JIMI MANUWA

I remember being happy and a little wild kid.

I don't care where I am in the rankings or anything like that - I just want a UFC belt.

It's all about experiences and taking positives from each fight, even if it was a loss.

I think everyone knows that I keep myself to myself and I don't get involved in trash talk or anything else.

When I started fighting I've always thought about being a UFC champion.

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.

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

As soon as I found MMA, I knew that this is what I wanted to do, and it gave me focus because I was good at it anyway, and it gave me a goal to reach. I kept winning my fights, and it's given me a goal and a career opportunity.

That was one of the great moments for me, getting a knockout in front of my home crowd in London.

I had lots of fun; I was in the boy scouts, I went camping. I just used to mess around like a normal kid.

It would be great to fight on UFC 200 obviously. It's going to be an historic event but the card is getting full quickly.

I'm a bit rusty when it comes to football.

When you're in a fight camp, you're working your body harder than normal and it's important to still look after yourself and to relax.

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.

At school, I was a lot more advanced compared to the other kids but I didn't like authority and was kicked out for fighting.

But the thing about Brazilian fans is that they respect top fighters and I will win them over. When my hand is raised I believe they will cheer for me.

Brad Pickett is one of the coolest guys in MMA and someone I have a huge amount of respect for.

I'm a 'come forward' kind of guy, I will never fight any other way and I don't think I could learn anything different either.

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.

It's been frustrating. Since I've broken into the top five, I've seen the politics of fighters dodging fights, cherry picking fights and this that and the other.

There's no such thing as a lucky punch. You throw to hurt someone and if you hurt someone, job done.

I always predict a knockout. That's what I go for, I hit to hurt.

Yeah, I call my warrior spirit the lion.

Fighting isn't an ordinary career, so you have to allow your body time to recover in between training sessions.

I dunno - there's always a beast that comes out whenever I want it to... I can control the beast and everything, but it comes out when I want to.