Jake LaMotta Quotes

The three toughest fighters I ever fought were Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson and Sugar Ray Robinson. I fought Sugar so many times, I'm surprised I'm not diabetic.

Kids always used to come up and ask me if I ever fought Mike Tyson, and I used to tell them that we couldn't because we were in different weight classes.

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.

My father was a boxer, though. So, I have a particular interest in Ray Mancini, I think.

Oh man, I would love to fight Evander Holyfield. I don't think any of the other great heavyweights fought four times - that's history in itself.

I fought Sugar Ray six times. Pound for pound the greatest fighter who ever lived.

Arturo Gatti-Micky Ward. Joe Frazier-Muhammad Ali. You get these rivalries in boxing - not that often, so when you do get them, why do you want to sanitise it?

Yeah, I thought I could be heavyweight champion of the world when I was working with Ali and Joe Frazier and Earnie Shavers and all those guys. Because they were older than me and I was doing my thing.

Joe Louis was a good Heavyweight, good boxer but he was kind of in the same boat as Marciano, weighing about 190 to 200 lbs.

I am just taking the top fights out there for me. People will get bored seeing me every day knock someone out.

I can't watch a [Floyd] Mayweather fight. I don't find it exciting. I used to watch boxing in the [Michael] Tyson era when it was exciting. Now it's all bob and weave, a punch here and there. It is not entertaining.

The likes of Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearns were true champions. There were some incredible fights between us, and I was happy to give them all an opportunity to fight me.

I liked Roy Jones, Sugar Ray Leonard, Ali... those were the guys I was looking at growing up.

Except for Ali, fighters had never been marketable.

I was a huge Mike Tyson fan growing up; his fights were always on in my house.

Bernard Hopkins? He fights scary dirty. I mean, he did what he had to do in his career.

Long Island has a great boxing tradition.

The first fight I ever saw live was the first Castillo-Corrales match in Las Vegas in 2005.

I fought Sugar Ray Robinson so many times, it's a wonder I don't have diabetes.

Boxing was not as big as wrestling in Japan, but people knew Leon Spinks.

Looking out the window and seeing the MGM and Floyd Mayweather takes me back to when I was a kid. Those were the places you'd hear about, the ones that staged big fights and top fighters. You always want to one day fight there yourself.

I thought after that fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, if this was supposed to be fight of the decade, then people must be missing me a lot more.

Jack Johnson was the first black heavyweight champion, so I took part of his name. I admired Rocky Marciano, so I took part of his name.

I was a huge Mike Tyson fan, would sit through the night watching boxing matches and would hit the bag at every opportunity I would get.