On your way to the top, you always get some chriticism. Criticism is a great motivation.

I'm trying to keep the face of my opponent more or less not damaged but eventually to execute the plan and knock him out.

You lose or you win the fight - and anything in life - in your mind. I can look at how the person walks, how he speaks, his expressions. It's a wisdom. Eyes are the mirror of the soul. So you can read a lot.

I know he's retired, but I'm a big fan of Shaquille O'Neal, his game and his personality. I have a pair of his shoes in my office. You see the size of his shoe and think, 'This is not real, this couldn't belong to a human being.' But he is human!

You can take your fitness seriously, but not yourself. That's the most difficult part: not to relax. That's the most difficult challenge I'm facing every fight.

In Soviet times the border was closed so we couldn't get out of the country, and I had been reading Robinson Crusoe. I wanted to see the ocean, I wanted to see boats, I wanted to see black people, because we didn't have that in the Soviet Union. I was all excited by that stuff.

Defeat will help you. I've been there and done that. I shook it off and came back stronger. It's nothing to be scared about.