Despite its violent nature, boxing is known as the sport of gentlemen. It’s a noble but brutal and violent sport and lends itself naturally to many great quotes (and lots of funny ones too). So here is a collection of our favorite boxing quotes and sayings.
Inspirational Boxing Quotes
Boxing is the ultimate challenge. There’s nothing that can compare to testing yourself the way you do every time you step in the ring.
Sugar Ray Leonard
The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.
Muhammad Ali
To become a champion, fight one more round.
James Corbett
Bruce Lee was an artist and, like him, I try to go beyond the fundamentals of my sport. I want the public to see a knockout in the making.
Sugar Ray Leonard
Rhythm is everything in boxing. Every move you make starts with your heart, and that’s in rhythm or you’re in trouble.
Sugar Ray Robinson
Sure the fight was fixed. I fixed it with a right hand.
George Foreman
I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and I was in bed before the room was dark.
Muhammad Ali
Getting hit motivates me. It makes me punish the guy more. A fighter takes a punch, hits back with three punches.
Roberto Duran
All fighters are prostitutes and all promoters are pimps.
Larry Holmes
There’s more to boxing than hitting. There’s not getting hit, for instance.
George Foreman
To win takes a complete commitment of mind and body. When you can’t make that commitment, they don’t call you a champion anymore.
Rocky Marciano
The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It’s the same thing, fear, but it’s what you do with it that matters.
Cus D’Amato
You don’t have to be in a boxing ring to be a great fighter. As long as you are true to yourself, you will succeed in your fight for that in which you believe.
Muhammad Ali
The loss just made me hungry; it made me want to go out and win another title.
Thomas “Hitman” Hearns
Attack is only one half of the art of boxing.
Georges Carpentier
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.
Jake LaMotta
If you ever get belted and see three fighters through a haze, go after the one in the middle. That’s what ruined me – I went after the two guys on the end.
Max Baer
I’ve seen George Foreman shadow boxing and the shadow won.
Muhammad Ali
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
I never thought of losing, but now that it’ s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.
Muhammad Ali
Boxing is the toughest and loneliest sport in the world.
Frank Bruno
I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion’.
Muhammad Ali
Life doesn’t run away from nobody. Life runs at people.
Joe Frazier
If they cut my bald head open, they will find one big boxing glove. That’s all I am. I live it.
Marvin Hagler
Let the other guy have whatever he wants before the fight. Once the bell rings he’s gonna be disappointed anyway.
George Foreman
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
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.
Jimmy Smits
To be a great champion you must first believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.
Muhammad Ali
It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters.
Evander Holyfield
Once that bell rings you’re on your own. It’s just you and the other guy.
Joe Louis
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
To me, boxing is like ballet except there’s no music, no choreography and the dancers hit each other.
Jack Handey
I love boxing and it did a lot for me. But sometimes it made me think how savage human beings could be to each other. That wasn’t the kind of boxer I wanted to be. My strategy was to be as scientific as I could when I fought. I didn’t want to be seriously hurt, and I didn’t want to do that to anybody else either.
Muhammad Ali
For ageing boxers, first your legs go. Then you lose your reflexes. Then you lose your friends.
Willie Pep
He can have heart, he can hit harder and he can be stronger, but there’s no fighter smarter than me.
Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Funny Boxing Quotes
You can sum up this sport in two words: “You never know.”
Lou Duva
I was the only fighter in Cleveland who wore a rear-view mirror.
Bob Hope
He’s standing there making a sitting target of himself.
Terry Lawless
I truly believe the confidence I have is unbelievable.
Prince Naseem Hamed
We’ll have to take it on the chin. It’s a real body blow.
Barry Hearn
My mum says I used to fight my way out of the cot. But I can’t remember. That was before my time.
Frank Bruno
A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.
Jack Dempsey
Sure there have been injuries and deaths in boxing – but none of them serious.
Alan Minter
I quit school in the sixth grade because of pneumonia. Not because I had it, but because I couldn’t spell it.
Rocky Graziano
He’s a guy who gets up at 6 a.m. regardless of what time it is.
Lou Duva
No I don’t mind the fight being at three in the morning. Everyone in Glasgow fights at three in the morning.
Jim Watt
Quotes About Boxing
If you liked these quotes about boxing, you may like the rest of our sports quotes too, such as these:
