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.

Boxing is going to have to catch up with the kind of things UFC is doing. They're getting left behind.

It's important to stay hydrated - first thing I do in the morning is stretch and drink water.

I do yoga. People think it is easy, just touching your toes. It is hard. But I tend to go with my own flow. It's back to the movement thing. I feel it when I need to train, and I do what I feel I need to do. And when I am in the run-up to a fight, I am really at it the whole time, might be getting my weight down to meet the limit for the division. Soon I am moving up and I am going to be champion in the next one too.

Golf isn't a sport, it's a game. I'm not saying it's not a difficult game, with lots of mental stuff. But it's not a sport like mine. Where is the combat, the intensity of what we do?

I am not a big crier. But I'd say it was after the Mendes fight. It was not because of the fight as such. It was everything leading up to it. It had been such a tough time. When I did my knee, I had some very dark times. Life is all about ups and downs and I'd say there had been a lot of downs, but I got through it, I won and after the fight, I was standing in the shower and I was crying, just letting it all go.

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