quotations about boxing
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.
MIKE TYSON
Iron Ambition
So you wanna be a boxer
In the golden ring
Can you punch like a south-bound freight train
Tell me just one thing
Can you move in a word like a humming bird's wing
If you need to
Can you bob, can you weave
Can you fake and deceive
PAUL WILLIAMS
PAUL WILLIAMS
If you ever get belted and see three fighters through a haze, go after the one in the middle. That's what ruined me--I went after the two guys on the end.
MAX BAER
attributed, Biteback Dictionary of Humorous Sporting Quotations
I don't want to be on nobody's pound-for-pound list. I want to be on a list of one. A list marked 'Different: Alien.' No human can really understand how, in a sport as brutal and taxing as boxing, a guy can do this at 49. Yeah, we know he's like a hermit. We know he stays in his house, sticking to his discipline, he don't mess around, he don't drink, he's never out of shape. He's up at five, pounding those dark and lonely streets. But how does he really do it?
BERNARD HOPKINS
The Guardian, November 7, 2014
In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains
SIMON & GARFUNKEL
"The Boxer"
Rhythm is everything in boxing. Every move you make starts with your heart, and that's in rhythm or you're in trouble. Your rhythm should set the pace of the fight. If it does, then you penetrate your opponent's rhythm. You make him fight your fight, and that's what boxing is all about.
SUGAR RAY ROBINSON
Sugar Ray
Boxing is drama on its grandest scale.
HOWARD COSELL
I Never Played the Game
Boxing is the toughest and loneliest sport in the world.
FRANK BRUNO
The Guardian, October 24, 2005
From tattered lip a little blood spurt
You always love the ones you hurt
Though they were hanging on the ropes
They weren't about to give up hope
Like boxers
Falling and counting
Like boxers
JOHN PARISH
"Boxers"
I'll beat him so bad he'll need a shoehorn to put his hat on.
MUHAMMAD ALI
attributed, Dark Horses & Underdogs: The Greatest Sports Upsets of All Time
The best boxing gyms in the world tend to be located in the most dangerous, wounded neighborhoods their cities can dish out. Like lighthouses, they operate almost as a kind of protest against the darkness.
BRIN-JONATHAN BUTLER
The Domino Diaries
Watching George [Foreman] come back to win the title got me all excited. Made me want to come back. But then the next morning came, and it was time to start running. I lay back in bed and said, "That's okay, I'm still the Greatest."
MUHAMMAD ALI
Esquire, Feb. 2012
All boxers are liars. Con men. The better the liar, the better the fighter. That's because if you knew what was in a fighter's heart, if you knew what he was really thinking, he'd be easier to find. And if you could find him, he'd be easier to hit. And if you could hit him, you might expose him. And that might expose every person they never stood up to and every person they never stood up for. A single blow can unveil the watermark of your soul in a way nothing else ever can.
BRIN-JONATHAN BUTLER
The Domino Diaries
Sure there have been injuries and deaths in boxing--but none of them serious.
ALAN MINTER
attributed, "10 Classic Boxing Quotes", The Ring, June 28, 2019
After you have seasoned your gloves with the blood, sweat and tears of your opponents, all else is anticlimactic.
BRIAN D'AMBROSIO
Life in the Trenches
In boxing you create a strategy to beat each new opponent. It's just like chess.
LENNOX LEWIS
attributed, Money Fight Club
For the black man to come out superior would be against America's teachings. I have been so great in boxing they had to create an image like Rocky, a white image on the screen, to counteract my image in the ring. America has to have its white images, no matter where it gets them. Jesus, Wonder Woman, Tarzan and Rocky.
MUHAMMAD ALI
interview with Roger Ebert, "Watching Rocky II With Muhammad Ali"
I'm saying I'm the best ever. Ali said he was the greatest of all time, but I say I'm the best ever. You know, everybody has a slogan, and once you beat people over the head with it so much, then that's what you'll eventually be called once you retire from the sport or whatever. But the only way that you can make a statement like that true--the only way that it is true--is if you're doing what you say you're doing. You get a lot of fighters that talk a lot of trash, but they can't back it up. I've backed up what I've said thus far, and I am in a position now to say that I am one of the best--if not the best.
FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR.
Interview Magazine, December 3, 2009
People abhor boxing, and I agree, but I admire men and women who can stand in a ring like that, nowhere to hide. I've only been to a couple of boxing matches, and they're different from any other event. I'm not there to see blood; I'm there for the heart of someone being able to get up and keep going. And for the respect that's often there in the end.
MARKUS ZUSAK
"On Top of His Game: SLJ Interviews Margaret A. Edwards Award Winner Markus Zusak", School Library Journal, Jun. 2, 2014
Boxing was on the one hand barbaric, unconscionable, out of place in modern society. But then, so are war, racism, poverty, and pro football. Men died boxing, yet there was nobility in defending oneself.
RALPH WILEY
Serenity: A Boxing Memoir