Quotes from Kamaru Usman

When you aren't able to do what makes you dominant, what separates you from the pack, it can throw your mind off.

We didn't have running water. We had to get water from wells, and there was a stint where I lived with my grandma where we had to get water, bring it over to the house. You had to boil the water because you never knew what parasites were in the water.

There comes a time in our careers that you get that one guy. That guy that just makes your blood boil. That really pulls the savage out of you.

The goal of this, I would like to think, for everybody, is to become champion.

In my village where I'm from, there's still not running water everywhere. People are still struggling to get clean water.

They say the body is 70 percent water, and you need that water for a reason.

I'd like to think I'm a hybrid to where, if you had to pick, where would you say I'm weak? I can outwrestle guys; I can outgrapple guys. I can put your lights out, and I have a gas tank for days. I can do it all.

We never complained, 'We don't have this or that.' Even though we had to plant certain things and harvest them to be able to eat, we never complained.

You can't say I don't have the confidence, because I have that.

Being able to open up and use my kick would make me so much more dangerous. It wouldn't even be fair to use some of the weapons that we work on.

I believe that, just naturally, I'm a very soft-spoken person. Everyone tells me that on a daily basis - 'Speak up, we can't hear you,' or 'Elaborate on this.' But that's just how I am.

I've already proved I have what it takes to be the champion. I'm right there.

Listen, anybody can put their head down and throw a haymaker and pray and hope it lands.

I think it's great to have USADA come in and clean up the sport, because what I don't want to do is train my butt off for 10 weeks to prepare for a fight for a limited amount of money to feed my family, then get out there with a guy that maybe put in 3 weeks training and cheated.

Once you have an opponent in your mind that you're preparing for, you're working on specifics, and you get guys in to mimic what they do.

When I first got into the sport, or first got into athletics, I always felt that sense of responsibility that I was destined for something bigger, that I was going to do something major.

Anybody in that welterweight division that think they want this, you know you don't, because I'm a problem. I'm a problem in this division.

A lot of people are still suffering from water-borne diseases... We want to create something where we can make life better for everyone.

If fans are willing to pay to see you fight, the promoter is happy.

I believe in fate.

Some guys just like being a fighter, and they live in that world, but I got into this to be champion.

Fighters no longer manage themselves: they have a whole team behind them. A fighter has a manager, an agent, a Hollywood agent - they got this and that. And on top of that, they've got their whole team of coaches.

Yes, I came into this sport as just a grappler, but the more I learn, the more it shines in my fights.

I ask for the fights. Sometimes I get them. Sometimes I don't.