Quotes About Boxing

No, I've never competed. I did, however, train in a boxing gym with a good coach beginning in 1993. I'd been writing about the sport for a dozen years by then and wanted to know what boxers endured, what it felt like. I was too old to compete when I started, but I sparred enough to get a taste.

Boxing, mixed martial arts and tennis are the hardest sports to train for.

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.

I lost my edge for boxing, I didn't put as much into it as I did before. I didn't run as far. I didn't train as hard. I didn't eat correctly. I started drinking a little bit every now and then.

You're just taking punishment every day, getting hit all the time. That's something we're going to cut back on. I'll train hard but the sparring will be cut in half.

They didn't train me to be in the ring for five and a half hours punching air. So, it was hard, I had to get some body contact in there somewhere, it was mostly body shots and stuff. I had no clue, really.

I had to get up run in the morning for 2 hours, go to the gym and also get good opponents as sparring partners because I'm a big believer in that how you train is how you will fight at least when it came to me that's how it worked.

For the last years now I've had my own academy where I train Brazilian Jujitsu and Tae boxing, Muay Thai everyday.

Training's training; boxing's boxing. Everyone does the same kind of stuff: they spar, they train, they do whatever they do to prepare for fights.

A good boxing competition gives one the sight of fine men in their prime, trained to the ounce, showing the highest skill, pluck and endurance in carrying out their attack and defence under strict rules of fair play and good temper.

Jagdish Singh was my basic coach, and he trained me from my very early days in boxing, teaching me the fundamentals of the sport. He was the one who shaped me into a boxer, disciplined me when I required disciplining.

I grew up in a gym in Miami, the one where Muhammad Ali trained. I had 142 amateur fights and lost three.

I trained in Provincetown, Mass. Back then, they didn't have all the tourists on Cape Cod. Very isolated. Very good spot. I called it the jail. All you could do was train, run, walk, talk boxing.

I trained as hard as I could, I ran as much as I could, I sparred hard, I did everything right. I did everything I could possibly do at the age when I could fight. You have to be realistic; you can't say, 'Oh, I am smarter now, older and I can punch harder.' You think you can, but you can't.

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.

I really feel that if it wasn't for the accident, I'd still be fighting. I would have handled some of these fighters. I would have made sure that the doctors would have declared me physically sound; and after that, I would have trained.

An incident that left an impression on me was the 1999 sub-junior national boxing championship held in Calcutta. I had trained extremely hard to get there but got kicked out in the first round itself. 'If others can win, why can't you?' I repeatedly asked myself.

When we first started in Huntington Recreation with John Capobianco, we put four kids in the Golden Gloves finals. We didn't even have a ring. We trained at Stimson Junior High School. They give us the gym three nights a week. We used to box in the gym - no ring, just on the gym floor.

I don't just rely on my right hand when I'm in the ring. That's the least thing I think about. I think about the preparation I've trained for, and I try to execute. And guys can't stand up to the power. I've been blessed with that, and it's something that can't be taught.

On my block, I had all these guys coming in and out of jail. When I was 13, I was playing outside my house, and one of those guys came across the street and started cussing me out, wanting to fight me. People knew I trained kickboxing and would put the gloves on with my friends, so that made me a target.

I've trained boxing in the past to learn the distance, trained wrestling to understand how he would take me down, but I won't get there to fight my opponent's game.

Imagine stepping into the shoes of Roberto Duran, one of the most legendary boxers in the history of the sport, and definitely the most legendary Latin American boxer, and then having 'Raging Bull' in my corner. I mean, imagine that? Just having Robert De Niro to play the trainer in the movie, that was fantastic.

I have a boxing trainer at a gym, which is really fun. And I also try to complement it with flybarre, which is lengthening, strengthening, toning, just tightening everything up.

There's something so familial and intimate between a boxer and his trainer.