Pat McAfee Quotes

I boxed in Golden Gloves at Oxford and still know how to throw a straight left jab.

I actually study boxing - my dad was a Golden Gloves champion so I learned how to fight at a very young age. Growing up in Brooklyn you always had to watch your back, so I pretty much learned to protect myself.

I used to box a bit, and once fought as an amateur welterweight.

I knew boxing before I knew anything else.

No, I've never competed. I did, however, train in a boxing gym with a good coach beginning in 1993. I'd been writing about the sport for a dozen years by then and wanted to know what boxers endured, what it felt like. I was too old to compete when I started, but I sparred enough to get a taste.

My dad was actually a college boxer at L.S.U. and a good one, too. He was the captain of the boxing team.

WWE is very good at doing things that are advantageous. If you have the ability to go out there and get on a mic and be captivating, then they're going to do everything in their power to support that ability and make it even bigger and seem better.

In WWE, they're real big on letting you sink or swim, and they let you go out there, and they're going to give you the stick and a live mic in front of a packed house and millions watching at home, and if you're not prepared for that moment, you're going to go down in flames.

The thing that people don't know about me - I actually boxed amateur for a few years.

To be just straight up honest, Conor McGregor is a guy that fought at 145 - ever in his life. I haven't weighed 145 since my sophomore year of high school.

When it came to eliciting a reaction from an audience, especially at the time, I think Ric Flair is the guy who is constantly up there. Especially when you talk about speaking with passion and being able to convey a ton of emotion with his words and his body language.

Cowboy James Storm and Eli Drake, those guys can talk and rile the people up.

I come from athletics and I have a pretty big boxing background, so I never really shy away or get nervous about the physical rigors of filmmaking.

I've always been me. The last three weeks of my career, I've cut some of the best promos I've ever cut, and I do consider myself to be a promo guy.

Not being well-versed in that arena myself, it's a little bit frightening because I'm not very good in those situations with lots of people and lots of famous people and cameras and all of that. It's not my specialty.

When I was 6 I became the poster child for my hospital and would go to banquets and make speeches. I did not get stage fright and I actually enjoyed talking to people of all ages.

There is one hell of a difference between fighting in the ring and going to war in Vietnam.

I became Vulnerability TED, like an action figure - like Ninja Barbie, but I'm Vulnerability TED.

If you would have met me when I first started wrestling - or even five, six, seven, eight years into wrestling - you wouldn't be like "This person is a dynamic personality on the screen." That would have never happened. That's something that's evolved. You just keep putting yourself out there and you keep working at that sort of thing and you can get better at it.

The outgoing and spontaneous person that the world knew while I was boxing was a persona that I created to sell tickets and promote my career. In my private life, I am quiet and reflective by nature.

I'm not going to say that I'm the best, we respect our champions. Floyd's been doing this a lot longer than me, he's been a lot of mega fights and I won't dare say that I'm better than Floyd Mayweather.

Onstage, it was always comfortable for me, because that's where I felt at home. Offstage, it was a different situation. I was still shy offstage.

It's just that you don't have to bring it to every stage. You can do a fundraiser for people that you support. You don't necessarily have to talk about one thing or another when you're on your own.

Whether I was a character in WCW, WWE or The Longest Yard, you want to be able to - the best part about myself is that I have a very wide range of emotions in that one second I can be speaking on Capital Hill about dog fighting and giving them a voice, which they can't obviously speak for themselves.

Roland La Starza was tough, but Ezzard Charles was the toughest man I ever fought. I learned what pain was all about when I fought him.