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“All day! The fights start standing and that's my comfort zone all day, you heard me. If they think they going to rush me to the ground and think it's going to be easy and I don't know what I'm doing, come on man. I'm a very strong man. I know what I have to do and if they shoot in on me, they getting launched into outer space like a satellite.” -- James Toney to Fighthype.com.
“Fedor is Fedor, and he's an amazing asset, but our company is not built financially off of just one guy. Believe me, my guys are very smart about building a model that works for us and works for M-1 Global. I think that we're at that point where that had to be looked at. We looked at it. We're not going to put all of our eggs into one basket and roll the dice with one guy. We're built for longevity. This is not a sprint; this is going to be a long-distance race." -- Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker to MMAJunkie.com on negotiations with Fedor Emelianenko and M-1 Global.
“He had a lot of hype behind him. One thing that helps is, you know, WEC was really pushing him. Sort of like, whoever you see in the magazines and whoever gets promoted the most is who people think is the best. That’s not always true. He was a good champion, I’m not saying that he wasn’t … He went through that. He didn’t come in with the reputation that he went out with. It’s something he created, so it’s something I’ve got to create for myself.” -- WEC bantamweight champion Brian Bowles to Sherdog.com on his predecessor as champ, Miguel Torres.
"Just got pulled over in the city of Orange by officer Suarez, cuz my tail lights and windows are tinted in the range rover. He also decided it was necessary to also write me up for having a hat on my dashboard, obstructing my view. Lol. Thanks again for the car Dana." -- Dan Henderson on Twitter.
"I’ll tell you what, man, I hope I’m not the guy that retires him [Jens Pulver]. But chances are I probably will be. I don’t want to be the one that closes the coffin, but I’m going to have to be. Better him than me at this point." -- Javier Vazquez to WEC.tv on his WEC 47 fight against Jens Pulver.
"I'm from Brazil. Brazil is like pretty rough. In Brazil, you can just kick the crap out of anyone and just leave them and everything is going to be fine. Here you cannot do that. That's why when the guy came over to me, I was like ‘I don't want to fight you’ and I just restrained him, put him in a sequence where he couldn't do nothing and (told him), ‘Listen bro, just leave here.’ (And he was like) ‘Sorry, sorry’ and I let him go. He got into his car and I got into my car. I left and afterwards I heard shots and I don't even know if it was the same person." -- ADCC champion Braulio Estima to MMAFighting.com.
"He's a student of the fight game," Ibarra said. "He's a born fighter, and I believe in him. I think I can teach him more about his body, his athleticism –- how to fight better as an MMA combatant…We'll put in the work and see what happens.” -- Juanito Ibarra to MMA Junkie.com
“Unlike my last two opponents I have no information about this one. I asked Sengoku for video of my opponent but all they provided us with was three links to YouTube videos and some of those were from matches that took place two years ago. I keep asking for videos but the response is that the videos [on YouTube] are all they have. Are they hoping I will lose?” -- Akihiro Gono on his personal blog commenting on his March 7 fight against Diego Gonzales in Sengoku.
"The more we expose some of the underbelly of the amateur fighting world, the more disturbing it is. There are good promoters, and there are promoters who are exploiting our youth…They're making a fortune on these kids. If they're charging $25 at the door, and you've got 400 people, that's 10 grand." -- Sen. William Dotzler, D-Waterloo, who led a bill to regulate amateur MMA to passage in the Iowa State Senate, to The Des Moines Register.
“I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember what vein it was in. I sat there and he made one up in a spoon. He shot it, just a little bit, and I remember I fell back in my seat and two tears rolled out of my eyes. They hit my earlobes and I just went ‘Ahhhh.’… I lost my family. I lost my friends. My girlfriend, who I wanted to marry and who I’d given a promise ring to, was gone. I wasn’t capable of being a friend, a son, a brother. I was unemployable… I had nothing. I was completely mentally, physically and spiritually bankrupt.” -- Ultimate Fighter 11 cast member Court McGee to Yahoo Sports on his battle with drug addiction.
The Week Ahead
WEC 47 and Sengoku results kick off a stacked month of MMA action.