I got my hand slapped for talking about fighter pay. That was a big one. I had Dana White yell at me in front of, like, 20 other fighters.
No matter what I do, it's all about the workouts. When I travel, I make sure I get my workout in first. When I'm in camp for a fight, I don't travel at all, and I train three times a day. The secret is to just keep working.
Fighting is a very independent thing, and it's not a team sport, and it's not the NFL, you know, because we don't have to look the same.
When 9/11 happened, I was like, 'I gotta do something.' I went and talked to the recruiters, and I found out about the Special Forces 18X program. They take qualified people off the street, and they give them a shot at Special Forces. I was like, 'So I could go try out for Special Forces?'
I always have that nagging feeling of wanting to go back and getting my long gun back and be a sniper on a Special Forces ODA, which is the greatest job in the world, but I have some goals in MMA that I set out to do, and I'm not going to stop until I get them.
I love the idea of what America is. America is a bunch of people that do these incredible, thankless, selfless jobs that nobody really knows about that makes that American dream possible.
