Jimi Manuwa

“When you're away from home for a fight camp it's the simple things that you miss the most. For me, that's laying on the sofa with my daughters and spending quality family time and small things like that.”

“The most important thing is to stay fresh - physically and mentally - and to also avoid injury of course.”

“Look at my record - I always bring a finish.”

“I'm not really into supplements, I mostly try to get it all from my food. I take multivitamins, vitamin D - which is really important - zinc and magnesium, but that's about it.”

“In every sport you get cheats.”

“I'm not one to call people out, if you look at my history in the fighting game, I've never called anyone out.”

“When I was ranked No. 11 or 12, they offered me Gustafsson who was the No. 1 contender, and I didn't hesitate. I was No. 10 when I fought Anthony 'Rumble' Johnson who was the No. 1 contender. We accept fights, but not everyone is like that, I'm beginning to find out. It's not right.”

“When I'm champion, I'll fight the best because I am the best.”

“Stylistically, every fight in the division is a hard fight. Lyoto Machida is unorthodox, Jon Jones is long and tall with good wrestling, Ryan Bader has good wrestling. You can't pick one and say, 'I want to fight him.'”

“To me a fight is a fight, it's not a contest or a martial arts competition, it's a fight.”

“Some fighters enjoy the limelight. I get nervous, I mess up when I'm trying to explain things, because I'm a fighter pure and simple, and not really a talker.”

“Yeah, I call my warrior spirit the lion.”

“There's not so many 'big names' in cruiserweight that would interest me.”

“From my three loses in my entire career I've always learned from them and came back stronger.”

“My earliest sporting memory is probably going judo when I was about 6 or 7 years old. My dad and my brother did it for a couple of years when I was young, in Nigeria.”

“I've learned about every aspect of MMA.”

“Mixed martial arts has small windows of opportunity and there's always new faces coming through, so it's easy to forget you.”

“I remember being happy and a little wild kid.”

“I'm an explosive fighter so I've always got to have that strength, but you've got to mix it with endurance.”

“I love apple crumble and custard - that's my little treat.”