QUOTES

Luckily, I feel like I was a late bloomer as far as my body developing. I really didn't start developing until I was like 18, 19, 20 years old.

I'm a competitor. I had that reputation in my time at the WWE. I would walk into a locker room, start wrestling with someone, and all I'd hear is, 'There goes Swagger again.'

I need to wrestle, I need to compete.

My junior and senior year in college is when I first realized what MMA is and really started liking it. I went the other route - I went into the entertainment field and started wrestling professionally, and I did that for about 11 years.

All I want to do is go out there and win. That's all that is important to me.

As a fighter, I'm not one of those people that wants to prove I can go out and throw strikes.

From the beginning, make no mistakes, I'm a prizefighter and doing this for the money. Money first. And then championships.

I grew up in one of the most prolific high-school-wrestling programs in the country, and MMA fighters are more successful when they have that amateur-wrestling background.

In my first fight, I acknowledged it. I'm a professional wrestler, this is who I am, who you know me as. But guess what, I've also been wrestling since I was 5 years old - real wrestling - amateur wrestling, Olympic wrestling.

People know my name, and because of that, I have more leverage as a professional fighter. And as a professional fighter, as a professional wrestler, that is something we are all battling for. We want to make our brand a name brand and a household name. And that essentially gives us more leverage and helps us provide for our families.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got in professional wrestling was use the exposure from cable's number one rated television show to transition and move on to what you want to go into next.

I have a lot of experience with the lights on bright - a lot of people watching and performing on live television.

I'm lanky and goofy.

When I was leaving college, getting ready to graduate with a degree in finance, I had job interviews for months and months - and nothing really was moving like a real opportunity. Meanwhile, a lot of my wrestling teammates at Oklahoma had started getting into MMA training.

I think Bellator is the place for me to hone my craft and they have a great selection of heavyweights here. They put on a great card every time so it's really exciting to be a part of that.

I've been wrestling since I was 4 years old, so I have over 30 years in some form of wrestling, non-stop in my life. For me, it's who I am.

Your natural instinct when people are throwing punches at you is to back up. That just makes it more dangerous for you. You'll get hurt that way. You've got to teach yourself to go forward, move your feet and move your head. I'm not going to lie, that was tough for me to learn.

A lot of great fighters were amateur wrestlers first and you can study them on film to see how they adapted the techniques.

Chris Jericho is on the Mount Rushmore of professional wrestling.

Whether you speak English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, everybody can speak wrestling and it's really cool to go to different cultures and societies and see how the littlest things we do as performers influence the biggest things.

When I was competing at Oklahoma in college, I remember always getting a lot of anxiety before wrestling matches. Almost to the point where, 'Oh my gosh, man, this is a lot.'

Zeb Colter is unbelievable, he is priceless.

Coming to WWE, where they treat the talent a certain way, I really gravitated toward Bellator because you saw the trend in fighters wanting to go over there because they were getting better deals and getting more freedom with it.

Toward the end of my career with WWE, I found myself in a comfort zone. Looking back at it now with a little more perspective, it was killing me.

When you get in the cage with me, you'd better be ready to go 35 minutes, not just 15.

Cesaro should be world champ. I'm not afraid to say it, Cesaro is my favorite wrestler.

As cool as Jack Swagger was, he felt choreographed.

That's one thing I found out about myself when I left WWE: I'm that guy that needs to be pushed full throttle. That's when you're gonna get the best out of me.

I've heard that I'm a wrestler and not a real fighter, but I have nothing to prove to anybody.

I am Jack Swagger. My background, it's there for the world to see, and you look at MMA today, you look at boxing today, you look at professional kickboxing today, you need that entertainment value. You want people to relate to you as a character, as a personality. Honestly, that's what they're going to remember.