Quotes from Aljamain Sterling

I hope we can figure out the reforms, educate and really retrain our police officers. Getting people to understand that just because I grew up a different way and my lifestyle's different, doesn't mean that you need to be afraid of me.

Whether it's Bellator, OneFC, World Series, whatever, the door's open for me. Financial stability is the most important thing for me.

People can forget about you so quickly and that's not what I want. I want to keep people talking because at the end of the day that's what is going to get you paid. People have to want to care to watch you fight and you have to be relevant.

If you don't stick out then how do you expect to be remembered? I want to be one of those guys who is actually remembered.

I want to have a bank account that represents me being a pro athlete.

Just like any other job, you want a raise you've got to put in the work and you've got to show that you're deserving and what you bring to the table and all kinds of other stuff to show that you're worthy of so and so pay scale.

I'm too long, I'm too rangy, I can box, I can kick, I can wrestle, I can do jiu-jitsu.

I lost as amateur, I lost a bunch of times as a wrestler, and you always come back.

Being a wrestler, it can get rough in terms of your mindset, just having that mentality embedded in you where you just wanna go, go, go, 100 miles per hour, always redlining your body and never actually taking the time out to let your body recover the right way. As I got older, I started to realized that less sometimes is more.

Petr Yan's a tough dude.

I had to learn to toughen up and fend for myself. You'd think when you have a lot of brothers and sisters, they'd come to your aid and rescue you a lot of times, but for us it wasn't really like that. It was tough love.

About this sport, you gotta kind of stay active. If you're not active, you're easily forgotten. It's like out of sight, out of mind.

I want to exit from this sport with my head intact.

I think everyone is kind of an immigrant somehow, and I wasn't raised in an American society at home. My household was a Jamaican household, so I got all my traditions, all my roots and culture intact, so I'm able to support both countries.

It's interesting to see all these guys keep calling me out after they win. I don't know whether it's a slap in the face or just respect. I don't know. I have no idea. I can't tell what to make of it.

If we're just going to have contenders fighting just to fight, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Then I might as well just start jumping around divisions too because there's a lot of fun fights for myself in other divisions that I think I would love to entertain.

I realize judges don't understand what the hell kicks are doing.

Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of being paid like NBA, NFL and soccer and baseball athletes. They have that cushion where they can kind of hang out. Even the guys on the bench. But for us, we don't fight, we don't get paid and that's the scary reality to it all.

I like to put my money where my mouth is and go out there and perform and do what I gotta do.

You just take your hits on the chin and move on, that's life.

At the end of the day, when you get a sponsor, it's a working relationship. So anyone I get involved with, I want it to be a working relationship where I'm generally trying to help them and they're generally trying to help me.

I think it's huge to set a good example. Whether you like it or not, as a professional athlete you are always going to be projected out into that spotlight of judgement. People are always going to judge every single thing we do and I think it's cool to just be real with yourself.

If you go into a negotiating room and are like, 'Well I was on the same card as Conor McGregor, so maybe I should get a little bit more money,' they'll probably just look at you like, 'What? In what universe does that even make sense?' So I don't see how anyone could possibly think it's going to be a trickle-down effect.

I can never complain about the situation that I'm in. I try to put everything into perspective.