A lot of writers, probably because they're sensitive, which makes them want to be writers, have fears about their masculinity, so they overcompensate by having an interest in boxing and tough-guy things.

My mum hates the fact that I fight. My sisters hate it, too, but they understand that boxing gave me a way out. It saved me. It made me someone. It made me the person I am today, mentally and physically.

When we started, it was based on lies. It's changing now. There are no secrets in the business. You've got to come with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's becoming very confusing.

Most people have been on a baseball diamond and a basketball court. At least once in their life, they've walked across a football field. But relatively few people have ever set foot inside a boxing ring.

I made the decision to turn pro, and I remember what Ali said to me: 'Get Angelo Dundee. He's the right complexion with the right connection.' He knew boxing. Our relationship was so genuine, so sincere.

I always wanted to play a boxer because some of my favorite films, as a boy, were those great boxing movies, like 'Raging Bull', 'Rocky', 'The Set Up', 'Fat City and Hard Times'. I just loved those films.

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.

If people recognize me from 'The Vampire Diaries,' they just give me that look that's like, 'I think I know you. I think I saw you boxing in 1912, but I'm not sure,' because it was such a short-lived run.

Sometimes emotions can win fights. Sometimes letting your feelings out in a fight can win you the fight. When it means the world to you, it's not just a sports contest - a boxing match for money or belts.

I told my boss, 'Thank you - but I'm not going to be here tomorrow. I'm going to pursue my career as a boxer.' I remember the woman actually laughed at me. She giggled and said, 'Boxing? Well, good luck.'

I don't abuse my body, I've been off 10 months, I still train and I'm always thinking about boxing, so I felt like I would be fine and I just wanted to challenge myself against another top caliber fighter.

With boxing, sometimes you'll watch the first three rounds, then you'll change the channel and turn it back in the 10th round. With MMA, you have to watch all 15 minutes. You'll want to watch every second.

I never started in boxing to be a British champion or a world champion. There are loads of world champions in Britain, and if you mention them to someone out there on the street, nobody knows who they are.

I've been on the opposite side of decisions before when the crowd would be booing and saying that I lost. I've lived with it. Judging in boxing has been same since the beginning, and it isn't gonna change.

No matter what job I've undertaken, whether it was Glory Kickboxing or Strikeforce or Pride Fighting Championships or Showtime Championship Boxing, you have to play by the rules of the company you work for.

Boxing gives you such a good workout, although I've stopped sparring. When your hand speed goes, you're going to get caught, and you can't afford to take cumulative smacks on the chops when you're a writer.

If he says he has the pizzazz and the sizzle, I have the steak, and substance. I've made more money than he's made. I've made bigger deals than he's made, when he's got the complexion to get the protection.

People don't realise what they had till it's gone. Like President Kennedy - nobody like him. Like The Beatles, there will never be anything like them. Like my man, Elvis Presley - I was the Elvis of boxing.

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 think Marriaga is a very good opponent for me. It's very hard when you have to find the keys to his defense. If people don't understand boxing, they don't know what he's capable to do. I understand it all.

I don't fight for nobody else because Don King has made me money. Yet I hear people saying Don King is exploiting me. I made $15.5 million with Don. How would you like to be exploited and make $15.5 million?

Muhammad Ali - he was a magnificent fighter and he was an icon... Every head must bow, every knee must bend, every tongue must confess, thou art the greatest, the greatest of all time, Muhammad, Muhammad Ali.

My life has been very much a roller coaster ride. Not just the boxing part, not just the acting part, just my childhood, what I was into at a young age and the things I was exposed to, it's just very abnormal.

A boxer should quit at the top, as they say. But thatÂ’s complicated. There are plenty of people in boxing who make money out off you. And they tell you that youÂ’ve still got it, that itÂ’s still getting better.

Boxing gyms are more than training facilities. They are sanctuaries in bad neighborhoods for troubled kids and shrines to the traditions of the sport. The gym is home. For many, it's the safest place they know.

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.

Since leaving cricket, I've tried my hand at professional boxing, a live stage show, and working for TV. I've had some interesting experiences, including working with the former basketball player Dennis Rodman.

I actually study boxing - my dad was a Golden Gloves champion so I learned how to fight at a very young age. Growing up in Brooklyn you always had to watch your back, so I pretty much learned to protect myself.

Boxing is a great way to vent. I don't know if there is a better way, I think for women too. There is something so primal about it and it's the best exercise in the world, even if you don't ever get in the ring.

Putting prize-fighting altogether aside as one of the unavoidable evils attending on this manly exercise, the inestimable value of boxing as a training, discipline, and development of boys and young men remains.

I have always been a puncher, but I tried to use my other tools and take my time, because in boxing, you need longevity. I can have a dust-up and knock anyone out in the first round, but you need more than that.

One of my friends once saw another guy's (criminal) record and said, 'Look, this guy is a born troublemaker, just a loser.' I had to tell him, 'No, that's my record - and it doesn't include my juvenile history.'

James Franco is a Method actor. I respect Method actors, but he never snapped out of character. Whenever we'd have to get in the ring for boxing scenes, and even during practice, the dude was full-on hitting me.

I think guys that play basketball really understand how to go up and get a ball. Because in a rebound situation, you've got to go up and fight for a ball. Just boxing out. There are a lot of things that transfer.

You look at boxing being an international, world-famous sport, right up there next with soccer, and there's only two fighters the people want to see fight. Two little fellows, Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather.

Any big televised event that starts at the crack of dawn is worth getting up for. I've done it all my life: big boxing matches, royal weddings, even TV-A.M.'s inaugural episode was enjoyed in pyjamas in my house.

It's boxing. It's about getting people interested. If I didn't say some stupid things from time to time, there wouldn't be that many people interested in me. But I let my fists do the talking when the bell rings.

Reality show? You can't find anything better than boxing because of the trials and errors, the ups and downs, the struggle when you get knocked down to get back up. Use it symbolically and interchangeably for life.

Boxing is all about how cool and controlled and clear your mind is. Violence only gets in the way of you winning a fight. It's a sport that's more about the strategy than anything. You lose or you win in your head.

There will always be something about two men in the ring - a mystique because it's pure man-to-man competition. Because of the history boxing has and the tradition it holds, boxing will always have a that mystique.

With the advent of chivalry, the art of boxing waned. The evolution of feudal aristocracy, with other and widely different exercises, pastimes and weapons from those of the common people, made boxing unfashionable.

Politics is not about schmoozing, it's about boxing. And you have to enter the arena; you have to come close enough that your face would ready the face of the other guy; and the price is that he can reach your face.

I can't watch a [Floyd] Mayweather fight. I don't find it exciting. I used to watch boxing in the [Michael] Tyson era when it was exciting. Now it's all bob and weave, a punch here and there. It is not entertaining.

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.

If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.

Trying to capture the physicists' precise mathematical description of the quantum world with our crude words and mental images is like playing Chopin with a boxing glove on one hand and a catcher's mitt on the other.

I'm not a tough guy or a good fighter at all. [Boxing] is just a great way to work out that's not boring. It's also good for your mental health. If you have an Irish or Scottish last name you should definitely do it.

It's a lot tougher to play soccer and make it look believable. But in boxing, it was easier for me. I got injured a lot more in the soccer world. In soccer, I pulled muscles. I thought boxing was going to be tougher.

Jagdish Singh was my basic coach and he trained me from my very early days in boxing, teaching me the fundamentals of the sport. He was the one who shaped me into a boxer, disciplined me when I required disciplining.

He didn't have no respect as a professional fighter should, no class. I was going to make him pay with his health for everything he said... I wanted to do it very slowly. I wanted him to remember this for a long time.

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