BOXING QUOTES
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Don King, on boxing’s rating system: “When we started, it was based on lies. It’s changing now. There are no secrets in the business. You’ve got to come with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It’s becoming very confusing.”
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Bob Arum, replying to a reporters question. “Yesterday I was lying, today I am telling the truth.”
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Muhammad Ali: “If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.”
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Buddy McGirt, when he was asked by Gil Clancy who would win the up-coming fight between Maurice Blocker and Glenwood Brown he replied: “The black guy.”
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Harry Carpenter: “This boxer is doing what is expected of him, bleeding from his nose.”
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Muhammed Ali, after failing an Army intelligence test, “I said I was the greatest, not the smartest.”
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Brian London, answering if he would fight Ali again: “Sure, as long as he ties a 56 lb. weight to each leg.”
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Willie Pep: “I’ve got it made. I’ve got a wife and a TV set — and they’re both working.”
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Here is a conversation between George Foreman and Bob Arum in 1995, Foreman: “Bob, I can’t chase these guys anymore.” Arum’s reply: “George, I cant put it in the contracts that they can’t run.”
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Randall “Tex” Cobb: “If you screw things up in tennis, it’s 15-love. If you screw up in boxing, it’s your ass.”
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Bob Hope: “I was called “Rembrandt” Hope in my boxing days, because I spent so much time on the canvas.”
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Bob Arum, after his fighter, Iran Barkley, beat Darrian Van Horn: “If you think Barkley was mad before the fight, wait until he sees how many people are taking part of his purse.”
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Marlene Bugner, wife of Joe Bugner: “I don’t know what impressive is, but Joe was impressive tonight.”
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Muhammad Ali, on heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston: “He’s too ugly to be the champ!”
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Jim Watt, former WBC lightweight champion, when asked about his “white complexion” by a reporter said: “I’m like a bottle of milk with gloves.”
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Tony Sibson, on being beaten in a match: “I figured I’d find him sooner or later but I never did. I asked myself “Where did he go?” I knew he was there because he kept hitting me.”
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Mike Tyson, on fighting Lennox Lewis: “My main objective is to be professional, but to kill him.”
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Harry Carpenter: “He looks up through blood smeared lips.”
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Joe Frazier, talking to Ken Norton at a social gathering. Frazier: “Hey man, what you been doing?”; Norton: “My wife just had a baby.”; Frazier: “Congratulations! Whose baby is it?”
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Mark Kaylor: “I’m concentrating so much I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.”
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Willie Pastrano, when asked by the ring doctor if he knew where he was: “You’re damn right I do. I’m in Madison Square Garden getting the shit knocked out of me.”
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Henry Cooper, replying to boxing abolitionist, Baroness Edith Summerskill, about the brutalities of his sport. Baroness: “Mr. Cooper, have you looked in the mirror lately and seen the state of your nose?”
Cooper: “Well madam, have you looked in the mirror and seen the state of your nose? Boxing is my excuse. What’s yours?”
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Eddie Shaw, referring to Herol “Bomber” Graham : “He has turned defensive boxing into a poetic art. Trouble is, nobody ever knocked anybody out with a poem.”
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Mike Tyson, on writer Wallace Matthews: “[He] called me a ‘rapist’ and a ‘recluse’. I’m not a recluse.”
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Harry Carpenter: “It’s not one of Bruno’s fastest wins… but it’s one of them.”
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Mark Kaylor: “I’ve only ever seen Errol Christie fight once before and that was the best I’ve ever seen him fight.”
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Randall “Tex” Cobb: “When I got up I stuck to my plan — stumbling forward and getting hit in the face.”
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Muhammad Ali: “I ain’t got no quarrel with those Viet Cong.”
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Blackie Sherrod, talking about a heavyweight contender: “He has everything a boxer needs except speed, stamina, a punch, and ability to take punishment. In other words, he owns a pair of shorts.”
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Max Baer, on Joe Louis: “He hit me 18 times while I was in the act of falling.”
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Harry Kabakoff, on Chango Cruz: “The bum was up and down so many times I thought he was an Otis elevator.”
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Terry Lawless: “He’s standing there making a sitting target of himself.”
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Mike Tyson, to the Nevada State Athletic Commission: “I’m not Mother Teresa. But I’m also not Charles Manson.”
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Nick Wilshire: “I can only see it going one way, that’s my way. How it’s actually going to go I can’t really say.”
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Muhammad Ali: “Howard Cosell was gonna be a boxer when he was a kid—only they couldn’t find a mouthpiece big enough.”
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Tommy Farr: “Every time I hear the name Joe Louis my nose starts to bleed.”
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Muhammad Ali, when asked about his golf game: “I’m the best. I just haven’t played yet.”
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Dan Duva, on Mike Tyson hooking up again with promoter Don King: ” Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.”
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Alan Massengale, after Don Zimmer got knocked down by Pedro Martinez in the playoffs and Evander Holyfield lost to James Toney.: “I felt sorry for Zimmer this weekend. Next time, if he wants to rumble, maybe he should pick on someone a little closer to his age. Evander Holyfield might be available.”
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Tex Cobb, responding to a reporter who said Cobb was a fat, cocaine snorting , drunk. Cobb replied: “I’m not fat.
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Max Baer, when asked for his definition of fear: “Standing across the ring from Joe Louis and knowing he wants to go home early.”
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Muhammed Ali: “There’s nothing wrong with getting knocked down, as long as you get right back up.”
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George Foreman: “The referee is the most important man in the ring besides the two fighters.”
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Image: gfg.com
DAVID LETTERMAN AND HIS MOTHER
