Aljamain Sterling

As history has shown, I don't think the UFC is in the business of doing favors for other people.

I think I bring a different flavor to the game, both inside and outside the Octagon.

I like to think I defied the odds my entire life, definitely my entire athletic career.

People can forget about you so quickly and that's not what I want. I want to keep people talking because at the end of the day that's what is going to get you paid. People have to want to care to watch you fight and you have to be relevant.

I think it's huge to set a good example. Whether you like it or not, as a professional athlete you are always going to be projected out into that spotlight of judgement. People are always going to judge every single thing we do and I think it's cool to just be real with yourself.

I'm a hard guy to hit and take down, and once I get you on the ground I'm going to choke you out. Even if you resist a few of the other attempts I'm going to get you one way or the other. I'm like the Boogeyman... I'm gonna get you.

You change the mind and world of one individual and that's huge, man. You reach one person and that starts a spiral effect and starts to snowball. I think that's the one thing as an athlete we should all focus on doing and that's striving to give back in a positive manner.

You put me in there with anybody at '35 or '45, I get on your back, I take you down, it's going to be a long night and it's a dangerous situation to be in.

I'm always a guy that looks at every situation as glass half full.

There's a lot of American citizens out there that do jobs that they hate, day in and day out. For me to do what I love to do, with people that I like and enjoy being around who are chasing the same dream, same passions, to have that around you day in and day out, I think it says a lot.

I think everyone is kind of an immigrant somehow, and I wasn't raised in an American society at home. My household was a Jamaican household, so I got all my traditions, all my roots and culture intact, so I'm able to support both countries.

Obviously, I rep Jamaica. I'm a first generation born Jamaican-American. My parents are born and raised in Jamaica, my grandparents are born and raised in Jamaica, my other family still lives in Jamaica, and I still go back there.

When you look at the U.S., it's a little weird, man because we have so many other sports and other things that we can watch and support that it's hard to get the support of an entire country around you.

Being a wrestler, it can get rough in terms of your mindset, just having that mentality embedded in you where you just wanna go, go, go, 100 miles per hour, always redlining your body and never actually taking the time out to let your body recover the right way. As I got older, I started to realized that less sometimes is more.

Do you think the UFC is going to owe you a favor when you step up on short notice when nobody else is doing it? There's a reason a whole bunch of us aren't doing it. If you want to be that scapegoat, and think that the UFC's going to owe you one, good luck with that. Let me know how that goes.

Fighters don't just fight. Not the good ones who have long, long success. The guys who make championship runs. The guys who fight for world titles. They get fizzled out, chewed up and spit out like a revolving door and then the next guy or the next female comes in to take their spot.

MMA is not one of those up and down basketball seasons where you have a ton of games and you can still make the playoffs. It doesn't work like that in MMA. You get a couple losses, you get washed up, you get the door slammed behind you and they bring in the next person behind you who is here to take your place.

At the end of the day, I feel like I've never had an easy break in terms of opponents.

I always felt like the UFC brass kind of had it out for me.

I'm about fighting the best guys.

I'm not about trying to hand pick my fights and tip toe around the competition.

At the end of the day, Cejudo's a tough competitor but I think he's a flyweight.

My comfortability is always going favor the grappling side, that's the path of least resistance. But, I don't need necessarily need to force the takedowns like I used to before.

I bring the funk. It's a different style.

Even when I teach my MMA classes in the gym, it's hard to teach what I do. It's more of state of flow, a state of feel. It's not a robotic thing like one, two, three, kick, one, two, three, switch, jab, cross. It's completely unorthodox. Everything is about rhythm, tempo and pace. It's a different style, man.

If you're a top 10 guy you should pay a top 10 guy or even a top 5 guy what he deserves, whether it's a lightweight or a heavyweight.

I tell myself, 'You're too fast, you're too strong, you're too quick. You can't be broken, you can't be beat. If you can't be broken, you can't be beat.' And I just beat it into my head.

I mean, I've had fights with random guys, I drove to fights by myself cutting weight, no corners whatsoever. So I've had a very interesting MMA journey.

At the end of the day, I know I'm not Superman.

I realize judges don't understand what the hell kicks are doing.

If you don't know what the hell the martial arts are, why are you a judge?

I think flyweight has always been exciting.

It's interesting to see all these guys keep calling me out after they win. I don't know whether it's a slap in the face or just respect. I don't know. I have no idea. I can't tell what to make of it.

I know some people count me out, but that's the one thing about myself, I never count myself out.

Every time you step in there with a guy who is not ranked where you're at, it's always a big stepping stone for them - if they're able to get the job done.

I think they need to start doing cageside weigh-ins again. I think that's the best way to go if you really want to see some difference. Cageside weigh-ins; I guarantee you won't see people cutting more than five to eight pounds, and they'll be fighting closer to their natural weight class.

If you don't stick out then how do you expect to be remembered? I want to be one of those guys who is actually remembered.

Ideally, I want to get out of the sport at least when I'm 30-31. I don't want to be one of those guys who stays around too long, so I want to get as many fights in as I can.

I'm too long, I'm too rangy, I can box, I can kick, I can wrestle, I can do jiu-jitsu.

At the end of the day, when you get a sponsor, it's a working relationship. So anyone I get involved with, I want it to be a working relationship where I'm generally trying to help them and they're generally trying to help me.

I almost want to ask the judges, 'If you don't count leg kicks, if you don't count body kicks, why not?' So if you don't think they're effective in the scoring criteria, they're not effective striking, effective grappling, so how about I kick you in the body, I kick you in the leg, and you tell me how that feels?

I got a different persona than a lot of these other guys.

If you're a UFC guy, if you're a company guy, if the company likes you, they're gonna do the right thing, in terms of promoting you. They're gonna promote who they want, they're not going to promote the people they think can't get to that next level and can't help bring the company a lot more money and bring them into other avenues.

I'm in this sport to change my life. I'm in this sport to change my parents' lives and the loved ones around me. That's really what I care about. And I can't do that if they keep putting me on these prelims.

I'm from a family of 20, so I'm one of the oldest guys, I grew up a lot having my brothers and sisters walk with me to school when I had to be the guy to watch them and all these things, so I kinda learned how to develop those leadership skills at a very early age.

I've been the captain of my wrestling team, my college team, so to me, I've been in that leadership role for a very long time.

It doesn't bother me to have people looking up to me, because I don't think I say anything too crazy or over the top where people can't look at me as a role model.

If you go into a negotiating room and are like, 'Well I was on the same card as Conor McGregor, so maybe I should get a little bit more money,' they'll probably just look at you like, 'What? In what universe does that even make sense?' So I don't see how anyone could possibly think it's going to be a trickle-down effect.

I had to learn to toughen up and fend for myself. You'd think when you have a lot of brothers and sisters, they'd come to your aid and rescue you a lot of times, but for us it wasn't really like that. It was tough love.

What many fans don't realize with fighters, this is our job. But at the same time outside of this, we have regular lives where we do the same things that everybody else does. We have the problems. We get speeding tickets, we get pulled over, we have family issues, we have girlfriend issues, we have issues amongst ourselves, self doubt.