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 wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.
Boxing is what pays my bills.
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.
I think my greatest achievement in boxing is my following.
Glen Rice is a wonderful man. He's a wonderful guy, but you want her to be with somebody like [Dennis] Rodman getting up in there. Pushing her guts up into the back of her head
. . . if I survived the Marines, I can survive Ali.
I started boxing late but I've always been a fighter all my life.
Boxing has become America's tragic theater.
I'm gonna have to be killed before I lose, and I ain't going to die easy.
Stand-up and boxing are very similar. You're the only one out there, you're going into a fight, and you're going in with a game plan.
Never eat less than four hours before boxing. Then eat only lightly.
Do you recognise me?" he asked. Willie looked hard and considered before finally replying "Lie down so I can recognise you.
I do shadow boxing and use a heavy bag, but I don't spar with anyone.
I'm not even a household name in my own household
Say that again, Commonwealth whit? (translation: what?) I'm no used tae hearing that.
As a West Side kid fooling around with boxing gloves, I had been, for some reason of temperament, more interested in dodging a blow than in striking one.
You take what the guy gives you. If there's nothin' there, you handle it. No problem.
Everything I have in this world, I owe to the sport of boxing, and I won't ever forget that.
I grew up with an impatience with the anti-scientific. So I'm a bit miffed with our current love affair with all things Eastern. If I sneeze on the set, 40 people hand me echinacea. But I'd no sooner take that than eat a pencil. Maybe that's why I took up boxing. It's my response to men in white pajamas feeling each other's chi.