If I could have come in for $10m, I would have done that. I've been pretty smart with my money. I'm playing because I want to play this game here - I want the opportunity.
Bob Arum and Don King can do their thing but if I fought for those guys and they put the money up like they are supposed to then I don't have a problem.
I'd like to do things to make money to save myself but right now I can't do nothing. If they want to put me in jail, they can do that. It's kind of tough.
Back in my day, we didn't think about money as much. We enjoyed playing the game. We loved baseball. I didn't think about anybody else but the Cardinals.
If you're just saying, hey, I'm doing this. I'm working to make money. I'm working to increase my status. If that's all there is, I think you will find out that it's meaningless.
Your team has to understand that coming into the ABA, you have to have your investments right and sponsorships and people ready to give you money so they can back you up.
I have such a profound respect for what they do day in and day out. This USO tour is especially meaningful because of the friends I have met and I am honored to be apart of it.
They will look at my career as the guy who gave it all but at the same time did it with integrity. That's what we all aim for - the respect of the game as well as the honesty that's played a part of that game.
In some ways that fight gave me more respect around the world and helped me be even more popular because so many people felt my pain and saw that I was robbed.
It is up to the people and boxing fans to give me the respect I deserve once I have finished my career. I personally do not think about my legacy.
I absorb the science section of 'The New York Times.' You know, I have a degree: I'm an A.A.D. Almost a Doctor.
You cannot create new science unless you realize where the old science leaves off and new science begins, and science fiction forces us to confront this.
Science - or the products of science like technology - is just a way of achieving something real, something that happens, something that works.
I am as hungry now as I was when I began in the sport. If anything, I am probably a bit hungrier. It is because I know there are fewer tomorrows than yesterdays.
On the other hand, chess is a mass sport now and for chess organisers shorter time control is obviously more attractive. But I think that this control does not suit World Championship matches.
Amateurism is the strongest form of discrimination in sports. Because it discriminates against the underprivileged, it discriminates against the poor. If we want sports to go back to the wealthy, let's make it amateur again.
I've always known that sporting people frequently suffer from joint problems because of the repeated strain they put on their bodies to get to the top. But somehow I never thought it would happen to me.
Playing in New England and the Boston area, the fans are so passionate about their sports if you don't play well, they'll let you know so I know it's not something that they take lightly.
I started playing baseball and soccer. Those were my sports on the streets and in school when I was growing up. I didn't even start playing basketball until I was 14.
That's what I'd like to do on the President's Council. Make sports and athletics available to every youth in America, not just one day a week like it was for me, but every day.
You know, everybody has a slogan, and once you beat people over the head with it so much, then that's what you'll eventually be called once you retire from the sport or whatever.
