Boxing traditionally was received very well and accepted on both sides.
Growing up with my brothers all boxing has stood me in good stead for nights like these. You should have seen some the fights we used to have in our front room.
If it amuses you to hit people, you do boxing – you do taekwondo – whatever you want. But you don’t play football.
Boxing is the sweet science. You hit and not get hit. There’s no reward for you to hit me more than I hit you other than on the scorecards.
Boxing has become America’s tragic theater.
People forget that boxing is the art of self-defence – ideally, hit and not be hit – and maybe we should all think about that a bit more.
To be the first Puerto Rican to win a world title in four divisions would be an achievement. Gomez, Benitez, there have been a lot of good fighters from Puerto Rico before me. When I started boxing, Tito Trinidad was our big star.
In places like the U.S. and Germany, women’s professional boxing is already quite big, but I’d like to be the name that makes it bigger and gives it more global appeal.
Boxing’s not a career for anyone: it doesn’t last long enough to be a career.
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.
I am much more wired to be an athlete than anything else. I understand the ‘hard work = payoff’ equation in sports. I run marathons and I box. And that’s my Puerto Rican flag hanging in Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Boxing gym. I gave it to him. My last N.Y.C. marathon time I ran in three hours flat.
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.
I didn’t excel too highly in school, but I felt that I was moving ahead – and not just in boxing – but in life.
I do shadow boxing and use a heavy bag, but I don’t spar with anyone.
The adoption of gloves for all contests will do more to preserve the practice of boxing than any other conceivable means. It will give pugilism new life, not only as a professional boxer’s art, but as a general exercise.
Sometimes, there’s a fine line between bravery and utter stupidity. The day I decided to climb into a boxing ring for a professional fight was probably on the side of stupidity.
I was an angry kid, and boxing kept me out of trouble.
My mother and father raised their eyebrows at first when I said I wanted to be an actor because I was in this industrial city. My dad had done a bit of boxing on the side, but he was a welder first and foremost. I was 17, and I said, ‘I want to be an actor.’ They worried it was a waste of time.
I have so many things that I want to do with my life. I just don’t see myself being a fighter forever. Boxing is my love and passion. It also opens up and sets up other things in my life as well.
I became a professional boxer because I want the attention and interest to come back to boxing. I want people interested in boxing. That’s very important to me.
My first boxing memory is watching Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard on television.
The level of difficulty in most areas of MMA is very high. It’s a high learning curve. The footwork in boxing alone takes years to master. I will rely heavily on my amateur wrestling to get out of bad situations and take me from defense to offense. I’ll try to dictate the fight on my terms.
I love boxing. I like to see the strategizing. Watching the warriors go to work. I like that struggle, going out there and fighting.
You have a small period of time when you can perfect your career and become good at it. A lot of guys get distracted, which only hurts them. You must stay focused and work very hard at boxing.
I proposed abolishing boxing because it was bad for the brain, but boxers were generally so decent that I loved being around the gyms.
Even though you think boxing is a contact sport, it teaches you not to fight on the street, to behave. It gives you discipline and self-control.
I’ve been a heavyweight in boxing, in kickboxing. I’ll do it in again in MMA.
It was like boxing found me.
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.
Boxing has definitely allowed me to focus on something other than just creating content which I think we’ve seen historically can be so toxic.
Boxing is one fight at a time for me. That’s how I’ve always been, and that’s how I was brought up.
I just felt I had done enough in the sport to put my stamp on boxing.
Boxing’s a business, and I’ve got a great team around me who have been looking after me in that sense.
It would be hard to throw a punch to someone who wasn’t a boxer, who wasn’t in the ring, and who didn’t have on a pair of boxing gloves and who hadn’t been training.
I’ve always boxed, I always taught boxing.
The style I have in judo is very unique… One big advantage a judo player has is they have very good posture and – like, wrestlers, they show when they’re about to do a take-down… which judo players don’t, and so I kind of incorporate the boxing style with a judo grip and finishing that way.
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.
The physicality of boxing is like nothing else.
I don’t play boxing.
No sport – maybe no business – is more entrepreneurial than boxing.
You’re clearing your mind during a workout. Boxing is a great sport for girls; it’s really safe.
Nobody wants to stay in Green Bay and run laps in the snow and go boxing in the gym. Everybody has what works for them, and I feel as though this works for me – it keeps me hungry, it keeps me with that edge. Other guys get a hard day’s work in, but they’re on the beach afterward.
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.
New York’s like a boxing match. In Hollywood, it’s like a Fellini movie or something.
I been making history for Omaha, Nebraska, since I started boxing professional, and it just keeps going and going and going.
The more you learn about the science of boxing, the more appreciation you have for man’s ability to think and perform in violent situations, and that’s what interests me in film.
Sugar Ray wouldn’t give me a rematch, and that’s the reason I walked away from boxing.
If my son wants a boxing career, I won’t stop him, but I definitely won’t push him. It’s bad for a kid to be pressured.
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.
I love boxing, MMA, and hiking with my dog. I work out 3 times a week, and on my off days, I do yoga to keep my body relaxed and to stretch.
Boxing is serious. It’s not a game. Just one punch – change life.
My career before I was main event I was always trying to steal the show and I feel I have a style that can be endearing to the boxing public. It’s a style that allows me to box how I want to box.
In boxing, there’s no more secrets today. Technology is such that you know everything about everyone.
I have this ambition that when I become powerful and famous, I will host an event of boxing or kick-boxing, which the entire nation watches. That way, this sport will gain attention. People will realise that there is a lot of talent in India.
If you think you’re in shape, try boxing. You’ll discover that you are not. It’s the most physically challenging thing I’ve ever attempted, but I love it and I want to keep up some of the training.
Maybe I’ll go to acting school. Acting is like boxing, you know.
You going to call me arrogant for believing in myself? Come on! It’s a competitive sport. Rappin’ is the closest thing to boxing. Jay-Z said that. You gotta fight every day.
At noon I get to the gym to do my boxing workout. Three hours there. Rest. Once in a while I get a massage, because I need it once in while.
Everything in tennis is so neat and nice but boxing has sport down to its essence; it is very pure and I like that.
Rampage’s footwork is atrocious. His boxing is slipping. He doesn’t take the fight game seriously.
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.
Boxing’s been good to me.
The boxing world is full of all kinds of corruption.
While professional basketball, football, and baseball players make millions and their salaries represent well over 50% of the billions generated by those sports, the spoils of boxing don’t often make it to the boxers.
