B.J. Penn file photo: Dave Mandel | Sherdog.com
“It’s motivation. If people are always doubting you, then that means you haven’t really proved your point yet. And people always doubt you, so you’ll always be out there trying to prove your point, ‘til you die.” -- Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal to MMAFighting.com
“I can win the title tomorrow, and they’re going to say, ‘Oh, well, he’s not this or he’s not that,’ because everybody kind of compares me to Brock [Lesnar] to an extent. When Brock won his title, what did they do? They booed him. How do you boo somebody when they win the title? Because if they don’t have respect for you at the beginning, they’re never going to have respect for you. If somebody came in, they have a black belt in jiu-jitsu, they go, ‘Oh, man, he’s got a black belt in jiu-jitsu.’ They give him mad respect. But me, I have a black belt in wrestling, if that’s the way you want to look at it.” -- Bobby Lashley to MMAFighting.com
“When I started, I thought I was God’s gift to fighting and [would] go 100-0 with 100 knockouts. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that I have six losses, but each loss put me on a different path and was a new part of my journey. I do believe if I won [against Edgar at UFC 112], I’d have changed nothing and set myself up to fall harder in the future.” -- B.J. Penn on the UFC 118 conference call
“I hope I am not fighting Jon ‘Bones’ Jones. I might be. [Expletive] it; if I am, I am. I will do it, but I am not even training right now. That is a bad dude. That dude will whoop my ass. [Expletive] it. What is the worst, I mean, it could not be worse than Anderson Silva. It should not be worse than that, right? Every fight I go into, no matter what happens, it could not be worse than Anderson Silva.” -- Forrest Griffin on The Jason Ellis Show, as transcribed by BloodyElbow.com
“I’m very anxious to be done fighting, be done with my military career and maybe go to culinary school.” -- Tim Kennedy to MMA Junkie Radio
“MMA is the first real promise to former wrestlers in the form of an athletic career. I don’t think the MMA community can sit idly by while wrestling is eliminated from the college landscape.” -- Aaron Crecy, co-creator of Clinch Gear clothing who wrestled at Cal State Fullerton and Arizona State, to SI.com on wrestling being cut from college budgets