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"I love martial arts. I've loved it for years. I love the sport of it. When I saw MMA years ago, I fell in love with it... They've cleaned it up so much that it is now a mainstream sport, and I wanted to get involved in it. There are incredible athletes doing it, and I want to consider myself a good athlete, and that's the reason I want to do it... I'm stepping into this sport because I love it and to fight people who are trying to grow like I'm trying to grow. I don't know how far I'm going to go and how long I'm going to be in it...Working at AKA has been incredible. They have nothing but fighters there, and I've picked up jiu jitsu from them. This is like a human chess match. This is a tough, tough sport, probably one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life... [You have to leave your ego at the door at the American Kickboxing Academy] and I did it when I started training [MMA] there. I told [AKA founder and trainer] Javier Mendez. I said, `Javier, it is up to you and the fighters here. I would love to fight, but after a couple of weeks, if you don't think I can do it, you tell me, or the fighters tell me, and I'll swallow my pride and not do it.' It is a serious sport. It's not a gimmick. It's not fake. You can get hurt, if you don't know what you're doing in the ring. At the same time, AKA has a lot of pride. So I left it up to them."
-Herschel Walker talks to the Miami Herald about his love of MMA and preparing for his debut fight at the age of 47.
Penick's Analysis: Walker has the physical gifts to be successful in this sport in the short run, and he's clearly taking everything seriously when it comes to just how tough it is to compete in MMA. The training he's been receiving at AKA is no joke, and if this is in fact how he went about things with them people should be a lot more comfortable with him stepping into the cage tomorrow night. We'll see just how much he's learned at AKA tomorrow night, but it's clear he's not taking this lightly in any sense, and that's great to see.
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"There's still a large contingent of people, that they just want to see these guys almost die, or the other guy almost die and come back, and sometimes fights are like that. Certainly they are. But sometimes you get technical masterpieces too, and to hate a beautiful, technical fight - you're not really a fight fan...
Diaz has a granite chin, possesses perhaps the best recovery in the sport, his pace and conditioning are second to none and he sets records with the volume of his punches almost every time he steps into the cage. Nick Diaz is simply designed to fight the way he fights, and not many other fighters are...
"There was a lot of poison going on around there and I'm really disappointed because we had a good thing going. It was a good thing and I think people's egos got in the way. Well, not people just Javier, his ego got in the way, and too many cameras in the gym and him trying to build himself up and his brand, his AKA brand...
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