ALJAMAIN STERLING

Even when I teach my MMA classes in the gym, it's hard to teach what I do. It's more of state of flow, a state of feel. It's not a robotic thing like one, two, three, kick, one, two, three, switch, jab, cross. It's completely unorthodox. Everything is about rhythm, tempo and pace. It's a different style, man.

You cant really put a value on the UFC name. That alone has value in itself.

Whether it's Bellator, OneFC, World Series, whatever, the door's open for me. Financial stability is the most important thing for me.

You put me in there with anybody at '35 or '45, I get on your back, I take you down, it's going to be a long night and it's a dangerous situation to be in.

At the end of the day, when you get a sponsor, it's a working relationship. So anyone I get involved with, I want it to be a working relationship where I'm generally trying to help them and they're generally trying to help me.

I like to put my money where my mouth is and go out there and perform and do what I gotta do.

Ideally, I want to get out of the sport at least when I'm 30-31. I don't want to be one of those guys who stays around too long, so I want to get as many fights in as I can.

This is the weirdest thing. I've been told one thing, that all these guys turned me down, x, y, z. I take to Twitter and some of these guys are like, 'Yeah, I'll take the fight,' then you don't hear anything of it for the next few weeks.

I had to learn to toughen up and fend for myself. You'd think when you have a lot of brothers and sisters, they'd come to your aid and rescue you a lot of times, but for us it wasn't really like that. It was tough love.

If you go into a negotiating room and are like, 'Well I was on the same card as Conor McGregor, so maybe I should get a little bit more money,' they'll probably just look at you like, 'What? In what universe does that even make sense?' So I don't see how anyone could possibly think it's going to be a trickle-down effect.

At the end of the day, Cejudo's a tough competitor but I think he's a flyweight.

If we're just going to have contenders fighting just to fight, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Then I might as well just start jumping around divisions too because there's a lot of fun fights for myself in other divisions that I think I would love to entertain.

I think it's huge to set a good example. Whether you like it or not, as a professional athlete you are always going to be projected out into that spotlight of judgement. People are always going to judge every single thing we do and I think it's cool to just be real with yourself.

I mean, I've had fights with random guys, I drove to fights by myself cutting weight, no corners whatsoever. So I've had a very interesting MMA journey.

I fight for people's entertainment, but at the same time that entertainment comes at a cost.

If I'm only fighting once or twice a year, that's just not going to be enough to make a dent in the sport or enough financially for me to get myself to where I want to be and position myself.

You just take your hits on the chin and move on, that's life.

At the end of the day, I feel like I've never had an easy break in terms of opponents.

I'm from a family of 20, so I'm one of the oldest guys, I grew up a lot having my brothers and sisters walk with me to school when I had to be the guy to watch them and all these things, so I kinda learned how to develop those leadership skills at a very early age.

I'm a lot bigger than Faber, I'm pretty sure I'm a lot stronger than Faber and I'm pretty sure I'm a lot faster than Faber.

I've been the captain of my wrestling team, my college team, so to me, I've been in that leadership role for a very long time.

A lot of guys man, they are dull and dry.

I don't want to be resentful to the sport. I want to be able to leave the sport on a high note.

There's a lot of American citizens out there that do jobs that they hate, day in and day out. For me to do what I love to do, with people that I like and enjoy being around who are chasing the same dream, same passions, to have that around you day in and day out, I think it says a lot.

I think flyweight has always been exciting.