“So you want to be a fighter?” Rodrigues wrote. “Not every fight happens inside the Octagon. Many of them happen during the preparation for a fight.
If you ask me, “Gregory, do you like fighting?” Absolutely. I love fighting. God has been shaping me my whole life to be a warrior. But the hardest part for us athletes is the preparation before the fight.
Three weeks before the fight, I dislocated my finger during sparring and ended up in the hospital. My back locked up, I had a herpes outbreak, I got sick, my immune system weakened, I felt pressure coming from every direction, and so many thoughts tried to stop me.
This is the life of a fighter that I chose. And even knowing the price, I would choose it all over again!”