Gerry Cooney Quotes

When you bottom out, you have to stand up and get going again.

I believe in myself. I want to be a fighter. I want to be heavyweight champion of the world.

Most fighters, when they’re finished, boxing turns its back on them.

I’m a real person. I have real feelings. I have real thoughts. It’s a quality people like about me. They can reach out and touch me. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

When I get finished with fighting, I hope they ask the same questions. It’s not my purpose to answer them. Boxing is the art of self-defense. I knock ’em out the first chance I get.

I don’t overswing any more. I can throw a punch and be right in position to punch again. No more ‘Hail Mary’ punches, where it took me five minutes to get back in position.

It takes a strong person to admit he’s got problems. Things are bugging you, you’ve got to get it out. Life is supposed to be peaches and cream, but it doesn’t turn out that way. I sometimes found things confusing and sometimes didn’t understand how things can be so difficult.

I just like people. We have a good time together.

I am involved in minor league baseball. I go around the country speaking to troubled youths, trying to help them understand that whatever path they choose, they’ll need to really pay attention to it.

My father was one tough man.

I’ve always wanted to fight. I love to fight.

I have this want-to-be-liked thing, but deep down, I had this rage. I was just – I was blinded. I wasn’t healthy enough to be able to learn more. I had one mode – to fight.

I see Mike Tyson as too strong for Spinks.

It’s like I had two things pulling at me: you want to be a fighter, and you have problems. So I couldn’t be a fighter, and I wasn’t solving any problems.

You take that walk from the dressing room to the ring and that’s when the real man comes out. Then you climb up those four stairs and into the ring. Then finally, you can’t wait for the bell to ring.

Growing up training, I use to get up so early I would wave to the garbage men going by. So, I had this relationship with Blue Collar America and I really liked it. I felt that lots of those people looked forward to me winning.

I don’t care about the critics. I took a lot of nonsense. I got stuck with silly labels like ‘White Hope.’ What about other guys like Tex Cobb – they never had those labels?

You have a small period of time when you can perfect your career and become good at it. A lot of guys get distracted, which only hurts them. You must stay focused and work very hard at boxing.

Some have made boxing a terrible thing to be around.

I’ve had a long, long road with lots of ups and downs. But that’s all behind me now.

Every Saturday and Sunday, when the other guys were out having a good time at the mall, I was at home working in the garden.

After every fight, I knock myself down. I start from scratch again. I say, ‘I’m not as good as I thought.’ It makes you work harder. It makes you push harder. It’s more than money. It’s more than the title. It’s my pride, and it can be scary thinking about it. I could lose. It’s scary.

The road hasn’t always been paved for me. People identify with that. Everybody passes through hard times, and I think that’s part of my appeal – that I have, too.

When I was 15, I decided to take up the sport seriously, so I went down to the Y.M.C.A. My first day there, this little Italian guy beat my brains out. I decided to quit. Then I realized I really wanted to be a fighter. I worked at it, went back, and that little Italian guy didn’t beat me up no more.

I am seeing all the guys, like Earnie Shavers, Tex Cobb, and Larry Holmes all the time.

I have a great life. I’m the happiest guy in the world.

The fight with Holmes was a plus. I gained so much experience.

We try to tell these guys that the end of a boxing career isn’t the end of their lives: it’s the beginning of a new one.

I retired when I was 30, with all my marbles and a few bucks. But a lot of guys leave boxing penniless with no skills. Men in their 30s and early 40s, old for boxing, young in life, but also old in the job market if you’re just getting started with no education. These guys need someone in their corner.

If I keep thinking about yesterday, tomorrow might never come.

When we first started in Huntington Recreation with John Capobianco, we put four kids in the Golden Gloves finals. We didn’t even have a ring. We trained at Stimson Junior High School. They give us the gym three nights a week. We used to box in the gym – no ring, just on the gym floor.

I saw my brother have an altercation one time. He hit a guy with a left hook to the body and a right hand to the chin. He not only knocked the guy out, but out of wind. That stuck with me. It scared me.

All of the sports have a safety net, but boxing is the only sport that has none. So when the fighter is through, he is through. While he was fighting his management was very excited for him, but now that he is done, that management team is moving on.

I don’t care what you say about me anymore! I don’t care what you write about me anymore. I don’t care! This is my life. I can’t have anybody messing with my life. I just want to be Gerry Cooney, doing what I want to do. I want to be what I am. A fighter.

Long Island has a great boxing tradition.

The bad press came because they thought I should fight more. I couldn’t get the fights because if I would sign to fight one of King’s guys I would be signed to him. I chose not to do that. In hindsight, that might have been a mistake.

I have a Roman nose. It roams all over my face.

I’m one crazy, crazy guy.

When I fought Holmes, I feel I was a better fighter than he was. I was just so caught up in what was written about the fight – I got caught up in that whole thing.

Roberto Duran was the kind of guy who was a true fighter and you hardly see guys like that anymore.

I was a small kid from Huntington, Long Island. I never imagined that anything like that would happen to me.

I want to get me one of those titles.

Just because you don’t see someone doesn’t mean the love has changed.

I always felt I was wounded. That I was no good, a piece of crap, and that I wouldn’t amount to anything, because that’s what my father always told me. I just felt like I didn’t belong anywhere.

You go through pain. You feel uncomfortable, uncomfortable, uncomfortable until you change. I acquired a different outlook.

It’s like you always think that when you get to a goal, you’ll be happy. But then there is always something else that interests you.

About 99 percent of fighters end up broke. F.I.S.T. helps them turn the page and find new goals.

If my son wants a boxing career, I won’t stop him, but I definitely won’t push him. It’s bad for a kid to be pressured.

If you look at my career, towards the end you will see I was fighting like once a year. I was not part of the Don King top heavyweights, so I was kind of kept out. His guys were getting three to four fights a year and I could only get one.

My father would never have lost to Holmes.

When I hurt Norton, I got scared. I looked to the referee. But in the same sense, you’re a fighter: you gotta have the killer instinct.

People haven’t seen enough of me. My fights haven’t gone the distance, and people have a lot of questions. I want to find out for myself as much as the people do. I want to find out what I can do.

You gotta appreciate every day!

I don’t fear Holmes, but I think he’s a good fighter. He has a lot of pride. But I wouldn’t be fighting him if I feared him. It’s going to be a tough fight. People say with all the hoopla out there, I won’t be able to handle it. I believe the pressure’s on him. I’m just going to do my thing.

Muhammad Ali was the kind of guy you either loved or hated, but you wanted to see him. I happen to really love him. He brought boxing to another level and always made you laugh.

My career got sidetracked after fighting Holmes.

Am I complicated? Nah, I’m interesting. I just like having a good time.

Joe DeGuardia, I love that guy. He’s not a superstar promoter yet, but he will be. He was a fighter himself; he’s staying the course with these guys. He’s developing some good fighters out there. I really applaud him whenever I get a chance to.

I want to win. For myself first. And for all those people who stuck with me and understood.

I had two managers who couldn’t stand each other. I had a promoter, Don King, who couldn’t get any fights, and I was fighting once a year. I knocked out Norton and then didn’t fight for 13 months. Then I fight the heavyweight champion of the world.

I feel very blessed.

Maybe I’ll go to acting school. Acting is like boxing, you know.

I had money, but I still didn’t know what to do with my life.

I was embarrassing against Spinks.

I was lucky. I held on to some of my money. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do after boxing. But I found what I wanted to do.

Some of the things written about me hurt, but there is nothing I can do about it.

It’s great playing a sport where you don’t get hit in the head.

I’ve spent most of my life in prison. I was a prisoner of my fear and my low self-esteem.

I learned a lot from the Holmes fight. I learned about styles and the pressure. I’m more prepared now.

Everybody handles pressure differently.

I believe in my abilities as a fighter.

I’m a happy guy. I just want to see people laugh and smile.

Boxing gave me a voice to express the anger I felt for where I came from.

What hurt most were the people who came up to me and said they lost $1,000 on me. It just makes you mad.

The Klitschko boys, they’re great fighters, but they’re just boring here in America.

I never fought because of my father. I started to box before he pushed me. It had nothing to do with him.

Too many guys don’t know what to do with their lives after boxing. I was lucky because I had two managers who didn’t trust each other, and so they were always making sure where all the money was, and because of that, so did I.

When I see a fighter gets into the ring, I not only see the fighter, but I see his wife and children. I care about what happens to them. I care about what happens to that fighter after he gets out of the ring.

I always had the hope that Holmes and I would fight again.

I liked to watch the expression in the fighter’s face change when you connected with him. You know when you connect in the right spot. It’s like a tunnel vision.