Boxing is itself famous for its quotes, so trying to pick just 25 of them is a challenging task. In fact the most challenging aspect was trying to ensure that this hub didn't turn into '25 Famous Muhammed Ali Quotes', so I did that on a separate page! In fact I have left all Ali quotes off of the list, as it was Ali who made the pre-match and post-match rambles the norm, and it was necessary to let a few other boxers have their moment. Here it is:-

 

1. "If you screw things up in tennis, it's 15-love. If you screw up in boxing, it's your ass." - Randall Cobb

2. "I'm scared every time I go into the ring, but it's how you handle it. What you have to do is plant your feet, bite down on your mouthpiece and say, 'Let's go.' " - Mike Tyson

3. "A champion shows who he is by what he does when he's tested. When a person gets up and says 'I can still do it', he's a champion." - Evander Holyfield

4. "To me, boxing is like a ballet - except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other." - Jack Handy

5. "Sure there have been injuries and deaths in boxing - but none of them serious." - Alan Minter

6. "You have to know you can win. You have to think you can win. You have to feel you can win." - Sugar Ray Leonard

7. "That's my gift. I let that negativity roll off me like water off a duck's back. If it's not positive, I didn't hear it. If you can overcome that, fights are easy." - George Foreman

8. "Fighting, to me, seems barbaric. I don't really like it. I enjoy out-thinking another man and out-maneuvering him, but I still don't like to fight." - Sugar Ray Robinson

9. "I have always adhered to two principles. The first one is to train hard and get in the best possible physical condition. The second is to forget all about the other fellow until you face him in the ring and the bell sounds for the fight." - Rocky Marciano

10. "All the time he's boxing, he's thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him." - Jack Dempsey

11. "I wanted to do in boxing what Bruce Lee was able to do in karate. Lee was an artist, and, like him, I try to get beyond the fundamentals of my sport. I want my fights to be seen as plays." - Sugar Ray Leonard

12. "When you're in a relationship, you're always surrounded by a ring of circumstances... joined together by a wedding ring, or in a boxing ring." - Bob Seger

13. "Boxing purists, quite naturally, question Tyson's appetite for victory. Mills Lane should have stopped the fight before Tyson took a second helping." - Fred Mitchell

 

 

14. "A boxing match is like a cowboy movie. There's got to be good guys and there's got to be bad guys. And that's what people pay for - to see the bad guys get beat." - Sonny Liston

15. "Boxing is the only sport you can get your brain shook, your money took and your name in the undertaker book." - Joe Frazier

16. "I'm not much for talking. You know what I do. I put guys in body bags when I'm right". - Mike Tyson

17. "As a West Side kid fooling around with boxing gloves, I had been, for some reason of temperament, more interested in dodging a blow than in striking one." - Gene Tunney

18. "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

19. "I want to rip out his heart and feed it to Lennox Lewis. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children." - Mike Tyson

20. "I could feel his muscle tissues collapse under my force. It's ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm." - Mike Tyson

21. "The three toughest fighters I've ever been up against were Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Sugar Ray Robinson. I fought Sugar so many times, I'm surprised I'm not diabetic! But I did have him off the canvas once...when he stepped over my body to leave the ring." - Jake LaMotta

22. "I consider myself blessed. I consider you blessed. We've all been blessed with God-given talents. Mine just happens to be beating people up." - Sugar Ray Leonard

23. "My main objective is to be professional but to kill him." - Mike Tyson

24. "I respect boxing because it has given me so much and that's why I will never allow anyone to mistreat the sport of boxing if I can help it." - Alexis Arguello

25. "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." - Don King