The Weekly Wrap: Dec. 13 – Dec. 19

Quoteworthy

“He’s a very positive guy, very hard-working, a good person. He had had a very rough life. His mother passed away like seven years ago, and he took over the care of his younger sister. He’s like a father-brother-mother to her. I’m still crushed right now.” -- Ed Soares, manager of Will Ribeiro, talking to WEC.tv about the motorcycle crash that left the bantamweight contender in a coma

“He was a tough kid. He had a hard life. Whatever they find is whatever they find. Anybody that grew up the way Justin grew up you can’t fault. He was a good kid. He just had a lot of demons.” -- Affliction vice president Tom Atencio discussing the death of Justin Levens in an interview with ABC News

“It’ll be the hardest thing I’ve done in my entire life … I live and breathe it at all moments. It has to be. To step into the Octagon with [Antonio Rodrigo] Noguiera and to be able to be of any competition and be able to fight him and have a chance of winning, it has to be something that at night I dream about. I feel like I know him better than I know my own wife right now, just because of the amount of video I watch on him, the amount of time I put thought process into him. Every time I go to drink a glass of water … and I drink distilled water over tap water because he makes that decision for me, because that’s what he would do. What should I do right now? Do I skip this meal? Should I eat here? How should I train? Every time someone says, ‘Do one more round,’ I’m like, ‘Nogueira would do one more round, but I’ll try to do one more than that.’ So it has to be a complete obsession that just drives you insane.” -- Frank Mir in an enlightening stream-of-consciousness rant on his Dec. 27 fight with UFC interim heavyweight champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

“This was disassembled the night I fought Sean Sherk and has never been put up again since then. So whenever this thing has to come up, and I got to sleep in this, somebody’s got to get their ass kicked real bad for this. No one wants to sleep in a plastic bag for three months.” -- UFC lightweight champion B.J. Penn in video posted on BJPenn.com after he set up a tent over his bed that mimics the thin air at a high altitude

“It’s unfortunate that the man with the Japanese MMA world on his shoulders is going abroad. We’d like him to become a pillar of Japanese MMA. I think it’s important to have dreams, but we want him to understand that the world has an expectation of him, and this is his destiny. We want to foster his growth to a level where he can be an athlete that’s one in six billion.” -- Fighting and Entertainment Group President Sadaharu Tanigawa to the media regarding Satoshi Ishii’s comments that he wants to fight for the UFC

“I am a wrestler, and Brock [Lesnar] is a wrestler. If he wants to match skills, we match skills. There is going to be a meeting between me and Brock. There will be.” -- Former World Wrestling Entertainment star Bobby Lashley in post-fight comments picked up by The Miami Herald after his professional MMA debut

“His interest to learn jiu-jitsu also called my attention. It’s pretty common that a professional athlete is not open to learning new techniques. I was also really impressed with how fast he learns the positioning and techniques. I believe his amazing capacity of assimilating new techniques is his biggest quality.” -- Brock Lesnar’s jiu-jitsu coach, Rodrigo “Comprido” Mederios, in an interview with Sherdog.com

“I think it’s wrong for the sport. I don’t think he’s got enough credibility yet. Obviously anything can happen in the sport, and he beat a great guy, but s--t, he’s only had four fights. I think it hurts the UFC’s credibility a little bit just because you have a WWE wrestling star who’s the heavyweight champ.” -- Tim Sylvia discussing UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar with Sherdog.com

“Open a little custard shop, OK, a yogurt store, and try to get coverage for your employees. Then go out and say, ‘Yeah we own the Ultimate Fighting Championship. We’d like to get some health insurance for our fighters.’ You can’t do it. It’s impossible. It would cost so much money it would put you out of business.” -- UFC President Dana White talking to ESPN Radio 1100 about the feasibility of providing health insurance for the company’s fighters

“It’s going to happen one day. He knows that, and he’s cool with it; I’m cool with it.” -- Forrest Griffin in an interview with MMAWeekly regarding the possibility of fighting Xtreme Couture teammate Wanderlei Silva for the light heavyweight title

“I never thought I’d be in a video game, and I’m happy about that. To be a part of the whole organization and to be a part of the video game, that’s my immortality right there. I may die next year or in the next couple of days or whatever, but I’ll always be in that video game.” -- Rashad Evans talking to IGN.com about being featured in the UFC video game set to debut next year

“Sometimes I’m in a suit and tie and sitting in the stands or walking below; other times I’m in the locker room with a sponsorship T-shirt carrying buckets out to the ring. I can put an ice bag on somebody’s neck just about as well as anybody else.” -- Steve Thompson, an attorney for Team Quest fighters, discussing the role of lawyers in MMA with Chicago Lawyer Magazine

The Week Ahead

The peaceful Christmas week will not be without its share of fight hype, as Spike TV pumps UFC 92 with a “Countdown” special on Monday; the show will focus on the Forrest Griffin vs. Rashad Evans light heavyweight title fight on Dec. 27. Plus, M-1 Challenge stages the finals of its team tournament on Dec. 26 in Seattle.