"I've never gone to the UFC and asked for a specific fight. Never, in my career. They've offered me people and I just say yes," Franklin said. "As a matter of fact, I've only turned one person down in my entire fight career, and that's when I fought Matt Hamill. Before they offered me Matt Hamill, they offered me Reese Andy. I told them I didn't want to fight Reese because he had actually helped me get ready for my two fights prior to that when I was up training in Seattle, and he was basically one of my current training partners. So I said 'I'd really rather not fight him.'"
"Of course they came back with Matt Hamill. I knew Matt, and that wasn't the best either, but I kind of painted myself in a corner with that so I told the UFC, 'take it to Matt's camp and if they want the fight then I'll take the fight, but it's definitely not my second choice.' And that's exactly what happened."
"People ask me 'well who do you want to fight next?' I couldn't care less, this is a business to me; I'm making my way to the 205 lb. title at this point in time so as long as it's somebody that puts me in a direct line for that then I'm good to go, otherwise I don't want to waste my time."
"I'd be interested in taking any fight that they offered to me. Forrest and I, we're somewhat of friends, and I like him, I like hanging out with him, so of him and Machida I'd particularly want to try to avoid that one; but this is business. "I've done it before. Chuck was a friend of mine, Matt was a friend of mine, I have a good professional relationship with pretty much everyone I've ever fought both before and after the fight, so it wouldn't stop me from taking a fight with Forrest."
"I've heard the fans talk about Forrest and I, I've heard the fans talk about Tito and I. I know there's some fan interest out there for some particular fights, and I know that Dana is particularly interested in building fights that fans want to see, so if those guys are healthy at the time that I'm ready to return and that's a fight he wants to put on then yeah, I'm not going to say no to something like that."
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