Ben Askren

I trained with Jorge Masvidal when I've been training MMA for 2-1/2 months in Coconut Creek, Fla., in, like, December 2008. I was beating him up then! ”

When I came through the ranks in wrestling - in high school and college - those systems have been in place for 100 years, and they're fairly standard training across the board for all the colleges. ”

Every single time you compete, I don't care what it is, you want to perform the best you can, and I feel like I'm doing that. ”

I have a really hard time with people telling me what to do. ”

My two things I always said is, No. 1, I'd be retired by the time I had my first kid, and No. 2, I'd be retired by the time I was 30. ”

The worst 24- to 36-hour period of my whole camp, the part I like the least, is the part where I've gotta cut 13 to 15 pounds of water weight. ”

I try to wrestle one time a week with good, solid people. ”

Obviously, everyone knows it is hard to hang it up, but I'm definitely going to try and do it the right way and not like how combat athletes have done and hold on too long for every last fleeting moment. I don't want to be one of those people. ”

There are conferences every year where all the major coaches get together, and they talk about the issues in wrestling, what's going to happen. There's a major governing body, U.S.A. Wrestling, which oversees a lot of the issues. The organization is there in wrestling to make a very well-balanced, organized system. ”

Wrestling is a worldwide sport. It's totally international. ”