Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In sport, you only see the fighter, but it's teamwork. Without a good team, you will never be the best. In boxing, you have to work with the best coach, the best lawyer, the best manager, the best doctor. Exactly the same principle applies in politics.
Pacquiao earned the right to go out how he wants to go out. He had fought everybody there is to fight - when they was there to fight. He fought all the top names. Eight-division champion. He accomplished everything there is to do in the sport of boxing.
I'm not complaining. I've made a very good living from boxing, better than any living I possibly could have done. Having said that, you don't live the rest of your life off the money you make in boxing. You still have to create positive forms of income.
Yes, I think about having a career in boxing, but I want to start from the bottom, start from zero. I want to get ranked and one day fight for a belt. I don't want to fight just to fight, for money, to go after big fights and challenge a great champion.
The key to any good sports story is identifying the defining moment. In football games or a boxing match, it's usually pretty obvious. But in golf, sometimes it happens on Thursday. Usually it's Sunday, but guys who don't know the game, they can miss it.
I knew about boxing, as my dad could fight. He had a successful security firm in Liverpool, and I'd see him come back from a jog before shadow boxing in the back yard. I'd watch and replicate what he was doing, as kids do. It's funny how things turn out.
The last Pan Am Games in 2011 was one of the best experiences in my career. It was the first time women's boxing was in the Pan Am Games and any major games, and I had the opportunity to box in the first women's boxing fight and then went on to win gold.
Against the odd's, I have persevered, I am the living attestation of the American dream. I am the extolment of this great nation. I have coffee and cocktails with presidents and dictators. I'm an international figure, a citizen of the world. I've made it.
Aside from a handful of guys boxing is missing the good trainers, that's why our sport is so in the air now because we don't have people who have the capability to not only train fighters but also train and create decent respectable citizens of the world.
So much of boxing is to do with your mental state. Evander Holyfield talks about spirit. I definitely have that spirit and feel like I've got something special inside me. It's about me bringing it out, controlling it and using it to become world champion.
I always joke that I want to be able to retire from boxing and still be able to look into the mirror without seeing scars all over my face. I love my sport, but I would rather not have to spend hours doing my makeup to cover up the memories once I retire.
Muhammad Ali was a god, an idol and an icon. He was boxing. Any kid that had the opportunity to talk to Ali, to get advice from Muhammad Ali, was privileged. He's always given me time to ask questions, although I was so in awe that I didn't ask questions.
MMA has evolved. When you look at an MMA fighter's skill set, boxing has to be a big piece of it. All of them have a boxing coach now and strive to have a good stand-up game, knowing that to be a complete fighter, you have to tend to your striking skills.
As a general rule, Las Vegas sports books take boxing bets only on major fights.The same is true of most Internet gaming sites. Within that framework, not only does boxing allow participants to bet on their own bouts, it sometimes encourages them to do so.
My biggest thing about being a role model is whatever I'm preaching, I'm practicing. If I'm telling people I'm boxing and then I'm eating a burger tonight, it's because I am. I'm not cheating and eating a salad and then being like, 'Yeah! Burgers are cool!'
If I'm playing a fat person, then I actually eat a lot of cakes and as much as I can. If I'm playing a person in shape, then I'll increase my intensity of boxing training. It's really dependent. It kind of allows me to take whatever specific character I want.
The 'Tough Man' contests were for 21-year-olds, but I weighed 150 pounds at 13, so I got a fake ID card and entered. My dad and uncles had given me an edge, so having a boxing background made it easier because a lot of the older guys didn't know how to fight.
Mike Tyson fit the American ideal of a boxer. A fighter who jumps out of his corner and hits out fiercely. ThatÂ’s what heÂ’'ll be remembered for. But good boxing doesnÂ’t work like that. Tyson never won on points. It was clear that heÂ’'d come a cropper some day.
At The Verve's first-ever gig, I said that we were gonna blow this local band off the stage. It was only in the local Wigan paper, and they rang me to ask why I was being so aggressive. I just went, 'Hey man, it's like boxing. I'm just trying to sell a ticket.'
It's less about the physical training, in the end, than it is about the mental preparation: boxing is a chess game. You have to be skilled enough and have trained hard enough to know how many different ways you can counterattack in any situation, at any moment.
A boxing ring looks different from the inside, particularly when it's shared with another man who is intent upon rendering you unconscious. There's no place to hide. Once a fighter climbs the stairs, he's roped in, unable to leave until his night's work is done.
Without boxing, because of my neighborhoods, who knows what would have happened to me. It was always about following the leader. And I definitely was not a leader. Boxing gave me discipline; a sense of self. It made me more outspoken. It gave me more confidence.
Politics is comparable to boxing. The only thing is that in politics there are basically no rules. In boxing, you can get a black eye, but in politics you can get poison in your food or a bullet in the head. It's definitely rougher and tougher than other sports.
My father taught me, in boxing, that when you - particularly when you get hit in the face for the first time - you're going to panic. That instead of panicking, just accept it. Stay calm. And any time anybody hits you, they always leave themselves open to be hit.
An incident that left an impression on me was the 1999 sub-junior national boxing championship held in Calcutta. I had trained extremely hard to get there but got kicked out in the first round itself. 'If others can win, why can't you?' I repeatedly asked myself.
Boxing gave me a path in life. Because of boxing, I learned what I'm capable of achieving if I put my mind to it and how hard work can and will pay off in the end. It gave me confidence and taught me to face fear straight on and dig down deep when times get tough.
I beat Larry Holmes and George Foreman. I whupped Mike Tyson twice. I had my ear chewed off and spat on the ground in front of me. I've seen everything it is possible to see in boxing. I know this business better than anyone. So I live and die by my own decisions.
I was training in Gleason's Gym on 30th and 8th Avenue, where it was the Mecca of boxing, and a guy walked in who couldn't rub two quarters together and said, 'Did you ever think of being on TV?' And somehow I ended up in 'Taxi,' which is the craziest thing of all.
Anyone can call himself a promoter. Anyone can call himself a promoter and stage a fight. Unlike other professional sports, whose owners collude out of mutual interest in their sport's image and general welfare, there are no real alliances or partnerships in boxing.
Boxing makes you kind of tight, so it's really good to mix that with barre, Pilates, or something that'll stretch you out and make you longer. I'm not the person that loves to be in the gym so much. I like to mix it up as much as possible; otherwise, I'll get bored.
But if you cover the World Series on the news or do a feature on an Ali boxing match then all of a sudden ears go up all over the place and people say what the hell are you doing. The reason for that is that we're doing something that people are really interested in.
We have scaled the heights of Mount Everest, dominated the Southeast Asian games, we have won international beauty titles, and of course punched our way to triumph in the boxing world. Our people compete and win every day in every imaginable job throughout the world.
If at my funeral they're talking about my boxing stories, I'd be disappointed because this is just a springboard for when I'm finished. It's just a game. It's pretty silly when you think about it: two grown men punching each other in the face and taking it seriously.
Looking back now, I realise that belonging to the family of a labourer actually helped to prepare my body for boxing. There were many times when my family didn't have enough food or warm clothing to go around. All this made me physically, as well as emotionally, tough.
I'm one of the most optimistic persons in the world. I always believed that - there's another shot, another chance. In boxing, I never gave up. I kept trying, kept trying. Even when things seemed so dim, I continued to push forward to make something happen in my favor.
There's one thing I remember about Muhammad Ali. He said "I don't like my condition, but if this is what the Good Lord has planned for me to deal with, I'm happy with that." You have to understand, that comes from my idol, one of the guys that got me started in boxing.
I'm somewhat of a masochist at heart. I like to sweat. I come from a very competitive sporting background - my dad was a world-champion surfer - so it's always been a part of my DNA. I do a lot of soft-sand running, hiking, yoga, and boxing, and I compete in triathlons.
Most major sports benefit from the fact that betting by the general public fuels fan interest and boosts television ratings. The Super Bowl and 'March Madness' are prime examples. But sports other than boxing draw a clear line where betting by participants is concerned.
There are a lot of things and in order to be at the top and maintain your focus you have to have something that motivates you. For me, it was what I perceived as a lack of respect from the boxing world as well as the media, which made me want to work so hard and be great.
The brutalities of a fight with bare hands, the crushed nasal bones, maimed lips, and other disfigurements, which call for the utter abolition of boxing in the interests of humanity, at once disappear when the contestants cover their hands with large, soft-leather gloves.
That man was beautiful. Timing, speed, reflexes, rhythm, his body, everything was beautiful. And to me, still, I would say pound for pound... I'd say I'm the greatest heavyweight of all time, but pound for pound, I still say Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest of all time.
While wrestling in college as a junior, it came to a point where wrestling just wasn't enough for me anymore. I love wrestling, but I felt like I was missing something, and so the striking part about MMA, the boxing and kickboxing, was what got me really interested in MMA.
I do martial arts mostly. But if I am bored, or my body is aching, I swim or go the gym. I can sometimes be doing cardio on the treadmill, kick boxing, stretching, dance, whatever I feel like. I just make sure I have something to do every day but no particular set routine.
When you're actually boxing, unless it's a proper grudge match, it's less about beating the person up and more about being better within yourself. Being patient, timing things, like chess, so really, it's as much down to you as what the other person does - and that's life.
I'm a satirist, so I've got boxing gloves on if the person is worthy of satire. But I'm not an assassin. If that ever happens, it's only because something happened during the interview that got me going, and then I had to translate my feelings to the mouth of the character.
I started boxing when I was eight. I enjoyed when I could hit someone and they couldn't hit me back. It was like a game for me. The feeling of knocking someone out. My first knockout victory was when I was ten. He went down and his nose started to bleed, so they stopped it.
As soon as I get time, I want to start to do some fight training. I tried a little boxing once with my personal trainer back in L.A. - it's such a good workout, and it's a good skill to have, especially in my industry, since sometimes you have to do stunts and fight scenes.
I was just such a quiet kid. I found boxing when I was 14 years old. I went down to the gym because my brother, who used to beat me up all the time, introduced me to boxing. I found boxing to be a sport that I felt safe in because I controlled what was in those four squares.
I always urge people to do something different, so for instance find something that you have secretly always wanted to try like dancing or boot camps or boxing, and Google search and put your zip code in and find a location- a class or trainer that teaches that in your area.
I put myself in a position where I made wrestling an option for me. I don't have to wrestle. I don't have to take another shot for the rest of my life if I don't want to. I have good enough hands, good enough boxing, good enough timing to strike with anybody in our division.