Aljamain Sterling

I hope we can figure out the reforms, educate and really retrain our police officers. Getting people to understand that just because I grew up a different way and my lifestyle's different, doesn't mean that you need to be afraid of me.

My whole thing is I can't wait to inspire the next young fighters from my hometown.

Petr Yan's a tough dude.

It's all about brand exposure, building your brand, building your image and just getting to that next level as an athlete.

It's almost out of sight out of mind because there's so many cards. One great fight could happens one weekend and another great fight happens next weekend, you kind of get swallowed up in that pack. So you have to find a way to separate yourself and what better way to do that than on ESPN?

If you're a sports fan and you're home and you're washing dishes, usually your TV is on ESPN and you're just getting the highlights and keeping up-to-date with all of the sports going around, all of the news.

I would never want to sell a fight based on stuff about race. That's not the type of person that I am. I would never go that route to push a fight.

You gotta do what you gotta do to win, so I don't really get to play around as much.

You only get 15 minutes to work and show your art and everything can you do. At the end of the day, it's a fight.

You might be an elite-level athlete in the room, but if no one gets to see you display your craft it doesn't matter.

The mind has to be right and the work has to match the mind.

A lot of guys think you're almost supposed to just get stuff but you've got to put in the work, you've got to lay the foundations.

Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of being paid like NBA, NFL and soccer and baseball athletes. They have that cushion where they can kind of hang out. Even the guys on the bench. But for us, we don't fight, we don't get paid and that's the scary reality to it all.

I've got personality. And I can actually fight. I think that combination alone sells.

I've had negative experiences with cops. I've had positive experiences with cops.

You don't have to get into, 'I'm a leftist or a rightist, I'm Democrat or Republican.' You don't have to get into that kind of nitty gritty type of detail, but at the same time to show that you do have a stance is very, very important. To preach the good word of just being a good human being, being a humanitarian.

It's a little bit of a shame when I see some fans saying, 'Can you do me a favor and not ask questions to the fighters or the athletes about political stuff, cause we don't care about their opinions, we don't want to hear that, this is not that platform, if we wanted to hear that we would turn to CNN or FOX or ABC,' or whatever the case may be.

Jose Aldo's a legend. He accomplished many great things in his lifetime.

You cant really put a value on the UFC name. That alone has value in itself.

I never wish ill will saying 'I wish this guy won or this guy lost.' I really don't care. The best guy, let them have their night.

Just like any other job, you want a raise you've got to put in the work and you've got to show that you're deserving and what you bring to the table and all kinds of other stuff to show that you're worthy of so and so pay scale.

I like to put my money where my mouth is and go out there and perform and do what I gotta do.

I lost as amateur, I lost a bunch of times as a wrestler, and you always come back.

I want to be in my prime making the big money, enough money to put away so I can do something.

I can never complain about the situation that I'm in. I try to put everything into perspective.

At the end of the day, I know what I bring to the table.

If we're just going to have contenders fighting just to fight, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Then I might as well just start jumping around divisions too because there's a lot of fun fights for myself in other divisions that I think I would love to entertain.

We're all fighting for a reason. We're not fighting to just fight. There's got to be some type of reward at the end of the rainbow and that reward is a big, shiny, UFC gold belt. That changes every fighter's life dramatically for the better.

It's the fight game. I'm ready for everything.

I'm a lot bigger than Faber, I'm pretty sure I'm a lot stronger than Faber and I'm pretty sure I'm a lot faster than Faber.

I got to the pinnacle of the sport for a reason and that's to make money. I didn't come here just to give handouts.

I fight for people's entertainment, but at the same time that entertainment comes at a cost.

I'm in this to change my life, to change my fortunes. I'm not in there to just fight for free.

It's MMA, man, the wild, wild west. You can just expect that anything can happen, and that's just where I'm at with things.

I've never been one to shy away from a challenge and I've never been one to shay away from talking a big game.

You just take your hits on the chin and move on, that's life.

I don't want to be resentful to the sport. I want to be able to leave the sport on a high note.

You go out there and say I fight for the UFC, people know exactly what that is.

You can't keep a star from shining and my star's going to shine bright.

I want to exit from this sport with my head intact.

To be in the UFC and have the name but not the earnings, good for you, you get a hand clasp and a shake and a don't let the door hit you on the way out sort of thing.

Whether it's Bellator, OneFC, World Series, whatever, the door's open for me. Financial stability is the most important thing for me.

I want to have a bank account that represents me being a pro athlete.

About this sport, you gotta kind of stay active. If you're not active, you're easily forgotten. It's like out of sight, out of mind.

You show your teeth more when you show what you're made of and your heart.

People can say the media stuff drains you and everything, but you set everything up accordingly to the schedule.

I'm like, 'Man, if I'm going to have this idle time, I might as well be in school, do something positive where I'm not just wasting my prime years and not getting something else in return.' If I'm in school and training, that's OK. I did that in college. It worked.

This is the weirdest thing. I've been told one thing, that all these guys turned me down, x,y, z. I take to Twitter and some of these guys are like, 'Yeah, I'll take the fight,' then you don't hear anything of it for the next few weeks.

If I'm only fighting once or twice a year, that's just not going to be enough to make a dent in the sport or enough financially for me to get myself to where I want to be and position myself.

A lot of guys man, they are dull and dry.