“There are a lot people around me who think I need to prove something, but I don't think so. I don't think I need to prove anything.” -- Fedor Emelianenko to MMA Fanhouse after the announcement he would be fighting Brett Rogers.
“There are some things there that are telling, but have nothing to do with 'Has he slowed down?', 'Has he been in too many battles?' or any of that other nonsense that people are saying. I can't account for any of that. I really have to be ready for him to come with his A game." -- Randy Couture to Sherdog.com on his opponent Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira's recent performance against Frank Mir.
“Honestly, I really don't think about my place in the UFC and all of that. When I start training for a fight, all I care about is the fight. It's not a sport; it's not a race or something; it's not a game -- it's an actual fight. Once you get that call that you're fighting somebody, you quit thinking so much about, what am I going to do to get a title and my place in the UFC? It's just, I've got to fight this guy in two months, and that's that. That's all that counts." -- Keith Jardine to MMA Fanhouse.
“Vitor is a great fighter and very famous. Of course, he didn’t need to have five fights like I did, but I don’t think it’s fair if he gets a title shot after his first fight. But we have to understand the UFC is a business; we are not talking about jiu-jitsu or Olympic wrestling, where fighters need to beat the best to deserve to fight for the title. If there are one million people that want to pay to see Vitor and Anderson, they will make the fight happen because this is a business and we have to understand that.” -- Demian Maia to Sherdog.com on the UFC's middleweight title picture.
“I can do a grappling match with him right now and beat him. But this is MMA, this is my sport, and when it goes to the ground, he’s going to have to eat some leather.” -- Nathan Marquardt on opponent Demian Maia during “Countdown to UFC 102” special.
“Some of the things he did, I don’t even believe. When I watched the Forrest [Griffin] fight, it looked like I was watching a movie. Some people see that and they’re afraid of it. When I saw Mike Tyson fight when I was a kid and everyone was terrified, I was a 12-year-old going, ‘Wow, what would it feel like to fight him? How great would that be? I’m curious. I want to see what it feels like. I want to test myself against them.’” -- Frank Mir to Sherdog.com on the possibility of fighting Anderson Silva.
“Even with all the things that we know how to do and the deal that we have with Versus -- which is a great deal -- it’s still hard to make money and to pay the guys what they deserve to be paid, or what they think they deserve to be paid, and to run the business and make it a profitable business. There is always going to be huge discrepancy in the pay between WEC and UFC.” -- UFC President Dana White speaking of the state of the WEC during a UFC 102 press conference.
“I don’t know if that person realizes exactly who we are and what we do. And when we find this guy, he will know exactly what industry we are in.” -- Kekoa Quiptola, owner of the Tapout Training Center in Las Vegas, to FightNerd.com about the suspect in a recent break-in at the facility.
The Week Ahead
All the fallout and title implications from UFC 102 as well as results from M-1’s “Breakthrough” card, headlined by Muhammad Lawal vs. Mark Kerr.