“Now that I did it (fight a friend), been there, done that, now I know what I need to work on. It’s not so much physical, it’s all mental. It was very difficult for me to fight somebody that I was training with just two weeks before. It was very difficult for me to just envision somebody else’s face on him. I’m not a guy that will choke somebody out or just submit them. I inflict a lot of damage on people. That’s what I do. I wouldn’t be called the wrecking machine for nothing.”

“It was pretty difficult. I learned a lot through the process. I’ve just got to be able to flip the switch. I’ve told a lot of our fighters ‘when you get in there, you’ve got to flip the switch. Whether they’re a friend or not, you’ve got to flip it.’ What was kind of different was seeing my coaches in his corner, too. It’s neither here nor there, he won. He landed the kick. My three losses have been me getting kicked. I’ve got to learn from that. I’ve got to be able to take that and move forward.”

“I fought Lyoto and that was obviously very hard for me. Now I want to get back on track fighting a top 10 opponent. Everyone was booked or injured. Bisping says he’ll be back in March and that’s the closest date I can look forward to unless somebody gets hurt and I jump in. I was able to talk to [Bisping] on Twitter, if you call that calling out.”