I'm personally not a Muhammad Ali fan.
'Ali' offers stunning re-creations of bouts Ali fought. In the second Liston fight, the auditorium is underlighted and clouded with fetid cigar smoke, which was why the famous picture of a snarling Ali standing over Liston was so dramatic; indoor arenas are now bright enough to be spotted from Alpha Centauri.
Joe Louis is the greatest heavyweight champion of all time. Rocky Marciano is second only to Louis. Where do I rate Ali? Somewhere below me. I beat him, and if I could beat him, no doubt Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano could have beaten him.
My other Main Man is Muhamed Ali, for the obvious reasons.
Hitting Ali in the body or on the arms was like hitting a piece of cement.
I went to see President Nixon at the White House. It wasn't difficult to get a meeting because I was heavyweight champion of the world. So I came to Washington and walked around the garden with Nixon, his wife and daughter. I said: I want you to give Ali his licence back. I want to beat him up for you.
For people who love Tribe, I'm the defector. They say, 'You should get back with Ali to do the beats.' But a lot of people don't realize I did all the music in Tribe. In the first three albums, I did all the beats!
Foreman had annihilated every single one of his opponents to that point, but here was Ali, going to Africa, selling himself as the 'real deal' black man.
Ali... we should have gone to see that movie. Malcolm X was another one.
Except for Ali, fighters had never been marketable.
Ali's got a left, Ali's got a right - when he knocks you down, you'll sleep for the night; and when you lie on the floor and the ref counts to ten, hope and pray that you never meet me again.
When you work for me, you don't say good things about Ali.
Ali and I have become friends over the years. I was on a plane with him one time when he was the champion.
I knew Ali would beat Foreman - absolutely. At Deer Lake, his fight camp in Pennsylvania, his training sessions were awesome.
I hit Ali with everything and he said 'is that all you got' and I said 'yeah, that's pretty much it.'
In the documentary 'Facing Ali,' nearly half the fighters involved required subtitles despite speaking English, their speech slurred by the physical toll of their ring lives. This was their reward for testing their furthermost physical and mental boundaries.
McGregor is taking Muhammad Ali's model. He can say whatever he wants but he's got to prove it. If he doesn't prove it, his career is going to be short.
Ali was a guy that had a lot of discipline. If you hung around him, you'd be able to get some of that discipline that he had. And I learned from that. He was a sweet man.
I did not choose necessarily on the basis of significance. If you have a vote for the most significant athlete, then you have Ali, then you have Babe Ruth, then you have Michael Jordan.
I think on balance, Don King has been bad for boxing. I think he's done some very good things and I think he did a heck of a job of promoting Ali but I think I could have promoted Ali.
Had I but written as many odes in praise of Muhammad and Ali as I have composed for King Mahmud, they would have showered a hundred blessings on me.
