I've started late, I was 19 years old. I've trained with Victor Zilberman - he's a Russian-Jewish from Moldova. His son David who is coaching me represented Canada in the Olympic games. There were a lot of very good wrestlers there and they took me underneath their wing when I was young.

If you prepare your subconscious for highly stressful situations, you can create harmony with your fears. You can tame fear like a wild animal and use it to your advantage.

A fight is 10% physical and 90% mental.

I don't want to be an exception, because I was very outspoken about Performance Enhancing Drugs. It would be bad for my reputation if I would have an exemption [for doping test] - I don't want to have a free pass, I want to be like everybody else.

The danger is not to set your goal too high and fail to reach it. It’s to set your goal too low and reach it

You don’t get better on the days when you feel like going. You get better on the days when you don’t want to go, but you go anyway. If you can overcome the negative energy coming from your tired body or unmotivated mind, you will grow and become better. It won’t be the best workout you have, you won’t accomplish as much as what you usually do when you actually feel good, but that doesn’t matter. Growth is a long term game, and the crappy days are more important.

People don't understand, yeah I'm alright as a wrestler, but I beat people in the takedown because of my distance control - because of my Karate. This is something I learned since I'm 7 years old.