Mad.aboutboxing

🥊 “I’m a fighter. I believe in the eye-for-an-eye business. I’m no cheek turner. I got no respect for a man who won’t hit back. You kill my dog, you better hide your cat.”

“I’m the greatest thing that ever lived! I’m the king of the world! I’m a bad man. I’m the prettiest thing that ever lived.”

“Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them-a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”

“To be a great champion you must believe you are the best,if you’re not,pretend you are.”

“Live everyday as if it were your last because someday your going to be right.”

“Often it isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you out,it’s the pebble in your shoe.”

🥊”Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in a world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing”



Ten years ago today the world lost one of the greatest humanitarians, philantrophist and world reknown superstars.
Not to mention his downright brilliance within a boxing ring in which Muhammad firstly wrote the script, and then tore it up as he redefined his style and career.

They say a man only truly dies when his name is spoken for the very last time…..then Muhammad will be with us and those long after us for many years to come.

Me,We……Muhammad Ali.

🥊 “Many people who have been around boxing all those years never had a champion, certainly a heavyweight champion....For that to happen in one’s lifetime is so improbable. I got Floyd Patterson, then, here, at the age of 76, I was fortunate to come in contact with this young man who has, in my opinion, all the requirements to be a champion that I believe he’s going to be, maybe the best that ever lived.”

Constantine D’Amato aka ‘Cus’ speaking about his young protege

🥊 “There was no big money in my division, I could make a $100,000 but them guys were making $300,000… I told Ali and Frazier, ‘Give me a chance to make that big money’ and they did.”
Bob Foster........the legendary light heavyweight champion who also said Joe Frazier was the best puncher he faced,when he said
”I hit Frazier in the first round with a right hand and buckled his knees and the bell rang,when we went back to the corner his trainer was mad and yelling at him ‘What the heck did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you you couldn’t give this tall skinny guy punching room, he’ll knock your f___ing brains out. Get on top of him.’ So I told my trainer ‘This guy’s crazy, he’s trying to box me. I’m going to knock him out this round.’ My trainer said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t pull back on this guy.’ We went out the second round and everything just changed, he started putting that pressure on me. I never did like pressure. He got me on the ropes, it was a habit of mine, I’d pull in and pull out real fast, I guess he timed it and I got hit by that left hook and I don’t remember nothing else after that!. I was in the dressing room putting on my shoes, one of my trainers pulled them off and I’m putting them back on and he said ‘What are you doing?’ I said ‘I’m getting ready to fight.’ He said ‘Bobby, the fight’s over with.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said ‘He knocked you out.’ I said ‘On National TV?’ He said ‘Yeah.’ And I started crying, ‘Oh God, everybody saw me get knocked out.’

🥊 “Cowboy Jess was heavyweight champion of the world, and he was a giant. Moreover, he was a perfectly proportioned giant. He was every
inch an athlete. He tapered down beautifully from derrick-like shoulders, and his muscles were so smooth you could scarcely see them rippling
under his sun-tanned skin. He towered six feet, six inches and a quarter. He weighed 245 pounds. In comparison I shaped up like an infant or a dwarf although I nudged past six feet and scaled 180 pounds. My weight was announced as 187 pounds; but actually I registered only 180. As I looked across the ring at Willard, I said to myself, “Jeez! What a mountain I’ve got to blast down this time!” I knew about blasting-about dynamite. I had learned about dynamite in the mines of Colorado, Utah and Nevada, where I had worked off and on for about six years. And I knew plenty about dynamite in fighting. I had made a study of fistic dynamite since I was seven years old. That was when I had my first fist-fight, with a boy about my own size, in Manassa, Colorado. I was born at Manassa and spent my early years there. Before I fought Willard, my manager-Jack (Doc) Kearns-already had nicknamed me “Jack the Giant-Killer” because I had belted out such big fellows as Carl Morris and Fred Fulton. They were big men all right, but neither had appeared such an awesome giant as Willard did that
sweltering afternoon. I had trained for Willard at the Overland Club on Maumee Bay, an inlet of Lake Erie. Nearly every day Kearns and Trainer Jimmy Deforest reported that I was shaping up much better than Willard. But when I saw big Jess across the ring, without an ounce of fat on his huge frame, I wondered if Kearns and Deforest had been bringing me
pleasant but false reports to bolster my courage. I won’t say I was scared as I gazed at Willard, but I’ll admit I began to wonder if I packed
enough dynamite to blast the man-mountain down.

🥊”The three toughest fighters I ever fought were Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson and Sugar Ray Robinson. I fought Sugar so many times, I’m surprised I’m not diabetic.”

Jake ‘Bronx bull’ Lamotta

🥊 Remembering “the Cincinnati cobra” Ezzard Charles who passed on this day 28th may 1975 at only 53 years of age......a former world heavyweight champion he had a good amateur career too....winning and becoming the 1937 Diamond Belt Welterweight Champion.
1937 Ohio AAU Welterweight Champion.
1938 Diamond Belt Welterweight Champion.
1938 Ohio AAU Welterweight Champion.
1939 Diamond Belt Middleweight Champion.
1939 Chicago Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions Middleweight Champion, defeating Pete Hantz in the final.
1939 National AAU Middleweight Champion, defeating Leroy Bolden in the final.
As a professional he was lauded with praise for his defensive skills and ring craft, considered by many as the greatest light heavyweight of all time which is a good shout and one I find hard to argue with. On February 20th 1948 Charles knocked out Sam Baroudi who later died from injuries sustained during the fight....a small campaigner at heavyweight but noted for having a punch! In 1949 he defeated Jersey Joe Walcott over a 15rd UD to win the vacant heavyweight championship. Beat Joe Louis over a 15rd UD in 1950 to gain worldwide recognition as the Heavyweight champion making 8 title defences. In 1951 he lost the title to Jersey Joe Walcott by way of a 7th rd ko and attempted to try and regain his title on 3 more occasions losing once more to Jersey Joe Walcott and Twice to Rocky Marciano. Not bad for a small guy!
Named The Ring Fighter of the Year for 1949 and 1950.
Inducted into The Ring Boxing Hall of Fame in 1970.
Inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1983
Inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.
Named the greatest light heavyweight of all-time by The Ring in 1994 and 2002.
Named the 11th greatest heavyweight of all-time by The Ring in 1998.
Named the 13th best fighter of the last 80 years by The Ring in 2002.
Ezzard Mack Charles the boxing world remembers you.

🥊Training has two objectives: (1) to condition your body for fighting, and (2) to improve your workmanship as a fighter. Although some exercises help condition and others speed improvement, there’s one all-important activity that assists both. That activity is sparring.
THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR SPARRING. You must spar regularly and often to become a well-rounded scrapper, regardless of what other exercises you may take.
Sparring not only improves your skill, but it also conditions your body for fighting by forcing your muscles to become accustomed to the violent, broken movements that distinguish fighting from any other activity. Much has been written about rhythm in fighting. Nearly every scrapper develops some rhythm to his movements in footwork, bobbing, weaving, etc. And some fancy Dans appear to have almost as much rhythm as a ballet dancer when they shadow-box. But when the chips are down, rhythm is destroyed. Your opponent’s feints, leads, counters and defensive moves will break your rhythm in a hurry and will force your movements , on attack or defense, to be necessities of the split-second-to be violent and broken. Because the movements in fighting are violent and broken, fighting is perhaps the most tiring of all human activities. Some college experts insist that rowing on a crew is more exhausting than boxing. I don’t know about that. I never rowed on a crew. But I do know that crewmen have a rhythm or “beat,” to which they time their strokes. A fellow may be a perfectly conditioned athlete for some other activity-like basketball, football , baseball, rodeo, riding, acrobatics, hurdling, wrestling, etc.-but if he hasn’t had sparring practice, he will be completely exhausted by
two or three minutes of fast fighting. His muscles will be unaccustomed to the movements, and he will be unaccustomed to breathing while
making those movements and while being hit.

Jack Dempsey aka The Manassa Mauler.

🥊 ‘The height of getting hit,being surprised and thinking it out occurred in that famous knockdown during my second battle with Dempsey. The getting hit part of it was simply visible to all the world. The surprise was known only to me in its rich amazement. I never saw the punch,never glimpsed that savage left hook of which Jack swung on my jaw. Getting hit is a commonplace,but not seeing it coming really injured my pride. I was always cocksure about my eyesight in the ring. The blow was the second in the series of seven that put me on the canvas for the first time in my life. I remember clearly Jack crossing a vicious right over my left lead for the first of the series. An obvious blow,and I thought: “Tunney, what a sucker you are to be nailed by that.” Then a fearful left hand wallop on the jaw. I didn’t see the punch start,didn’t see it in flight,but I certainly felt it. It was the hardest of seven,and made me hazy about ones that followed. I had to look at the motion pictures the next day to find out how often Dempsey had hit me. Seven punches in all. I never even felt the last three. My blindness to the dramatic punch was caused,I believe, by a traumatic astigmatism-a severe eye injury sustained in a training bout several days before the contest. A sparring partner hit me a blow in the eye with his thumb extended. It broke several small blood vessels and injured the retina. The pain for half a minute was the most acute in my whole life. Two eye specialists were rushed out from Chicago to my camp. After the first treatment,I began to see a little out of the injured eye. That glimpse of light was one of the great moments of my life. I was not going to lose the sight of the eye. The treatment continued until the day of the contest,and I believe that the injury,still imperfectly healed,left a blind spot. Into this blind spot came what should have been the glimpse of the Dempsey left hook,the ace wallop of that tempest of wallops.’

Gene Tunney excerpt from ‘Arms for living’ Tunneys second volume of memoirs published in 1941.