Jimi Manuwa

I am who I am and I tune my training to the fighter I am.

I'm a bit rusty when it comes to football.

I'm a knockout specialist who comes to fight and who's exciting to watch.

I can definitely get the belt. It's something I always wake up believing every time I train.

It would be great to fight on UFC 200 obviously. It's going to be an historic event but the card is getting full quickly.

I ruptured my bicep tendon in a sparring session.

And I took to fighting very well. I'm a fast learner, and I needed to learn quickly. I knew this was what I wanted to do and I put everything I had into it.

For whatever reason, I've always been able to hit very hard.

But when you're cheating against your fellow athletes, that's something I can't forgive.

I always predict a knockout. That's what I go for, I hit to hurt.

I'm not one to call people out, if you look at my history in the fighting game, I've never called anyone out.

I like all styles of MMA, my first classes in the sport were BJJ but I prefer to stand up.

How I fight is what got me into the UFC in the first place.

It's always great fighting in front of familiar faces and not having to travel and deal with jet-lag and all of that stuff.

Yeah, like '300,' I've probably watched it 300 times. It's one of my favourite films. I've just finished watching 'Spartacus,' another great series. I relate a lot to those kind of films. I think most fighters should relate to those films. It just seems natural. I am Spartacus, I am Leonidas, I am the lead role in those films.

I dunno - there's always a beast that comes out whenever I want it to... I can control the beast and everything, but it comes out when I want to.

It never is a boring fight with me fighting.

If an MMA fighter is going to call out a boxer it's got to make sense.

Some fighters enjoy the limelight. I get nervous, I mess up when I'm trying to explain things, because I'm a fighter pure and simple, and not really a talker.

Brad Pickett is one of the coolest guys in MMA and someone I have a huge amount of respect for.

There's no such thing as a lucky punch. You throw to hurt someone and if you hurt someone, job done.

In the UFC, nothing is guaranteed. Anything can happen when it comes to getting a title shot.

When I started fighting I've always thought about being a UFC champion.

I expect whoever gets in a UFC Octagon to put on a great show, because that's why we're there.

I'm happy I found discipline, something I love, and I also found God.

It's easy to say when you're on the outside and when you're the coach or for people to say, 'Oh, you should have done this, you should have done that.' But when you're in there in front of thousands of people and you get hit and you want to win the fight, it's totally different.

There's not so many 'big names' in cruiserweight that would interest me.

I'm not bothered about where I'm ranked in the world. I'm just worried about fighting the best people in the world and being a natural, original champion.

I'm a knockout artist.

I can't think of any heavyweights that would match up well with me. They're all too big.

David Haye was the perfect opponent for me because he was a small heavyweight with a big name and we were about the same size.

Thankfully, hamstring injuries don't take that long to heal.

Every fight is a must-win for me.

It's all about experiences and taking positives from each fight, even if it was a loss.

I don't care where I am in the rankings or anything like that - I just want a UFC belt.

I don't think there's anyone who strikes like me in the world.

As soon as I found MMA, I knew that this is what I wanted to do, and it gave me focus because I was good at it anyway, and it gave me a goal to reach. I kept winning my fights, and it's given me a goal and a career opportunity.

MMA has improved my life leaps and bounds.

I think everyone knows that I keep myself to myself and I don't get involved in trash talk or anything else.

The London fans know what I bring to the table. Destruction.

The fear of losing motivates me, and that's it.

To me a fight is a fight, it's not a contest or a martial arts competition, it's a fight.

I'm a 'come forward' kind of guy, I will never fight any other way and I don't think I could learn anything different either.

I've learned about every aspect of MMA.

I'm a bit of a night owl, I'm always visiting the gym throughout the night.

The most important thing is to stay fresh - physically and mentally - and to also avoid injury of course.

When you're away from home for a fight camp it's the simple things that you miss the most. For me, that's laying on the sofa with my daughters and spending quality family time and small things like that.

Stylistically, every fight in the division is a hard fight. Lyoto Machida is unorthodox, Jon Jones is long and tall with good wrestling, Ryan Bader has good wrestling. You can't pick one and say, 'I want to fight him.'

Daniel Crawford, who was BAMMA featherweight champion, used to train with me.

I just love putting on a show for my fans.