UFC heavyweight Shane Carwin. (Photo courtesy of MMAWeekly)
“Once you find out it’s against Roy Nelson, somebody that I dislike so much, I was on board. There was nobody I wanted to coach against more than that guy, and to kick his a– in not only coaching, but in the fight as well.
“I hate the guy. I dislike him. I hate him as a person. That’s just it. I’ll be vocal about it.”
- Shane Carwin gave Bleacher Report his opinion on Roy Nelson, his rival coach on “The Ultimate Fighter 16.”
“You just got remember that mine and Dana White’s relationship is like were a husband and wife. I do the man’s stuff around the house. I do the fighting, all the man’s stuff and he does all the woman stuff — all the yapping.”
- Nelson compared his relationship with UFC president Dana White to that of a marriage between husband and wife via mmafighting.
“You know, it’s this: I come from back in the old school, Carlson Gracie’s time. I know this new breed, they all like studying, how I need to study my opponent. But listen: the hardcore fans, they understand my mentality. It’s all about the sport. But it’s just a choice and when this came knocking on my door, I took the opportunity. That’s how I am. And now I’m enjoying the process, I’m enjoying the journey. I’m fighting the best guy in this weight division ever.”
- Vitor Belfort spoke to UFC.com about the difference between old and new breed of MMA fighters.
“For all the people that think I’m cocky, if you really listen to what I say…if you talk to me about fighting, you may just hear something that’s a little arrogant. Because right now, I train so hard to not even get hit, let alone talk about losing a fight. So, I love this sport so much, I owe it to myself to think of myself in the highest regard.”
- Jon Jones admitted to mmajunkie that his brashness is just a byproduct of being a fighter.
“From what I understand, Stann isn’t training with Jackson anymore. Who the hell cares either way? Come on, guys. Just because Stann trained with some smug git from New Mexico who can quote the Ninja Turtles, doesn’t mean he’s got some mystical insight to beat me.”
- Michael Bisping told Yahoo! Sports that he doesn’t buy into the mystique of coach Greg Jackson.
“The Jon Jones piece of meat (expletive) thing. When I see him in (expletive) Toronto, that’s the first (expletive) thing we’re going to talk about. Piece of meat? Give me a (expletive) break.”
- White told mmafighting that he has a bone to pick with “Bones.”
“The thing that drives me crazy about Greg Jackson is Greg Jackson has this whole little thing where he’s the nicest guy in the world, the nicest guy you’ve ever met. Real quiet and humble. He’s a (expletive) hardcore businessman. That’s what that guy is. He plays the whole thing with Jon and Rashad (Evans) and (expletive) Jardine and all these guys ‘We’re all family, we’re all brothers. We’re a big family here and that’s what we are. We won’t fight each other because we’re family.’
“(Expletive) You’re not family. You train together. Yes they like each other. There’s a lot of nice guys in MMA. Keith Jardine is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. Rashad is cool too. This sport is full of nice guys. (But Greg) plays this card with these guys.”
- White gave his thoughts on coach Jackson’s family oriented gym to mmafighting.
“I don’t want my family to see that, I don’t want them to hear Dana dropping F-Bombs. The guy who has made himself the star of MMA is the biggest douche bag and loudmouth on the planet and he’s bringing the entire industry down. If there’s no reason for us to be beating each other up than money then we should probably be doing something else. For me it was about surviving, helping people and sharing my knowledge. I don’t think Dana has that going for him, he’s not a martial artist!”
- Frank Shamrock talked to BJPenn.com about White, his arch-nemesis.
She is a great grappler. The way she took out Sarah Kaufmann was amazing and so unexpected to me. But she does lack balls, she judoed at 154lbs, entered Strikeforce at 145lbs and when she had to fight Cris “Cyborg” she dropped to 135lbs. Using me as an example. Let me tell you this, I fought “Cyborg” (and will do so in the future again) and then was asked by Strikeforce to drop to 135lbs. Having said all this, career wise it was really smart of her and she deserves a master in PR. She doesn’t care how she gets there, as long as she gets there. And she’s successful at it, looking at the magazine covers like ESPN and changing Dana White’s mind.
- Marloes Coenen admitted to punchdrunkgamer.com that Ronda Rousey is leading a successful career, yet she is a bit of a coward.
“I think if it was done right and it was done correctly, you could have people watching that fight that have never seen a single MMA fight before. Lots of them. I think it could be the biggest MMA fight of all-time.”
- Rousey told mmafighting that she thinks a fight against Cris “Cyborg” Santos could potentially be the biggest match in WMMA history.
“I want to get back in the mix, so I’ve got to go out and handle Vermola, and then hopefully (UFC matchmaker) Joe (Silva) will put me up against a little bigger name.”
- Following a lengthy hiatus from the Octagon, Chris Leben spoke to mmajunkie about his goals now that he has returned.
“It’s impossible to tell. There’s no system for picking number one contenders. There’s no order, there’s no lineup, there’s no point system. It’s just whoever they feel they’re going to make the most money off of. That’s who gets the title shot. It kind of sucks, because in other sports there’s kind of a clear path; you do this, this and this, and you get this. That’s just not the way combat sports work I guess. It doesn’t work that way with boxing or the UFC. It comes down to showmanship. I have to be a better showman to get a title shot. I don’t have to be a better fighter I just have to be a better showman.”
- Jon Fitch told mmamania he believes showmanship will assist in him getting back to a title shot.
“The biggest (expletive) problem is we got too many rich guys. Too many guys that are rich as (expletive). Money is the biggest detriment to the fight business. Back in the old days when we were just getting going, dudes had to pay the (expletive) rent.
“Once the money starts to pile up. You get some of these guys who have a few million in the bank, getting punched in the face every day isn’t too (expletive) cool. But when guys are (expletive) hungry and they want that (expletive) money and want to get out there and get more of it and more of it and more of it.
“Back in the old days, the guys were always in shape. When you’re hungry and you want to get to that level, that’s how these guys train. Then once you make a few dollars, I’m on vacation. I got to track guys down. He’s in the (expletive) jungle of Brazil. … It’s just not as easy as it used to be.”
- White told mmafighting that some fighters are choosy of which bouts they accept due to already being financially set.
“I apologize to my fans for not being able to fight at UFC Rio, which is something I really wanted to do. It was an amazing feeling to defend my belt here and it would be even better to do it again now against a guy like Frankie Edgar. I tried it all, did my best to be there in the Octagon but it was just no good enough. I hope UFC keeps him as my opponent and postpone our meeting because I really want to fight him.”
- Jose Aldo told Tatame, even though, he had to pull out of the UFC 153 main event, “Scarface” still wish to fight Frankie Edgar.
“Silva called to say ‘Hey Boss, I’ll fight at 205 and save the show in Las Vegas on 8 days’ notice but it was a few hours too late. So when this happened, I called him up and he stepped up and said ‘Absolutely, I’ll fight. I only have 3 weeks to make 185 and can’t do that right now. But I will fight at 205. And I thought, how can I find someone at 205 willing to fight him when we couldn’t find at 205 willing to fight Jon Jones on a month’s notice.
“Then I get a call from Stephan Bonnar and he is pumped. He says that Silva is the perfect style for him and he wants this fight more than anything. Does this fight make sense? Of course it doesn’t. But the bottom line is that Anderson and Bonnar stepped up.”
- White explained to Jim Rome how the UFC 153 main event between Anderson Silva and Stephan Bonnar came about.
