whatever, when you're up-and-coming. But once you're already at the top of your game, you're in there, man. That's it.
I want to get paid for my services.
I've got more mat hours than most of the guys who are grapplers got on the mat.
I think the sport is growing and along with it weight classes have to be added.
I've been fighting professionally since I was 18, and I've been doing three or four fights a year, just doing camp after camp.
I asked for the toughest, best fights to my management, to my coaches.
I don't go around making conversation, I just kind of stick to myself.
There's some people who violate that man-code of the gym.
I do not want to fight Woodley because we're cool. We've worked out so much together, and he's looked out for me in the past with certain hookups that he had at the time. So I don't want to fight that dude.
My job is to hit somebody until the referee pulls me off.
Not that everybody needs to be Georges St-Pierre, but it would be cool if everybody was just themselves.
I'm here to compete and to keep beating people up.
