Great Boxing Quotes & Sayings

Fighting is dancing. Look at a great boxing match, and it's a dancing. — David Lyons

Joe Louis was one of my closest friends ... I'm a great boxing fan. I used to go to the American Legion Stadium in Hollywood, every Friday night for 15 years. Down the aisle would come Lupe Velez, Johnny Weismuller, Mae West. All at ringside. — Mickey Rooney

When you're a great finisher, you'll become popular. Joe Louis was a great finisher. — Mike Tyson

Boxing is a great exercise ... as long as you can yell "cut" whenever you want to. — Sylvester Stallone

Against the odd's, I have persevered, I am the living attestation of the American dream. I am the extolment of this great nation. I have coffee and cocktails with presidents and dictators. I'm an international figure, a citizen of the world. I've made it. — Don King

I always wanted to play a boxer because some of my favorite films, as a boy, were those great boxing movies, like 'Raging Bull', 'Rocky', 'The Set Up', 'Fat City and Hard Times'. I just loved those films. — Holt McCallany

There's not as much oxygen in that hot gym and I think it's great for conditioning. I believe in a lot of boxing. You can train and work on the speed bag and heavy bag, but when you get in the ring with another fighter, it's a different story. Punches are coming at you, there's physical contact, muscle against muscle. — Emanuel Steward

All my wives were great housekeepers. After every divorce, they kept the house. — Willie Pep

I don't think that boxing historians have been able to find a case in which a great fighter, or a fighter presumed to be a great fighter, came to such an ignominious end. — Larry Merchant

I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong, — Muhammad Ali

You don't have to be in a boxing ring to be a great fighter. As long as you are true to yourself, you will succeed in your fight for that in which you believe. — Muhammad Ali

I start a boxing movie and that's kind of something I've been able to get to the gym for. It's great anytime you can parallel a skill that your character has. I just think it makes it even more rewarding. — Miles Teller

It was Christmas night, the eve of the Boxing Day Meet. You must remember that this was in the old Merry England of Gramarye, when the rosy barons ate with their fingers, and had peacocks served before them with all their tail feathers streaming, or boars' heads with the tusks stuck in again - when there was no unemployment because there were too few people to be unemployed - when the forests rang with knights walloping each other on the helm, and the unicorns in the wintry moonlight stamped with their silver feet and snorted their noble breaths of blue upon the frozen air. Such marvels were great and comfortable ones. But in the Old England there was a greater marvel still. The weather behaved itself. — T.H. White

I think Mike Gibbons was probably the greatest boxer that ever put a glove on. They called him The Wizard, The Phantom of the ring and he was that. I boxed with Mike about ten years and I never really hit him a hard punch during the time. Repeating again, Mike was one of the great boxers of the age. — Tommy Gibbons

I had always wanted to play a boxer, all of my life. I grew up watching great boxing films. — Holt McCallany

I do a one-hour workout called Drenched, a cardio-boxing fitness routine, Monday through Friday. There are usually between twenty-five and fifty people there - everyone from stay-at-home moms and professional martial artists to teenagers and seniors. They play great dance music. When I can, I take two classes back-to-back. — Carrie Ann Inaba

It's been like that forever. We got spoiled by Joe Louis, by Rocky Marciano. Muhammad ruined us for everybody. He was great outside [the ring]; he was great inside. We got so accustomed to it we thought we deserved it. — Angelo Dundee

I'm a boxing junkie, a serial-killer junkie, and a classical guitar junkie. All of these guys are great, poetic references. — Mark Kozelek

Boxing great Mike Tyson said "a happy fighter is a dangerous fighter." I think he's right. — Ronda Rousey

That's okay, I'm still the Greatest. — Muhammad Ali

There are a lot of things and in order to be at the top and maintain your focus you have to have something that motivates you. For me, it was what I perceived as a lack of respect from the boxing world as well as the media, which made me want to work so hard and be great. — Marvin Hagler

My main objective is to be professional but to kill him. — Mike Tyson

There's never been a great fight without the writers taking on and finding an identity for it. That's probably what has happened boxing. Writers are not writing about us big boys anymore and I tell you right, however you feel, take something, find it, and use it because American needs something to read about. Not to see on television, but to read about. Let the writers take over. — George Foreman

I'm the best promoter in the world because I haven't taken a day off work since I left the penitentiary, and because I have read all the great philosophers like St. Thomas Aquinine. — Don King

My dad just wanted me to find something to do to keep me out of trouble. Boxing was the great escape. — Diego Corrales

People tell me it was a great left hook, but I wouldn't know. I never saw it — Gene Fullmer

Boxing is a great way to vent. I don't know if there is a better way, I think for women too. There is something so primal about it and it's the best exercise in the world, even if you don't ever get in the ring. — Sylvester Stallone

It brings me great grief and sadness to hear of the passing of one of the best and most respected trainers of this era, Emanuel Steward. I learned a lot from him during our professional relationship and I will be forever grateful for his help during that time. We were also friends and I know I am going to miss him as so many others will too. He was an important part of our boxing community. — Oscar De La Hoya

Boxing changed my life. It's like a drug; you can't believe how great it is! Let me tell you something, you hit somebody on the chin, the guy goes down, the crowd roars ... Wow! You really feel something! — Tony Danza

Blast it! Where is that letter?"
Sophia pulled it from her pocket. "I have it here."
Sir Reginald's voice lifted with amazament. "You took that from me? When we were-"
"Yes," she said, her color high. "I thought you'd sold my jewelry and that the envelope contained the payment. I wanted proof,so I took it."
"By kissing me?"
Outside, lightning cracked.
"You kissed him?" Dougal demanded.
"Only once."
"Actually, it was twice," Sir Reginald said softly.
Dougal punched him, sending the dandy flying into the wall, where he slid to the floor.
"B'God, that's a nice one!" Red cried. "MacLean, I'd like to see you in a real mill."
"Aye," the earl agreed. "He's got a good solid left."
"What do you know about boxing? Red asked rudely.
"I've seen every large match for the last-"
Thunder crashed as lightning sent shards of light flashing into the great hall.
"That's enough," Dougal said firmly, noting Sophia's pale face. — Karen Hawkins

I said I was the greatest, not the smartest. — Muhammad Ali

And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten. Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing. — Herman Melville

I liked that title. I didn't want to lose it to anybody, but if I had to lose it, I'm glad I lost it to you. You're a good fighter and gonna be a great champ. — Jersey Joe Walcott

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

Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidae, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts. — Henry David Thoreau

The show was bad, but I was great — Muhammad Ali

The crowd started cheering as soon as they seen him, he was one of them, a local lad from Lancashire. In the first round, I tried to put him away but my punches had nothing in them, I might as well as been hitting thin air. It was then that I knew I had to really dig deep if I wanted to hear the final bell; I threw a clever little corkscrew right. A great shot, but ineffective unless it hits with some vigour, which it didn't! — Stephen Richards

I'm too fast. I'm too smart. I'm too pretty. — Muhammad Ali

Boxing has been great for me because it's, like, my new sport, so it's something that I can get better at. — Gigi Hadid

I am the great test! a blackened shadow-boxing colossus jabjabbered, pounding his gloves against the wall. The heavyweight will be quillweight. Bantamweight, even. Ain't nobody can dethrone me, beyond my ken! he boasted,* sidling up to his shadow.


*Mad Ali?: — Julian Rios

Boxing is individual, although there's a team concept because you need a great corner, you need a great trainer, you need a great prep man, you need all of these things, but it's more of a Mano a Mano; it's more you versus me. I miss that time in training camp and Dad and Mom cooking meals. It was one big family. — Sugar Ray Leonard

Man, I've been to jail. It was hell in there, but I survived, If they put me back, I'll come out again. I'm one of the world's great survivors. I'll always survive because I've got the right combination of wit, grit and bullshit. — Don King

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

As a professional athlete and someone who has spent almost his entire life in boxing, not a day goes by when I don't think about coming back, but I am retired, and after speaking to my family and following a great deal of introspection, I have decided to stay retired. — Oscar De La Hoya

Maybe I was great in the ring, but outside of boxing, I'm just a brother like other people. I want to live a good life, serve God, help everybody I can. And one more thing. I'm still gonna find out who stole my bike when I was 12 years old in Louisville and I'm gonna whup him. That was a good bike. — Muhammad Ali

The nearest I have ever seen to the great Willie Pep — Angelo Dundee

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. — Katrina Bowden