You can go to Japan, China, all the European, African, Arab, and South American countries, and man, they know me. I can't name a nation where they don't know me.
I got it made the rest of my life, financially and in every other way. There's nobody in the world like me. I'm getting out just in time. If I was twenty seven, I could still kick ass. I don't have to beat Holmes. Why? I raised him, he worked three years as a sparring partner for me.
But when I looked at a lot of the questions they had on them army tests, I just didn't know the answers. I don't even know how to start after finding the answers. That's all.
During my boxing career, you did not see the real Muhammad Ali. You just saw a little boxing and a little showmanship. It was after I retired from boxing that my true work began.
Frazier soaked it all up like a sponge. When they arrived in Manila it was the same story. Ali poured scorn on his opponent. Humiliated him. Joe had the heart of a lion but verbally he was out of his depth when Ali got going. One time, as fight day approached, Ali spotted Frazier on a hotel balcony, grabbed a security guard's gun and fired some rounds at him. Everybody knew it wasn't live ammo but it still startled the hell out of Joe.] Go back in your hole, Gorilla, You gonna scare the people! Come out again and I'm gonna kill ya before time!”
Money and riches don't mean nothing to me. I don't care nothing about being no rich individual. I'm not living for glory or for fame; all this is doomed for destruction. You got it today, tomorrow it's gone. I got bigger things on my mind than that. I got Islam on my mind.
A lot of wars are fought between black and whites daily in America. But if it's something I want to be with, the people who started it were black, I wouldn't not get in it.
Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.
I had something to do, which most kids really need. Something they can look forward to - a goal, a purpose to work towards. Something to achieve. Keeps them out of trouble.