I just like to fight, man. The place doesn't really bother me.

My own father used to boast to me of biting off a man's ear in a street fight.

I never lost a fight because I wasn't in shape or because I wasn't ready. I lost because I was either beaten by a man better than me, or it wasn't my night.

Boxing, for me, it's the beginning of all sports. I'm willing to bet that the first sport was a man against another man in a fight, so I think that's something innate in all of us.

Sonny Liston is nothing. The man can't talk. The man can't fight. The man needs talking lessons. The man needs boxing lessons. And since he's gonna fight me, he needs falling lessons.

If I've got any authority in Hays, Mrs. Lake isn't going to pay this town a cent of license for showing, and if any man attempts to stop this show, then just put it down that he's got me to fight.

Don't worry about me. Worry about the next man. If you see me in a fight, don't help me. Pour honey on me and then help the bear. Don't worry about me. I'm Dorothy Bowe's baby boy. I'm going to be all right.

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.

When I was younger, I was a bit of a feisty fighter type of guy. That's something my father told me as I was becoming a man: 'You don't go picking fights, but you don't run from any of them.' And I was more afraid of my father than anybody else I had to fight.

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