I grew up in Beaufort, South Carolina, in a six-room farmhouse with a couple of leaning posts to keep it from fallin’. I came up in a time when men were men.
I want to hit him, step away and watch him hurt. I want his heart.
Joe Louis is the greatest heavyweight champion of all time. Rocky Marciano is second only to Louis. Where do I rate Ali? Somewhere below me. I beat him, and if I could beat him, no doubt Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano could have beaten him.
Boxing is the only sport you can get your brain shook, your money took and your name in the undertaker book.
Joe Frazier’s life didn’t start with Ali. I was a Golden Gloves champ. Gold medal in Tokyo ’64. Heavyweight champion of the world long before I fought Ali in the Garden.
I don’t think a man has to go around shouting and play-acting to prove he is something. And a real man don’t go around putting other guys down, trampling their feelings in the dirt, making out they’re nothing.
You got 3 things going against you: you’re good, you’re left-handed, and you’re black.
His mouth made him feel like he was gonna win. Not his hands, I had my hand. He had his lips.
I had my Olympic gold medal cut up into eleven pieces. Gave all eleven of my kids a piece. It’ll come together again when they put me down.
When I go out there, I have no pity on my brother. I am out there to win.
I hated Ali. God might not like me talking that way, but its in my heart.
Ali kept calling me ugly, but I never thought of myself as being any uglier than him, I have 11 babies, somebody thought I was cute.
A sound body keeps a sound mind.
I’ve achieved ‘the American dream.’ I feel it’s my duty to help others achieve their vision, too – especially the youth.
I had a job to do in the ring, and the businessmen around me had a job to do outside the ring, I did my job by beating up most of the guys they put in front of me and staying in shape, but the people I trusted didn’t do their jobs.
There are places on a man’s head that are as hard as a rock. Your head’s actually stronger than your body. And you don’t have too many instruments up there workin’.
Champions aren’t made in the ring, they are merely recognized there.
Fighting George Foreman is like being in the street with an 18-wheeler coming at you.
When I was a boy, I used to pull a big cross saw with my dad. He’d use his right hand, so I’d have to use my left.
Since I was a boy of five or six, I had it in my mind I would be a world boxing champion.