When I'm fighting, I'm trying to find a reaction. I try to make the guy move; I try to make him do things that I want him to do. If he likes moving a certain way, I try to set something up so I catch him if he moves that way.
For me, MMA is like speed chess. It's like I'm herding a person into a certain position. Say my endgame is an arm bar. I'm not gonna actually take you and put you there. What I'm going to do is convince you that it's a good idea to move in the direction I want you to go.
The more irrational you make your opponent, the more control you have over him in the ring.
I don't really pick my opponents.
The hardest thing about an easy match is making a weak opponent play poor. A poor player isn't poor because he tends to kick the ball in his own goal. It's because when you put intense pressure on him, he loses control. So you have to increase the tempo of the game and he'll automatically give the ball away.
Cruyff's idea was, quite literally, to play football - nothing more, nothing less. His idea of how football should be played was based not on controlling the opponent, but on the ball and the game.
I'm not going to go out there and have these slugfests, but I'll go out there and dominate my opponent. That's what I do in my fight.
I just want to help, first of all, the Chicago Fire to grow, to change the mentality to a winning team, and to reach the playoffs. That's my goal. But also to change the game style into a team which is able to control every opponent.
