Boxing Quotations

Boxing has kept me off the streets, stops me smoking and drinking and gives me something to do.

When I got cast in 'Rocky IV,' I had never seen a film camera before. And here I was in this boxing movie.

All of the sports have a safety net, but boxing is the only sport that has none.

As much as I love boxing, I hate it. And as much as I hate it, I love it.

All fighters are prostitutes and all promoters are pimps

Getting hit motivates me. It makes me punish the guy more. A fighter takes a punch, hits back with three punches.

My goal is not getting hit and to knock the other guy out. Some people might complain because they want to see boxers beat up on each other, but you cannot last long in professional boxing if you take a lot of punches.

Martin Luther King took us to the mountain top: I want to take us to the bank

Attack is only one half of the art of boxing.

Everyone has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth.

All that is worth seeing in good boxing can best be witnessed in a contest with soft gloves. Every value is called out: quickness, force, precision, foresight, readiness, pluck, and endurance. With these, the rowdy and 'rough' are not satisfied.

With experience in boxing, you learn how to be a scientific boxer and how to fight easy.

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

In boxing you create a strategy to beat each new opponent, it's just like chess.

Boxing should probably be banned. But until then, I'm a big fan.

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.

Why waltz with a guy for 10 rounds if you can knock him out in one?

Sugar Ray Robinson was at the top of the boxing world during the 1950's when it seemed that he would either win or lose the championship about every three or four months.

I never got into training to be an All-Ireland boxing champ or to win a belt. At the start, I just got into it to learn how to defend myself when I got into situations.

Muhammad Ali was the kind of guy you either loved or hated, but you wanted to see him. I happen to really love him. He brought boxing to another level and always made you laugh.

I love boxing. I really respect the guys and admire the guys who do it. But, I'm very, very happy with my career as an actor. I made the right choice.

The stage is my territory, my boxing ring. That's where I'm free.

Once that bell rings you're on your own. It's just you and the other guy.

I was always active, always running and working out. I was a wrestler and ran track and, out of interest, started boxing. Its always been a part of me.

The trouble with boxing is that too often it ends in sadness.

I was not athletically inclined. I was very quiet, introverted, non-confrontational. My three older brothers were athletes - basketball, football - but I was kind of a momma's boy. Then one day, my brother Roger encouraged me to go to the boxing gym with him. I tried the gloves on, and it just felt so natural.

I'm a promoter of the people for the people and by the people and my magic lies in my people ties.

In those days, boxing was very glamorous and romantic. You listened to fights on the radio, and a good announcer made it seem like a contest between gladiators.

We have one life; it soon will be past; what we do for God is all that will last.

I love boxing. I box in a local boxing gym in London. I usually spar. But I've done two fights and I lost both of them admirably. I didn't realize how much it would hurt for them to actually hit me.

One thing I like about boxing is that I will not have to deal with the same kind of politics that I had to in skating. In boxing, it is not about your appearance, or how your costume looks, what color it is, or how much it costs.

I love boxing, and boxing has always been my favorite sport. I was always into it, and I boxed recreationally all of my life.

Boxing is not about your feelings. It's about performance.

When I was boxing I made five million and wound up broke, owing the government a million.

My favorite television show of all time is 'Hill Street Blues.' I think it's the show that is to television what Pele was to football or Muhammad Ali was to boxing.

I took up boxing to get in shape for filming because it's grueling - all the running, the heat, the yelling, the crying that we do.

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.

I've always wanted to do a boxing movie.

I don't want to sound obnoxious, but I like to think I brought it another step. I was able to bring people who were casually interested in boxing together.

Boxing was not the sport that I thought is was due to all the politics.

I quit after a bad car accident. The thing about boxing is that you can be a star for five or six years, but when you go back to the old life, it's tough.

I had many boxing matches with my brother in the backyard when we were younger, and I guess while other people abhor boxing for its brutality, I also have to admire anyone who climbs into the ring to face up to what could be the ultimate defeat.

I was bullied by a few people who were much older than me. I went to camp to learn boxing. I was 12, and my coach was 24. I felt like if I could fight him, I could stand up to anyone.

When I was a little kid I wanted to be an artist or a painter. But once I got into boxing, all I wanted was to box.

All of my life had been spent in the shadow of apartheid. And when South Africa went through its extraordinary change in 1994, it was like having spent a lifetime in a boxing ring with an opponent and suddenly finding yourself in that boxing ring with nobody else and realising you've to take the gloves off and get out and reinvent yourself.

See, I respect boxing because it has given me so much and that's why I will never allow anyone to mistreat the sport of boxing if I can help it.

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.

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.

What I know about Mike Tyson, I see in the boxing ring. As far as all of the gossip stuff that I hear about him, I know first hand to take that with a grain of salt.

I think it's really important to mix cardio with toning, so I love boxing and then add in Pilates or ballet to keep me long and lean and avoid bulking up.

In modern American politics, being the right kind of ignorant and entertainingly crazy is like having a big right hand in boxing; you've always got a puncher's chance.

In boxing, I had a lot of fear. Fear was good. But, for the first time, in the bout with Muhammad Ali, I didnt have any fear. I thought, This is easy. This is what Ive been waiting for. No fear at all. No nervousness. And I lost.

Boxing is a sport. We allow each other to hit each other, but I'm not treating my opponent like my enemy. We're doing a job to entertain people.

I made the most of my ability and I did my best with my title.

It's not rage that drives me, it's competition.

Mental strength is really important because you either win or lose in your mind. And I'm not solely talking about sporting matches, boxing events - anything you do, you do it first with your mental strength. And you can actually train and develop it, and I am responsible for what I'm saying because I have experience with that.

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.

Kids will come into my boxing gym with no discipline, and then you teach them how to focus and love what they're doing, which then travels outside into their home and work life.

I love the whole world of boxing and the sense of community that exists there.

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 didn't push Cory. I wanted him to decide if he wanted to go into boxing and he did. Can't blame it on me.

When you see me smash somebody's skull, you enjoy it.

I like boxing movies. One of the hardest things for me to watch as far as boxing films, is the boxing. The actual boxing usually sucks

Whatever I lack in size and strength and speed, I kind of make up for in being grittier. When it comes to something like basketball I'm definitely not the best guy on the court, but I love elbowing and pushing people out or boxing them out.

When I walk for a designer, I walk the ramp as Vijender Singh, the boxer. I believe that by doing so, boxing will at least, in some way, get promoted in our entertainment industry. Plus, if cricketers can, why can't I?

Some people who love boxing might love Mike Tyson, but people outside of the sport are generally repulsed by him and therefore, repulsed by the sport.

All the time he's boxing, he's thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him.

I made a lot of mistakes out of the ring, but I never made any in it.

Since I was a boy of five or six, I had it in my mind I would be a world boxing champion.

Boxing is the toughest and loneliest sport in the world.

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.

I have never thought of a full-fledged career in Bollywood because boxing has never left my mind. But you never know.

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've fought everybody without ducking anyone. I have beaten 10 undefeated guys, and I never was comparing myself to the greatest in the sport. I was not thinking of breaking any records. I'm just enjoying my time in boxing.

I started doing MMA and boxing at the same time - I always wanted to try an MMA fight to see what it was like. I had one fight, and I was hooked.

I don't promote boxing, I promote people. Boxing is a catalyst to bring people together.

Never eat less than four hours before boxing. Then eat only lightly.

I want to be remembered as a great athlete. As a boxing champion.

Wrestling and boxing is like Ping-Pong and rugby. There's no connection.

A boxing workout is the heaviest thing, but it's the best. The worst part is that boxing gyms are the smelliest things in the universe. You have to lie down on the floor, where everyone has been sweating and spitting, and do 1,000 situps and push-ups.

Tell him he can have my title, but I want it back in the morning.

I'm a big fan of spinning and yoga. To strengthen my core, kick-boxing is really effective. The resistance tones everything, and it's a great stress reliever.

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.

When archaeologists discover the missing arms of Venus de Milo, they will find she was wearing boxing gloves.

Boxing is one of the few sports that is one on one.

I put my money in property and I love merchandise; such as Muhammad Ali boxing gloves. It's about stability for the future.

There's such a big buzz around boxing at the moment. Everything's happening and there's so much building up with a lot of young talent coming through.

Boxing gave me the opportunities to grow into the person that I am today.

Boxing is changing and training methods are slowly being dragged into the 21st century.

We put our life on the line to fight for them, put on a show and these guys take our money so whatever happens to Bob Arum, Don King or anyone else is fine with me.

Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost.

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.

Boxing was the only career where I wouldn't have to start out at the bottom. I had a good resume.

Boxing is real easy. Life is much harder.

Boxing is a buzz, but I went into it to make a living. I wasn't going to go into the ring and get punched in the head for the fun of it.

To recognize that head injuries were as essential a part of football as they are of boxing would be to erase the fine distinction on which the game's respectability rested.

They don't show Olympic boxing on TV in prime time. They haven't done that since 1988. In 1992, they showed one: Oscar De La Hoya. In 1996, they didn't show it. In 2000, they didn't show it. In 2004, they didn't show it. In 2008, they did not even mention boxing at all. You would think the United States didn't have a boxing team in 2008.

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.

Life doesn't run away from nobody. Life runs at people.

That's the biggest problem with boxing in the United States. They do not promote it like they used to, when it used to be Howard Cosell and they showed it on 'Wide World of Sports.' Everybody knew all the fighters. Everybody was looking forward to the year when the Olympics came on.