Fourteen weeks before the Mendes fight I tore 80 per cent of my ACL [anterior cruciate ligament]. That is the main ligament for stability. Every day in that training camp when I was working my way back, I was saying "real champions fight through any adversity". That is why I am a real champion and he is not. Look at my eye [he had seven stitches put in an old wound after an injury in training the night before we met]. Fighters fight on. Aldo got scared, he went running and I worry he will run again.

When I'm in there I'm just in my zone. What people think about when they're looking at me, that's their business. If there is a bit of that, I am fine with it, each to his own.

It is the most powerful submission in the sport. It is a beautiful thing. You're holding them into you, their back is on you, and you are basically choking them gradually like a boa constrictor and once you've got them, the pressure goes on and they have to submit or they are going to stop breathing. It happened to me early in my career, and I panicked, and gave in, I tapped out too early. I learned a lot from that. I learned from it, learned how to do the move better, learned how to avoid it being done to me.

I studied every move, I became fascinated by thinking what I could have done differently. And I take that approach now as a professional. I am on it, all the time, never stop thinking, learning. You don't get to be world champion unless you do that.

If people want to believe in this god, or that god, that's fine by me, believe away.

I used to imagine it. I used to pretend that my Peugeot driving to the gym in the rain in Dublin was a Ferrari on the Vegas strip. And now that I have that? I can't even describe that feeling. That's why I like the best - the best cars, the best food, the best watches.

I feel it when I need to train and I do what I feel like I need to do. I don't get obsessed with one style or one skill.