Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Early on in my career I had the kind of anxious where you couldn't sleep at night. That anxiousness is like a virus we all have in us. Some you can deal with but some will wipe you out.
If your car takes 95 and you put 87 in it, it's gonna run sluggish, right? A lot of people don't realize what you put in your body affects your mechanics, and you're gonna run sluggish.
People have to realize that God has blessed me with power. He hasn't got me this far for no reason. I feel like God has a plan for me in this sport. That's how I have came up this fast.
A gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics is what I'm looking for. I have to pace my training in such a way that I'm at my best in Rio, and when I'm in form, no opponent can come in my way.
The only regret I have in my career, is my managers wanted a big payday, and I wanted four or five more fights before going in with [Larry] Holmes. That would have made all the difference.
I came from nothing out in the woods near Tallahassee, Florida. My mom was a single mom raising five of us. It wasn't easy but she found a way to raise us to adulthood. We made it somehow.
The middleweight division is one of the most exciting divisions in the sport. Fighters can punch like heavyweights and have the speed of the lightweights. You have the best of world worlds.
It took me nine years to get through the fourth grade. When I got into television commercials, I had to take a crash course in reading. I was 32 years old, and I couldn't read the cue cards.
You have a small period of time when you can perfect your career and become good at it. A lot of guys get distracted, which only hurts them. You must stay focused and work very hard at boxing.
I love it when they doubt me and I can prove them wrong. I proved them wrong against Peterson. I did it again against Acosta. I did it with Antillon and I did it with Alvarado. So I'll be ready.
I always felt I was wounded. That I was no good, a piece of crap, and that I wouldn't amount to anything, because that's what my father always told me. I just felt like I didn't belong anywhere.
I have so many things that I want to do with my life. I just don't see myself being a fighter forever. Boxing is my love and passion. It also opens up and sets up other things in my life as well.
With the Klitschkos, though, unless someone comes around, they can stay where they are forever! The heavyweight division is lackluster, and it will be until someone comes along who can test them.
There's more tension in golf than in boxing because golfers bring it on themselves. It's silly really because it's not as if the golf ball is going to jump up and belt you on the whiskers, is it?
When I started boxing, people laughed at me and said, 'What can women do in boxing?' I took it as a challenge. If men can do it, why can't women? And I became a world champion before my marriage.
I can't say that I have a biggest inspiration because I look at all positive inspirations. My mom, my dad and my coach, too, inspire me. No one is bigger. I just use it all and take it and use it.
I remember the first Mortal Kombat, when that came out, that was the hardest game of all time. There would be lines at the arcade around the block, and I still love all of the Mortal Kombat games.
People haven't seen enough of me. My fights haven't gone the distance, and people have a lot of questions. I want to find out for myself as much as the people do. I want to find out what I can do.
Having patience is one of the hardest things about being human. We want to do it now, and we don't want to wait. Sometimes we miss out on our blessing when we rush things and do it on our own time.
I can adapt to any environment or any situation I need to, so I am ready to go to Russia. You take what you get or start crying about it, but I am re-doing 'Rocky IV.' I am doing the black 'Rocky.'
I must destroy everybody that comes in front of me. I must execute them and I must do it in grand style. I must slay Robert Allen like I must slay De La Hoya or anybody else that steps in that ring.
I am involved in minor league baseball. I go around the country speaking to troubled youths, trying to help them understand that whatever path they choose, they'll need to really pay attention to it.
You take that walk from the dressing room to the ring and that's when the real man comes out. Then you climb up those four stairs and into the ring. Then finally, you can't wait for the bell to ring.
I like fighting at the higher weight. That extra seven pounds helps because of energy, strength and I can focus more throughout the training camp, without having to put extra time into making weight.
That's just the business of boxing. Things just turned out that way. I don't think it was any particular reason. I had opportunities to fight in bigger fights, but things just didn't always work out.
I have read articles. I don't need to go out there and keep saying it. The people that 'know boxing.' Everybody is out there saying it. But that's OK. I am going to go out there and shut everybody up.
It would give me a terrific sense of satisfaction to be the man who sent both Eubank and Benn into retirement. Benn doesn't need me to tell him that he's over the hill because, deep down, he knows it.
I was raised by both parents up to 17. We had a good family. We had a middle class family, good teaching and good surroundings, raised by the church, where I went every week whether I wanted to or not.
I have the philosophy that I'm different. I have the body, the well-being and the experience. Now the teacher gets to show the student that he's worthy of the lesson. Let me show him through experience.
I saw my brother have an altercation one time. He hit a guy with a left hook to the body and a right hand to the chin. He not only knocked the guy out, but out of wind. That stuck with me. It scared me.
If I go to a restaurant, which I do often, I know what I want, and it's not on the menu half the time. Half the time, they have to adjust the menu or what they got in the back, and they'll make it for me.
I say the sweet science is to understand not only how to fight coming forward, how to be a big puncher, but also understand, if you run into a guy who can take your punch for the first time, how to react.
I never boxed until 17 and a half, I was in the Olympics at 19, and I was world champion when I was 20. I never watched a boxing match life in my life. The only boxer I had ever heard of was Muhammad Ali.
A lot of the athletes moved away from boxing, into UFC - which I think is really crazy, where they elbow to the head and knee to the jaw. I think that's really a barbaric sport - but boxing is coming back.
Boxing should not let - we should not let - the people in business of boxing should not let a person to just walk right in and get the grand prize of boxing. You can't do it in basketball, football, hockey.
I want to defend and put my title on the line as much as possible. If the top in the division are ready to try to come and take my belt - and the key word is 'try' - I'm ready to give them that opportunity.
I was the best street fighter in history when I was growing up on the Lower East Side. Hell, I never lost a street fight. Never. I thought I could lick Jack Dempsey or Joe Louis or anybody. I was fantastic.
I actually have the Arcade PC at home, and it has 5,500 games on it. Everything from the old school, Galaga, Tron, Missile Command, anything you can think of, theyre all on there. I love the old school games.
I was hungry and I was looking for a way to better my life. With boxing, I didn't have to make a team. It wasn't like baseball or football. I could just walk in the gym and start doing something that I liked.
I actually have the Arcade PC at home, and it has 5,500 games on it. Everything from the old school, Galaga, Tron, Missile Command, anything you can think of, they're all on there. I love the old school games.
When I see a fighter gets into the ring, I not only see the fighter, but I see his wife and children. I care about what happens to them. I care about what happens to that fighter after he gets out of the ring.
The incentive of a medal at the biggest sporting arena in the world is what drives me. Before I hang my gloves, I want to win the Olympic medal, and my performance at London will decide my future in the sport.
Smokey Wilson was like my Gandhi. If I had run into somebody else in prison, with a different set of values, the world might have never known one of the greatest boxing talents ever to come out of Philadelphia.
Boxing was a way to express my anger. All of a sudden, I was expressing anger, and I was good at it. I was like a Jekyll and Hyde. Boxing helped me because I was fighting the anger out. I was knocking guys out.
Gil Clancy told me to move around for six or seven rounds, but when you're a puncher and you catch someone, you got after them. And in that fight [with George Foreman in 1999] my timing was off and I got caught.
Understand that I'm at my best when it comes to proving a point, not only to show that I'm a better fighter and a better athlete at 40½ years old, but I'm at my best when I know I've got to beat the system again.
I like Sergio Martinez. I think he's strong, he's gritty, he's got plenty of heart, he's not the fanciest guy you might have seen in boxing but he has the goods to be around a long time in the Middleweight division.
The NBA has a voice that's why they have a lockout. The NFL has a voice that's why they had a lockout. Boxing is the only sport that's individually represented the individual people - Managers, Promoters and Boxers.
They had to debate whether Joe Frazier should be in the Boxing Hall of Fame or not. I'm making sure that it would be a felony to sit down and debate whether or not Bernard Hopkins deserves to be in the hall of fame.
I will be that guy to change this sport, especially in the heavyweight division. A lot of people have lost interest. I'm the right man for the job... I want to make it bigger and better than it ever have been before.