I have learned that promoters can love you, hate you, then love you again.
It wasn't about Larry Holmes, if I would have fought a brother I wouldn't have gotten the money I got. Give me 10 black guys and I make eight dollars. Give me Gerry Cooney and I make $10 million.
The seventies and eighties are when the division was really good. The fights were very enjoyable and everyone knew when the next fight was. Nowadays, you don't even know who won a fight three days after it happens. We need heavyweights, the people want heavyweights.
Whether I make two dollars or no dollars, it's better than losing. I've got enough people playing the games at the casino that I don't lose any money. So it's good for me, and it's fun.
I don't like Larry Merchant. He thinks he knows everything about a sport that he was never in. He walks around with papers and studies what he writes, he just pisses you off.
I cursed [Larry Merchant] out once, and I told him that he was a phony.
I always enjoy myself fighting in Mississippi. I enjoy myself fighting anywhere.
I did a job, [Don King] took money, probably more than he should have. If I was supposed to get $10 million, I was lucky to get $6.5 million. It happens and you can't do much, you decide whether to take it or leave it. King was a promoter, and he was good at it.
I'm tired. I am old and I have never quit pursuing my goals. I am heavily involved in real estate right now, but I am trying to get out of it altogether, I am just tired.
Tex Cobb would call me every day after we fought, I got sick of talking to him. I liked him a lot as a fighter, and as a person, and feel that sometimes he was misunderstood.
I don't see anything happening [in heavyweight division] when I watch these fights, they are very boring. Not only that, but you never heard of any of the fighters.
That guy [Floyd Mayweather] is throwing his money around like there is no tomorrow.
I don't think Mike Tyson's a bad guy. I think the people, the media, makes him out to be a bad guy.
I think a lot of people like to gamble, and they don't want to go to the casino to gamble. Sometimes they want to do it in the privacy of their home. They can't concentrate the way they want to in a gambling casino.
I think Roy Jones is a great fighter, a great puncher. But you know, he doesn't use the jab. But he's got everything else going for him. The problem that hurts Roy Jones in the boxing business, in the celebrity business, is his attitude. Attitude hurts, because you say a lot of things that you probably don't really mean and you say them because you don't want to be put down. But you've got a lot of people who don't like what you say, and that hurts. And that's what Roy Jones has been hurt by. That's what I have been hurt by.
I think gambling can be a good thing if you don't take it too seriously. Take it and have fun with it, and don't lose what you can't afford to lose.
Oliver McCall was someone who I never really got to know too well, and he had some well-publicized problems.
Mike Tyson always had a big heart, but one of his problems is that he's short. And he's got kind of a personal attitude. But that don't make him a great fighter.
Mike Tyson does a lot of things that shows he wants to win. He might hit you after the bell, he might hit you a little low, but he wants to win the fight. I think if he controls himself, he's okay.
Let people live their lives, as long as they don't hurt anybody. As long as they don't destroy their own lives.
The media loves to take things like that [Rocky Marciano couldn't hold my jockstrap] out of context. There was no harm meant when I said that, but plenty of harm came from it.
Kenny Norton hit me so hard that it still hurts. Now there was a case of two fighters who did not like each other.
Don King doesn't care about black or white. He just cares about green.
When Don King's fighters lose their titles they come back fighting on the undercard for peanuts. King owns all the top heavyweights and we spar against each other but we get charged for it and that comes out of our purses.
Don King is a hip exploiter, an intelligent flesh peddler
