You think that after becoming world champion, you’re going to be a massive superstar with lots of lucrative bouts against great fighters, but that never materialised for me.
I worked in factories, slaughterhouses, as an upholsterer. I did demolition work, was a postman, was a tiler, a plasterer. I even sold double-glazing door-to-door. But I always dreamed of being a world champion, first of all as a boxer.
I do believe that ‘Aljo’ could be world champion. If you look at the fighters he’s faced and beaten, they’re high caliber people. He’s also faced and overcome adversity, including back-to-back losses in fights he could have won.
I’m looking at the belt on the top of the bag across from me, and it still hasn’t fully hit me. There are multiple stages to all of this, but I know that every time I walk into a gym or go to a new locker room since I won the title, I’ve felt like the world champion.
Under two years in the UFC, I became a world champion. That’s a fast track.
I’m a four-time world champion, so I don’t want to hear anything about my losses.
Muhammad Ali meant everything to me. He inspired me to box after watching re-runs of him winning a gold medal in the Olympics and being a world champion.
World champion always say ‘yes please’ – never hold back when someone need humble.
My ambition is to one day be in Formula 1 and hopefully become world champion.
I made a prediction when I was 11 that I would be world champion by the time I was 21, and I did it.
I think being world number one and world champion, pressure comes with that.
I know deep down I’m destined to be a world champion and maybe it’s to be attained in the most prestigious division in the UFC at welterweight.
I’ve always been working just to be a world champion and it’s a dream come true.
I don’t want to go back to WWE and burn out within four or five months, and having another run as TNA world champion would feel just as good.
Being the first-ever three-time ROH world champion is pretty surreal.
I have a really strong opponent in Randy Orton. A former multi-time world champion. He’s held just about every title under the sun. And he’s done it all in a major way. He’s basically wreaked havoc and ran roughshod over the WWE for quite some time. Some people might forget that.
To me, being heavyweight world champion and Olympic sprint champion are the two greatest prizes in sport.
The biggest motivation for me is becoming a three-division world champion faster than any other boxer, male or female.
I was K-1 world champion.
As a World Champion, it is important that you face the #1 contender. That is what makes it sport and not entertainment; otherwise, what are the girls fighting at 145 lbs. training to work towards if they know they will never be given a title shot, even if they become the best in the world?
To have a heavyweight world champion from Manchester is something you can only dream of.
I’m world champion, so if I’m not ready for another fighter at 154, I don’t deserve to be world champion. That’s the way I look at it and what I firmly believe.
I want to thank America. You opened your heart so I could enter. Thank you everybody who lives in the United States, who saw me grow into becoming a world champion.
Listen, you can’t just come in to boxing and be a world champion. You’ve got to be born with it.
It’s definitely a motivational factor, becoming a three-organization world champion.
I love the people to see me as gold medal, Hall of Fame, world champion that knows how to make the world news and how to come from oldest counrty in the world to be most famous Iranian in the history.
I remember my first World Championships. I got zero turns, and I got turned multiple times, and I was still a World Champion.
I have the most loyal fans that have been with me since I was 19 years old, when I was just a young guy becoming a world champion.
I want to be the world champion.
I believe that I will be the WWE World Champion one day. I know that a lot of people say that; it’s easy to say. If I were to go away without accomplishing that task, I would feel unfulfilled, to be completely honest.
Before I got in the UFC, I wrote down on a piece of paper a goal that I was going to make it to the UFC in 2015 and then I’ll be the world champion before 2017 so I’m right on track. I pull out that piece of paper all the time and look at it. It’s motivation.
There are plenty of massive fights out there for me, I know that, but the goals always going to become world champion.
Everyone wants to be a world champion, but when you take that first punch it will tell you if you really want to be in this sport or not. For me, there was no doubt.
The boys, they are laughing: ‘Oh, you are boxing. Very funny.’ But I always challenge when people are laughing – ‘I’ll show you one day.’ After getting five times world champion, they are all quiet. And they respect me.
At six years old, I told my dad that I would be world champion, and on Nov. 26, 2011, I am.
This is something nobody can take away from me. I’m a world champion. That’s a crazy feeling.
I think Cormier’s one of the greatest to ever do it. Two-time, two-division world champion.
When I started boxing, people laughed at me and said, ‘What can women do in boxing?’ I took it as a challenge. If men can do it, why can’t women? And I became a world champion before my marriage.
It’s not been a bad life, and I do know that I could never have been a world champion. All I ever wanted to do was be the best I could with what I had, which wasn’t very much, really. And that’s what I think I did.
