Quotes from Joseph Benavidez

For me... I feel like gratitude has really helped me to keep perspective on everything. The gratitude of doing what I get to do. The gratitude for my everyday life. The gratitude for simple things.

Cruces is like my town, where I grew up, where my heart is... All the teachers and coaches and people who have really influenced my life are from there.

I hate when people come out after a fight and they talk about injuries.

You never want to get injured, of course. That's just not what you do, but in the scheme of things 12 years of professional fighting and having to sit out nine, ten months for an injury is not that bad.

I love crying. I pick movies to go see with the intention of crying.

It makes you not believe in anything, when you do every single thing you can do right, and then there's still some way to mess it up.

I believe in my skill 100 percent, that I can go out there and beat Demetrious Johnson and give him the best fight there is.

All we have is our talent. That's what's great about the division, you can see things that 125-pound guys can do that some other guys can't. All we have is our skill.

When I say I wasn't a 'meant to be' guy, I've almost been jaded in the sport, where I don't believe in anything.

Of course, in Joe Jitsu it is about a lot more than fighting. It depends on their style, their confidence, the way that their hair falls in the morning, the way that their clothes look. It's more state of mind.

That was always the top martial artist - the Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt. Once I started beating them, I knew I had what it takes to form a new martial art. That's when I came up with Joe Jitsu, my namesake, so my legacy lives forever through the martial arts.

Once you stop having fun doing it, you start to lose a lot of focus and a lot of motivation. Where, when you love what you do you and feel lucky every day and excited, it helps every little aspect of fighting.

This sport is crazy, it moves along and we all have a short memory. No one realizes when fighters are out. They just remember their last fight and how they look now.

Our first job is to go out there and fight - not to do backflips or have a mustache.

Not having to compensate for always being at a size disadvantage allows me to unleash all of my skills.

Dominick Cruz is a great opponent, he has an amazing style.

I'm not going to bag on people and make funny jokes about my opponent. I just respect every opponent I go in against.

Fans are going to give you crap no matter what sexual orientation you are.

I can explode from both stances as a fighter. I can get up into my southpaw, give one good jab, sprawl, then get up into my orthodox, sprawl, go into southpaw and jab.

I never thought I was going to lose the first title fight. I was literally obsessed with the outcome only, and I couldn't imagine any other way possible. I thought I was going to explode and die before I lost. But I lost.

We have physical therapy there now so any fighter with an injury in the UFC can come to Vegas and get treatment every day.

The thing is, it's really hard to be the No. 1 absolute best in the world at something, no matter what you're doing.

For me, I've been a part of a super-team in Team Alpha Male for so much of my career.

I want to fight the best guy. I don't want there to be any question that I beat the next best guy in the division.