Quotes from Michael Bisping

One of my proudest moments is definitely UFC 105 in Manchester when I stopped Denis Kang in the second round.

I'm a fighter through and through, and I've got more heart and more determination than anybody.

You can push my buttons all you want and say whatever you want about me, and that's fine... fighters do that.

I've beaten a lot of great fighters, but people say the big ones, I've lost them all. I don't want to go down as a guy who loses his big fights.

You've got to sell fights; you've got to be entertaining.

As a fighter, you know when you connect with a really good shot because you feel the impact on your fist.

When everybody fought Anderson Silva in the past, they were terrified of him. Absolutely terrified. That's part of the reason why he was so successful.

I'm terrified of having to go back to a day job. And that's why I'm training like a man possessed. Because I want to keep winning.

I am proud to be the first British champion, and headlining MSG is a testament to all the hard work.

I often put my foot in it a little bit sometimes.

Anderson Silva kind of took the best part of Rich Franklin out of his soul, and he was never the same again.

What matters - the only thing that matters - is winning. It's nice to entertain the fans and to gain new ones, especially from the States, but on the night... that's all that matters.

Without wishing to sound arrogant, when I was younger, I used to win every single martial arts tournament I ever entered. I used to enter the under 14s and under 16s, win both gold medals in those, and then go in the men's tournament just for experience, and end up getting a silver medal.

I always wanted to be the champion, and I had belief in myself that I could achieve it. But along the way, of course, you've also got to be a realist. You lose a couple of fights here and there, and you think maybe it's not going to happen.

Maybe when I'm done fighting, I'll open a gym and manage fighters and train fighters.

I'm generally an optimist, but of course, when you've been with the UFC for a decade and still not had a title shot, there is a little part of you that wonders if it will ever happen.

Fighting at home does bring pressure - of course it does. But I've always thrived on that.

It's going to take more than one loss for me to hang up my gloves; that's for sure.

Fighting in England, for me, is the height of my career. It really is.

I want to be world champion, and that's why I've worked for an entire lifetime to get here.

Obviously, every fighter wants to be the world champion, and that's what I want to achieve.

I've had ups and downs in my career, and if you look at it as a bookmaker, the odds of me becoming a world champion were never in my favour, but I never stopped believing in myself and never stopped trying.

Financially, I've done very well doing what I do. I've got plenty of money in the bank. I've got gigs with FOX doing analyst work, media work. The UFC has been very kind to me. Ultimately, however, I want to be world champion. I have to achieve that to validate my entire career.

I worked in factories, slaughterhouses, as an upholsterer. I did demolition work, was a postman, was a tiler, a plasterer. I even sold double-glazing door-to-door. But I always dreamed of being a world champion, first of all as a boxer.