Pat Miletich: Dave Mandel | Sherdog.com
“It’s no different than any other professional sports organization. That’s exactly the way it works. If you want to stay at the top of the food chain, you do. If you don’t perform, you don’t. You know how many [expletive] guys get cut in the NFL and Major League Baseball every day? It’s crazy. Staggering. It’s the same thing here. There’s no difference. I’d rather have two guys in a dogfight and have a guy lose and keep him around than have a guy who’s in the Ultimate Staring Competition for five minutes. Nobody wants to see that [expletive].” -- UFC President Dana White following UFC 123, as transcribed by MMAJunkie.com
“My plan was to win more than anything. The UFC is the biggest event on the planet, and if you lose your first fight, you are very close to being fired. I was matched up with a very tough and skilled fighter in Gerald Harris, so I knew I could not make any mistakes and expect to get the win. That’s why I was more careful than usual. Dana’s criticism was fair. People pay to watch big fights and not strategy games. I think that the fact it was my debut made me be too careful. I was only thinking about winning.”-- Maiquel Jose Falcao Goncalves to MMAJunkie.com on his decision victory over Harris at UFC 123
“The safest, easiest way to win a fight is to finish somebody, so if you can finish him, you should do it. It makes no logical sense to ‘hold on for the win’ or anything; that doesn’t make any sense. Because that entire time you’re holding on for the win, you’re giving this other guy a chance to win. The more I hold on for the win, the more he might get out and knock me out. So if I can knock him out, that makes the most sense. What fans don’t understand is that you can’t always knock him out; you can’t always submit him. So are you just going to sit there and slug it out, and the first guy to land a big shot wins? That doesn’t make any sense to me at all, and it doesn’t make any sense to most fighters.” -- Greg Jackson to Sherdog.com’s “Fight Week”
“It was just a weird thing having to go out there and actually hurt my friend. I think Mark was probably the same way. I don’t think he was too high on it, either. We did it, and I don’t necessarily recommend it, but his corner even said before the fight, ‘You guys are going to be a lot closer because of this.’ I think we were pretty close before that, and maybe we will be closer, but it was still just a weird thing. We just did it, though. Our boss asked us, and we went for it. We don’t have any place to question something like that.” -- Aaron Simpson on the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Savage Dog Show” on fighting Mark Munoz at UFC 123
“He’s felt this pain in his right arm for a long time, but you know how the tough guys behave. He just took an anti-inflammatory and kept training. It was really hard. It was like hell for me. He was really disappointed and even cried after we made the decision. But, finally, now we made the right decision. He’ll start physiotherapy, and I think, in three months, he can finally make his Octagon debut.” -- Andre Pederneiras to Sherdog.com on Jose Aldo
“After I win this national championship, I’m in MMA. I’m not really looking to be an Olympic champion or anything like that. I kinda want to knock some folks out and make some entertainment.” -- Bubba Jenkins, the fourth-ranked 157-pound wrestler at Arizona State University, to Sherdog.com
“I think they’re fun.” -- Strikeforce commentator Pat Miletich, when asked about his opinion on foot stomps in MMA during the Strikeforce Challengers 12 broadcast
“The guy is barely taller than this podium, and this guy beat B.J. Penn in a UFC championship bout. Everybody counted him out. They wanted a rematch, and he went back and beat him even worse. Talk about a guy who is mentally tough and physically tough. He came in and spoke to the team [Saturday] night. It was a perfect time.” -- New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez on a speech from UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar, given to the team before its come-from-behind win over the Houston Texans on Nov. 21