Sugar Ray Leonard

North Carolina · born or raisedBorn 1956

American boxer

Born in Wilmington

boxer, actor

Quotations with a citation

I know exactly what it takes to beat this man, but people say, 'Well, Ray, two years of inactivity, you'll be rusty.' No, no. He will eliminate the rust because he is what I want and I am what he wants. And boxing needs that kind of fight.

I tried the gloves on, and it just felt so natural. From that moment I became so embedded in boxing. I found a friend in boxing.

I had a drug problem. I'd go to parties, take a leak, and there was cocaine right there. I was 25 when it started, rich, famous, and retired.

Duran quit in frustration. People were laughing and he couldn't deal with that.

Inactivity is the biggest sin in boxing.

That name, 'Manos de Piedra', is true, Hands of Stone. Every punch, and I'm not exaggerating, every punch that he hit me with, from the body to the head, felt like bricks, stone, rocks. He knocked my teeth back. My front, my first 3 or 4 teeth, he knocked them back because he was just so possessed. He was a demon.

"Of all the fighters today, I have to say that Mayweather reminds me most of me," Leonard told Irish boxing writer Brian Doogan in describing the incident. "The kid has every gift and physical attribute, but if he continues to be the kind of person he is, he'll never be one of us. He'll never make it."

Tommy Hearns seemed like an indestructible machine, so to beat him, I think that was my defining moment, the pinnacle.

The Ricky Hatton that beat Kostya Tszyu in 2005 can beat Floyd Mayweather, he was so focused and in such amazing physical shape that he would have given anybody at that level a tough time.