Boxing Quotes

For a sport so brutal (and barbaric, whatever the pretense of sweet science it is), it seems for most part the literary smarts of our dear boxer legends are least to be considered. But there are those that display remarkable sets of wit; is this the first sign of civilization? Will the sport ascend from throwing around punches to throwing witticisms, insults and vulgarities instead?

There are some of those boxing quotes that due to sensational promotions had become so published that it made easy into everyone’s lists of triteness. But yet, these boxing quotes had become mantras to some faithful. Boxing quotes, here are the best of them.

Muhammad Ali has become the typecast for a boxer whose wit is as good as his reach, whatever it may mean to most of you. Like when he quoted after failing an intelligence test for the army:

“I said I was the greatest, not the smartest.”

Of course this may be a veiled cleverness, for Ali was not especially keen in serving the army, especially not while he was still basking under the limelight for flooring the champion Sonny Liston as an underdog.

For some, Ali’s boxing quotes speaks all too clearly of an over-inflated head. And he seems to be conscious of this, because after a number of barefaced questions attacking  his super ego, his retort was:

“At home I am a nice guy, but I don't want the world to know. Humble people, I've found, don't get very far.”

Muhammad Ali was better known for the boxing quote “dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee”, a tactic that should have prepared Liston since Ali was none too secretive in saying this to the media. This boxing quote, it seems, is one of the better boxing quotes of the man, minus his ever-present ego rant.

Tony Galento was one of the more colorful boxers in history. “Two-Ton Tony” was a seldom defeated giant whose width is matched with a perfectly poor intellect. Such as when he was asked about Shakespeare: 

“I ain’t never heard of him. I suppose he's one of them foreign heavyweights. They're all lousy. Sure as hell I'll moider de bum”.

He also called most of his opponents “de bum”, in particular Joe Louis whom he did an extra mile to call him “dum” and that he, Galento, would “moida him”. That of course did not happen as Joe Louis got a KO victory over him.