D. Herbertson/Sherdog.com
“Are we pretending to hate each other? Nah. We poke fun at each other, but whatever. We don't really hate each other. I mean, if you want me to, I can hate him in an instant. The easiest emotion for me to come to is anger. I don't know why. It's always been that way. My dad is the same way. He could be sitting on the couch and just snap into an instant rage out of nowhere, and I can do the same thing. To me, it's not that big a deal to hate anybody. But I don't hate the guy; I'm just going to beat him up.”
More on Shields:
“On top of not being able to beat me in a fight, he can't beat me in a damn wordplay either. He talks like a mannequin. The time that we got him on ‘Bully Beatdown’ to say something, he couldn't say anything and he had a script. Some people are made for TV or radio, and I am and I've honed these skills over years of doing it. It's ridiculous. If you want viewership to drop in the toilet, he can host the show.”
On too much entertaining, not enough fighting:
“Who's saying? Who's criticizing? I don't ever see anyone go, 'He shouldn't do that.' Don't watch. I don't give a damn. Go switch the channel. Oh, you can't because you only have CBS at your house? Oh, that's sad. You should really work on that and get some cable. I heard SpikeTV shows fights for free too.”
On training:
“My weight is good. It's kind of uneventful. The training camp has gone good, and I was a little concerned because my body was run down (since) I trained so hard, but I'm coming back and I'm peaking here at the right spot. I'm excited. Right now I can go five five-minute rounds with fresh guys, so I'm prepared for a long night if it comes to that.”
On whether “Bully Beatdown” fans are MMA fans:
“I've gone ahead and done (something) on my own where I'm getting people into MMA through a show that's funny and interesting. I've done it my way. I've gone the back way to get fans. I've gone, 'Hey, kid. How old are you? 14? Watch this instead of skateboarding.' And that's what they're doing now. I think that's what needed to be done. Someone was going to do it eventually, and I just got lucky where I'm the host of ‘Bully Beatdown’ and I got to bring some MMA to people who never heard of ‘Ultimate Fight.’”
On marketing and branding:
“I'm not trying to just go out there and be the instructor guy or only a fighter guy. I'm trying to be multifaceted and be an entrepreneur on the level where I'm trying to do everything I do as big as possible and as great as possible. I really have a motivation and ambition to do everything I can do as best as possible. That extends to my marketing and my branding and you remember me because I'm loud, crazy and have a big red stripe on my head. It's all part of the same thing.”
On how much of this is a bit:
“It's all me. I just make sure I put it out there for you. I'm me for real. If you don't like me, that's OK, and if you do like me, awesome. Come with me, we're going to have a fun time. It's the same way I pick up chicks. 'Hey you want to hang out? No? I don't care.'”
On real vs. fake hate:
“I just keep it real, man. Jake, I don't really have a problem with. Jacare, we just beef and we don't really like each other. I don't know. There's something lost in translation there and that's that.”
On Fedor vs. Rogers:
“I would like to see the Fedor fight. I know Fedor is arguably the number one heavyweight in the world. I would like to see Brett Rogers go out there and mess up everything.”