Always being prepared

Well, one month out from the fight and training is going really well. I'm training hard, just staying on it to get better and keep improving. I feel great, I'm getting into really good shape. I'm trying not to peak too early but I'm ready to fight now.

I've been working on my conditioning and my boxing and doing a lot of strengthening and conditioning exercises to gain more muscular endurance. Then of course there's the cardiovascular work, particularly sprinting.

We're going to start picking up the sparring now too - strike sparring, grappling sparring and MMA. I wear big gloves, 16oz, to reduce the risk of getting injured.

I don't put too much focus on my opponent Frankie 'The Answer' Edgar's strengths, but we know he's a great opponent so I've got to be ready. He is very fast and mixes up his standing and wrestling games really well. I expect him to pressure me with that but I don't really believe he is coming to finish me off.

I don't really change my training to suit his style but I do try to keep these things in mind. He's going to try and move around the ring a lot, he is really good at blending skills together, and I will work on doing likewise. It should be a great fight.

In the sport of fighting it is easy to be disrespectful about your opponent before the fight and respectful afterwards. You've done everything and said everything you need to say before and during the fight, and you have a greater respect for someone who has stood in front of you and given you all they've got. What is there to do after you have gone at each other, but stand and shake hands?

I leave for Abu Dhabi on March 25. It's a long flight - five hours from Hawaii to San Francisco and then a 16 or 17 hour flight from there to Dubai before driving to Abu Dhabi.

Arriving early for a fight like UFC 112 is really important as a fighter. We need to give ourselves time to acclimatise because it is a different air, a different place, a different world over there in the Middle East.

We've got to get used to the land, the water, and we have to accept where we are at and where we are going to do battle, because you don't want to be at odds with the environment.

Without this important adjustment period the traveling can take its toll on the body both mentally and physically and you can end up exhausted. That could happen in the first or second round of the fight.

After arriving, I'll be doing some form of training. In the first week I will be getting in as much as I can and the second week will be keeping it lighter.

Dana and the UFC team will have something set up at the hotel for us, training facilities wise, but I have had a few texts and messages from people inviting me to train with them so if there is something suitable we may do that.

Fighting outdoors doesn't make much of a difference to me. I am always outdoors anyway, that is where I train.

Reigning World Boxing Organisation (WBO) welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao beat contender Joshua Clottey last weekend in the US.

When I was a kid I loved boxing and grew up watching the big heavyweights like Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield. I looked up to them as athletes and also really liked pro-wrestling and guys like Hulk Hogan.

There's a lot of debate about the effect of the UFC on boxing, but I see boxing and MMA as two separate sports, a bit like baseball and football. I think boxing will always do well while it has big stars and I believe as time goes on the UFC will become more like boxing, in terms of fans only paying for the fighters they want to watch.

I am a Pacquiao fan and would love to see him fight Floyd Mayweather Jr but I know exactly why fights like that don't happen.

Mayweather is like a Dana White, in that he is the head of a boxing organisation, and for Pacquiao it's the same thing. They're two big corporations.

As a fighter, of course I would like to be in Manny Pacquiao's position, making millions of dollars per fight. Who wouldn't want to make that much money? They are the equivalent of the UFC, the employer rather than the employee, but as a fan it hurts. I just want to pay US$50 and see the fight happen.

What I like about the UFC is that Dana sticks to his word and organises the best fights possible. As a fighter that's great.