"In no other sport is the connection between performer and observer so intimate, so frequently painful, so unresolved." - Joyce Carol Oates

"Ali was primarily a brilliant ring strategist. A prodigy in his youth whose fast hands and feet made him virtually impossible to hit. What joy in the young Ali: in the inimitable arrogance of a heavyweight, who danced about his puzzled opponents with his gloves at waist level, inviting them to hit him - to try it."

"You need the whole package - boxing, interval training, weights, nutrition, rest, everything. I combine all of them together so I can become like a machine up in that ring." - Oscar De La Hoya

"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 is wonderful. It truly is. It is the only thing that is real! It's you against me, it's challenging another guy's manhood. With gloves. Words cannot describe that feeling - of being a man, of being a gladiator, of being a warrior. It's irreplaceable." - Sugar Ray Leonard

"The Glory is the issue to me. Money comes and goes, but a legacy stays forever. I hate to lose" - Shane Mosley

"I'll be glad to see him coming into the ring because that's where it gets hard, where whatever you say doesn't mean a thing and you have to be honest and just fight." - Lennox Lewis