The Weekly Wrap: March 13 - March 19

Quoteworthy

"I'm getting messages from all over the world, not just from the U.K. To my surprise, I'm getting a hell of a lot of messages from Canada. They usually start with, 'I'm Canadian, but,' and then it goes on to explain that they like Georges St. Pierre, but they're ready for a change, and they want me to win.” -- Dan Hardy to MMAJunkie.com.

“I’m at a point now where I’ve fought enough fights and it’s time for me to make a title run again and see where that takes me. That’s where my focus is now. It depends on the speed of things. I would imagine I’ll probably end up negotiating one more contract before I retire. I’m looking at another two or three years of fighting.” -- Rich Franklin to The Boston Herald.

"I never even heard the word withdrawal. I didn't know what withdrawals were. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know to speak to a doctor about it. I took it the wrong way, kind of the cowardly path. I just kept on using the prescription drugs, but it's a tough push-pull kind of thing in my line of sport. Injuries are a common thing, it's something you're always dealing with. And when you have bad ones, sometimes you have to take those medications… I needed to get caught. I needed to get in trouble for it and wake me up and get off of those things." -- James Irvin to TSN.ca on his recent recovery from a prescription painkiller addiction.

"I want to be the best at everything. I want to outbox Mike Tyson. I'm going to out-wrestle Alexander Karelin. I want to choke out Roger Gracie. And until I can do that, I'm not satisfied with myself." -- Frank Mir on “Countdown to UFC 111.”

“I see now guys that are mean and aggressive and I’m like, you’ll come full circle. You’re just a sensitive dude. You just don’t know how to deal with criticism, you don’t know how to deal with adversity… I’ll go out there and take a challenge that there might be a really good possibility that I might not succeed in. But at least I went out there and took the journey. Other people will always sit on their couch and watch their TV and they’ll sit there and make fun of me at their keyboard, but once again, 50 years form now, no one’s going to ever know who that person was. Not even his own grandchildren.” -- Frank Mir to Fightmagazine.com.

"Roger is just a different breed of cat. I mean, just the fan response and the excitement level –- numbers don't lie. The ratings points, the attendance at events –- Roger brings that extra something into the cage and into an organization. As a fan I used to watch Roger fight, and it was something that you would stay home to do." -- Bjorn Rebney to MMAJunkie.com.

"This is MMA, not the NFL.” -- Mike Kogan, U.S. representative for Fighting Entertainment Group, to SI.com summing up unsuccessful negotiations to bring Huerta to Dream.

“I like Team Quest and I have many American friends. I miss everybody. I cry every night… A Japanese physical trainer and the trainer of the kickboxing are very excellent. But American MMA training is better than Japan. I train the techniques that I learned in the U.S. repeatedly in Japan.” -- Ryo Chonan to MMAFighting.com about relocating his training to Japan after a long stateside training stint.

"Definitely, the biggest thing is to get them to be more comfortable being closer to their opponent. In boxing, they can't use their legs for kicks and they don't need that room that they might when they are using the legs… It's like bobbing and weaving in MMA. It's really not the best move in the world to make for an MMA fighter. And I didn't realize that at first, because I forgot about the knees." -- Renowned boxing coach Freddie Roach on “Inside MMA” discussing his work with MMA fighters.

“I consider myself fairly well read on most subjects, and, to my absolute shock, Georges turned out to have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of paleontology. Now paleontology is one of the great gaps in my knowledge. I really don’t know that much about it to be perfectly honest. And as we roomed together, he just impressed me more and more with his knowledge of paleontology. I was horrified that I knew so little about this, so, of course, I immediately started reading. I dove into a book -- books, books, books -- and now I’m obsessed by it, and now all we talk about is Allosaurus and Albertosaurus.” -- John Danaher, who recently began training Georges St. Pierre in jiu-jitsu, to Sherdog.com.