Sugar Ray Leonard Quotations | Page 2

Boxing is a sport, but it's also entertainment. I wanted to transcend the sport and be considered just not as a fighter, or a champion, but someone very special.

Boxing is individual, although there's a team concept because you need a great corner, you need a great trainer, you need a great prep man, you need all of these things, but it's more of a Mano a Mano; it's more you versus me. I miss that time in training camp and Dad and Mom cooking meals. It was one big family.

I wouldn't change anything because the mistakes and the hurt are as important as all the great fights. They made me who I am today.

There will always be something about two men in the ring - a mystique because it's pure man-to-man competition. Because of the history boxing has and the tradition it holds, boxing will always have a that mystique.

The Olympics meant everything to me. Going through them is like nothing else you will ever experience. For those few weeks, you are in another world. At that point, I couldn't see how there could ever be anything better.

Ray Leonard is more the family man, kind of quiet. He's not as outgoing as Sugar Ray Leonard. Sugar Ray Leonard was very determined, very focused, very outgoing and very selfish, if you will. There are two different individuals there.

Normally, I would run with a group of guys in my camps. A couple of days before the fight, I would run by myself. That was my time to choreograph the fight in my head, so I needed to be myself.

I'm one of the most optimistic persons in the world. I always believed that - there's another shot, another chance. In boxing, I never gave up. I kept trying, kept trying. Even when things seemed so dim, I continued to push forward to make something happen in my favor.

I used to walk to the Washington Monument from North L Street Northwest. And I was so hungry at times, I would stop and look into the trash cans, and if there was a half a sandwich, I would take that sandwich and eat it. It was just a matter of survival. I didn't think much of it, but it was just the way things were.

I've done a lot of things in my life that I'm not proud of.