Quotes from Ben Askren

If you think about who retires during their prime, the number of athletes who do that is very small.

Some people, they don't get a few takedowns, they start getting nervous, and they fade. That's just not in my character.

If you're competing right, if you're doing it right, competition should be a very selfish pursuit.

Obviously, everyone knows it is hard to hang it up, but I'm definitely going to try and do it the right way and not like how combat athletes have done and hold on too long for every last fleeting moment. I don't want to be one of those people.

I don't think the number of followers has anything to do with how good I am fighting. That said, I am good at fighting, and I do have a lot of followers.

When I couldn't sign with the UFC, I think my goal of being Number 1 in the world went out the window. There's just no way of doing that at Welterweight without being in the UFC. I could go 50-0, and as long as it's outside the UFC, I'm not going to be Number 1.

I speak plainly, I don't beat around the bush, and I'm just genuine.

Young guys kind of have this chip on their shoulder of, 'I want to prove something,' right? 'I've got to prove how tough I am. I've got to prove how good I am.' And man, now as I'm getting older, I think it's almost sad when guys my age and older still have that chip on their shoulder.

I'm going to win a gold medal.

If you look across my career, whether it be mixed martial arts or wrestling, it's very, very, very rare that I lose to someone that I'm not supposed to.

I wasn't granted the opportunity to fight some of the best guys in the world. And that was something that was not on my end by any sense of the imagination.

Obviously, in a sport like golf, we see Tiger Woods fall off. There's not really too much damage he can take from that, although when you watch him and he sucks, and you're like, 'God, you used to be so good but you suck now,' it's disconcerting as a fan.

When I'm thinking of sports, when I'm thinking of a boy growing up and being a man, I'm thinking of three things - honor, integrity, and toughness.

I don't give a damn about my record.

I have a really hard time with people telling me what to do.

I don't try to hide my feelings or what I think.

Wrestling is a worldwide sport. It's totally international.

I've never feared anyone or worried what they said as long as what I'm telling is the truth, and I'm not telling lies about people.

One of my favorite topics to read about my whole life has just been famous athletes, and a lot of those have been combat athletes.

Colby Covington is an idiot. He is so stupid.

I got in MMA for one reason: to see if I could be the best in the world.

A lot of wrestling interviews are boring, plain and simple. They don't say anything you never heard before. Your basic wrestling interview is, you ask me how am I going to do, and I say, 'I'm going to do my best. I'm going to wrestle hard.'

If I want a kid to be good at a front headlock - which, if you're gonna wrestle at a high level, you need a good front headlock - I'm gonna put him in there 50 times in that practice.

A Division I college wrestling team has so many guys at such a high level it'd be like having every single guy in the gym being a top 10 UFC guy, and that's who you're competing against every single day. Most everyone has been wrestling since they were 5 years old. It's been their dream to wrestle in college. There's such a high level of intensity.