Originally Posted by Jose Rodriguez winnipegsun.com

Q: How is your training camp?

A: It's the best so far. A lot of guys from Greg Jackson camp (Nathan Marquardt/Rashad Evans/Keith Jardine) have come to Montreal to help me train and Denis Kang has been here with me the whole time. I'm doing specific training for the Serra fight. I've been studying a lot of tape and I have a good strategy going into that fight, but like when you play cards, you can't show your hand, so I can't tell you too many specifics.

Q: What is it going to be like to walk out into Bell Centre packed with all your family and friends in the city where you grew up?

A: It's going to be crazy. Montreal people are very hot-blooded. The UFC will have never seen anything like what they will see that night. It's going to be insane. I can't dream of a better scenario fighting in Montreal in front of my people for the title.

Q: How many tickets did you get?

A: I got eight tickets for family and friends and then I bought a couple of more, but I should have got even more because now I don't have enough for everyone. I'm very surprised it sold out in one minute.

Q: Your opponent, Matt Serra, has described himself as Rocky in Rocky IV and you're the Russian freak with no heart named Drago. How do you see this fight?

A: I'm like Rocky in Rocky III where I lose the first time, then come back and beat Clubber Lang.

Q: After the last Serra fight you two had a falling-out and Serra called you a headcase. He said you respectfully took the loss, then made excuses weeks later about not taking Serra seriously and not being 100%. What is the state of relations with your opponent?

A: He has said what he has said. It's too late to do anything about that now. I'm not mad at him. I'm going to fight with my heart and that's how I do best. I think the last fight I had against Matt Serra made me grow up a lot. I had a lot of obstacles in my life. People have no idea what I went through before the Serra fight. A lot of things happened that I want to keep private because for me, as a professional mixed martial arts fighter, I have a public life and I accept that people talk about me. But there are people in my family and my entourage involved with what was happening at that time and I have to respect their private life. Someone close died, but it's not only that, a lot of things happened at that time. It would not be right for me to talk about it, even though it would justify a lot of things. I can say I will never let things that happen to me in my personal life get inside my head.

Q: One of Serra's proteges, Pete Sell, recently called you a mental midget and said "GSP is the type of guy that if they were in a bar, GSP would back down from a fight while Serra is down for whatever." What are your thoughts on that?

A: Of course I'm not going to fight in a club. It's just not my thing. If it doesn't involve me personally or my family, I will avoid it. I believe if you're a good person and treat people nicely, that incident wouldn't arise. I think those situations happen to people who are uncomfortable with themselves. Or try to look tough or act like fighters. You attract what you look like. I don't have anything to prove. When I fight, I do it for a living.

Q: How important is it for you to be respectful in the way you conduct your life inside and outside the cage?

A: Sometimes it's hard because people are not always nice with me. But the best way I can explain it is that I see it as part of my job. I think I'm a role model and it's important for me to be a good example and when I become champion it will be even more important.

Q: How hard is it for you to get dates or friends without questioning whether they only like you because you are a celebrity?

A: I don't have a girlfriend, but all the girls I've been going out with, they didn't know who I was and they didn't even know my sport. I'm attracted by a woman who is intelligent that I can have a good conversation with. Beautiful, of course. Honest and loyal. I find that more attractive than some hot gold digger who doesn't know what I'm like on the inside because I'm a fighter. They don't know that I like to read or that I'm a very intellectual person. Fighting is a job. Once I'm finished working, I like to think about something else.

Q: Any parting shots?

A: I want to thank all my fans in Canada for their support and I believe I'm the best fighter in the world. But it's not the best fighter that always wins, sometimes it's the best fighter on that night or the one that comes best prepared, and I learned that from the last time I fought Serra and I'm coming prepared.