Top 70 Anthony Yarde Quotes

Boxing is not a sport where you can be at a low level at all.

When I told people my plan was to knock everyone out in the amateurs and become world champion as quickly as I could as a professional, a lot of people said it was impossible.

I train hard, but having a fight on the cards so often gives me targets and focus.

A lot of people don’t start something because of fear because they’re scared of a negative outcome. Whereas I believe if you focus on negativity, you’ll make nothing of your life.

It’s about getting in there and being ready, getting the fight on your terms, taking the least amount of punishment possible.

Yes, my mum had a huge influence on my life and the love she had for me, the love we had between each other, did sway me to not do bad things. Sometimes they say the street raised you, but my mum did the raising.

Us fighters thrive on performing and entertaining a crowd.

I love my chocolate, I love my dessert, I love my cookie dough.

I sometimes look on YouTube and see people label videos ‘Anthony Yarde sparring his trainer Ade’ but that is not sparring, that’s just practice. We practice getting attacked, countering and attacking your opponent back, in intelligent ways.

Boxing gives you discipline, it helps you physically and mentally.

Sparring with southpaws have been different but nothing to worry me.

I believe when you have your hands on four or five pots at once, you can never have a firm grip on one pot. My one pot is being a boxer.

I know that you need to be entertaining at the beginning to get people interested, and what interests people is knockouts and excitement.

Floyd Mayweather said it, perfect boxing career, undefeated, but he says that in life there’s balance. He might have the perfect boxing career, but elsewhere there’s loss.

The thing I learnt the most from the Kovalev fight, in all my other fights, when I hurt my opponent I was composed, but because this was such a big fight, I lost my cool, I started fighting with emotion instead of using my common sense and tactics to break him down.

Not any disrespect to Kovalev or anything but I’m not focussed on Kovalev, I’m not a fan of his.

Idras Elba was from Forest Gate – where I am from – there are a lot of great people around if they can be given a chance or have the belief.

I was living a dangerous life before I started boxing.

My contact with my dad’s side of my family got less after we stopped living together, but they were in my life.

I’ve been listening 50 cent’s audiobook, ‘The Hustler.’

So I was in football, athletics doing shot put and sprinting, and rugby all at the same time. Ultimately, I didn’t know how serious you had to take one of them and I was just a kid wanting to do everything at once.

In a way, and I don’t like to use this word, but delusion can be a good thing, it can be a bad thing, but when you genuinely believe in something, if you’re putting in the effort to progress, you’re going to progress more than someone who doesn’t think they can do it.

They say aim for the stars, but I want to aim beyond the stars.

I’m going to Russia to knockout Kovalev – it’s that simple.

As fighters we want to do the best we can, so we visualize what we want to happen.

Nobody has really gone out to Russia to fight somebody like Kovalev. A lot of people are paying attention to it and can’t believe what I’m doing. Some people think I’m going to pull out. I’ve seen comments saying ‘Oh this is a good publicity stunt’ and I was just laughing. They don’t understand.

The Rock is somebody that every kid in my era grew up watching. Legend. His success is not only in wrestling but what he’s done after it has been spectacular.

Mayweather has been hit the least out of every world champion in history and that is the art of the sport; to hit and not get hit.

I thought the Mike Tyson story was beautiful and it drew me in. He was bullied, a small kid who started knocking out giants.

I am not looking at Dec Spelman as if he is a fighter I can just walk through. I don’t go out looking for knockouts.

I love my slow jams.

No shame in losing to an all-time great.

Each fight of my career I take just as important as the last. And I will keep it that way.

I used to have a short temper. I still have one and when I lose it, it’s bad. I think it comes from what you see when you’re young. Sometimes it builds from being scared as well. Once you lose it once, you find comfort in losing your temper. It becomes embedded in you.

I always saw myself going down the path of success.

Nine times out of 10 the smarter or mentally focused fighter comes out on top.

Even after your fight on the night, you have loads of media you have to do and people expecting stuff from you and you want to make everyone proud. So afterwards I take three or four days off and I just want to eat and eat and eat.

I’ve had 12 amateur fights, 18 professional fights and I’ve come to Russia, not just to Russia but to Chelyabinsk, home of Sergey Kovalev who has an impressive resume. The fact I’ve come to his backyard means I feel it will go down as one of the best results ever.

I was never a weapons person, you’re a coward if you have to walk with a weapon, be a man and fight.

Mark Prince is a massive inspiration to me, he has been since I started boxing.

I believe whatever you put in your mind is going to happen.

One day guns were pulled on us by older guys. My friend had gone to sell his moped and they took the moped, my friend’s phone and some money. But all he got from my pocket was a tub of Vaseline. I remember him saying, ‘Oh, he’s a sweet boy’ and throwing my Vaseline on the floor.

I wanted to look like Mike Tyson. But then I started to realize, in a twelve round fight, you must be patient.

I believe when you rush your work, you’re not thinking about what you’re doing. That’s when you make mistakes.

I study Floyd Mayweather, Mike Tyson, Roy Jones Jr and Sugar Ray Leonard.

I doubt Picasso ever painted a picture in an hour, he took his time, looked at every detail and made sure it was perfect.

It was boxing, but I also feel it was my drive and ambition that kept me away from the stupidness, and my calculation.

I remember when I used to go to York Hall and just watch, and I’d be like ‘how are these people doing it.’ Even though I was an amateur boxer at the time, I was like ‘how are these guys fighting professionally in this arena?’

I didn’t start boxing until I was 18 but I believe that is a big advantage now. If you start too young, it’s easy to become distracted.

I know there’s a lot of opinions about Covid-19 and I have mine but I just know opinions ain’t worth risking your life and others. Just stay home.

You have to have plans. But the important thing first is to do your job in the ring. If you do that properly, then success will come.

My dreams are to unify the world light-heavyweight titles like Roy Jones did and then at cruiserweight before then possibly the heavyweight division.

I’ve always wanted to be the strongest in my school, in my class, everywhere. I don’t care if I’m in year seven, I wanted to be the strongest in the school.

When I first went into a boxing gym I watched Kovalev fight on TV and now my name is spoken about in the same light as him, now I’m fighting him.

I wasn’t good at football when I was young but I made myself get good at football because of my mentality.

I have learned in boxing to separate emotion from your job and the time in the ring. When it comes to anything that causes an emotional trigger I try to clear my head.

You have to trust in the people you have around you.

I told my boss, ‘Thank you – but I’m not going to be here tomorrow. I’m going to pursue my career as a boxer.’ I remember the woman actually laughed at me. She giggled and said, ‘Boxing? Well, good luck.’

I don’t want to become world champion and lose it immediately. I want to become world champion, take over the division and take it from there.

I don’t need to worry about what other people are talking about me. Instead, I focus on the people talking positive and all the positive things that I know I am doing.

I used to imitate Stone Cold Steve Austin. Identical. I literally made my own waistcoat like Stone Cold, put a little ‘3:16’ I cut out of newspapers for it.

I just say to myself I’m going to be a better fighter day to day. That’s my thing.

I have been very busy having so many fights since I turned pro. To have 13 in little more than two years is a lot by modern standards.

In year seven and eight I was very small, but I was muscular. Year nine, ten and eleven I got massive. I was in the gym every day, even at lunchtime and break times. I was thinking about boxing at that time but didn’t think I would actually do it.

I never shy away from my childhood and where I was raised because it made me who I am today.

People always say ‘I will fight for a world title in a year’ but that sort of thing is not down to me. I feel my job is to be ready when it comes, I just need to know it is coming.

It was an impossible ask to go out to Russia and knock out Kovalev. I felt that was the only way I’d win, but I made a good account of myself and we keep moving onwards and upwards.