A Quote by Gerry Cooney

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.
Muhammad Ali was hated, and then he was loved at the very end. Floyd Mayweather was hated, and a lot of people are really coming around on him. So, I'm just trying to stay positive and try not to offend too many people along the way and hope for the best end result.
Muhammad Ali was a god, an idol and an icon. He was boxing. Any kid that had the opportunity to talk to Ali, to get advice from Muhammad Ali, was privileged. He's always given me time to ask questions, although I was so in awe that I didn't ask questions.
Ali was a threat because he was a voice, and the people hated Ali when he was a voice, but once Ali could no longer speak and he wasn't a voice, they loved him. Love me now. I don't want to be loved if I could barely walk or barely talk. That's not cool.
Muhammad Ali wasn't loved, people forget that, but people paid for tickets to see him fight. In retirement, he's loved. As long as people are talking about you, that's a good thing.
During my boxing career, you did not see the real Muhammad Ali. You just saw a little boxing and a little showmanship. It was after I retired from boxing that my true work began.
If I could've made Muhammad Ali smaller I would have fought him.
I loved something I made up, something that's just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn't see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes—and not him at all.
Muhammad Ali was my idol, and I always say, if Muhammad Ali had told me the exact same thing my mother, the principal, the security guard, my brothers... you know, the same thing they were telling me that I didn't listen to, I would have listened, just because it came from Muhammad Ali.
Muhammad Ali was the greatest of all time. But what made him even greater was what he did outside the ring.
Recently I donated money to the establishment of the Muhammad Ali Foundation in Louisville. I regard that as a kind of payback. He smoothed the way for us. He wasn?t just a great person who had conviction, but made the sport of boxing great. He was the first superstar, he made our stock rise. Without him we wouldn?t have earned so much. Americans from every walk of life have contributed to the foundation: Bill Clinton, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt. Unfortunately I was the only American athlete to make a donation. There?s not enough respect in our business.
I brought Muhammad Ali to North Korea in 1995. I tried that once. It didn't work out quite that well for me as it did for Dennis Rodman, but I brought Muhammad Ali to Pyongyang, North Korea, as part of a big wrestling event called the World Peace Festival. It was a two-day event that drew over 350,000 people.
I loved Roy Acuff with all my heart, and I never dreamed I'd be able to meet him or see him onstage, or especially become good friends with him. For all this to happen, it's hard to explain what a dream this is when you love something as much as I love traditional country music.
At first I didn?t give a damn to go down in history. I wanted to win. But the more I won, the more I thought about leaving something behind. Yes, it's as important as hell to me. I want to leave something that people will remember me by. Of course, a lot of boxers want to do that. But it's not easy. Take Larry Holmes, he was the big man after Muhammad Ali, he wanted to emulate him, but for some reason the public didn?t take him like they did to Ali. I think people won?t fully understand what I contributed to the sport for years.
David Price is a big guy but he has not used his advantages, I have known him since the amateurs in the early 2000s and I would always see him in the Boxing News magazine.
If we loved Steve Aylett, really loved him in the way that he deserves, a selfless love that genuinely wanted nothing save his happiness and comfort, we'd lobotomise him.
Americans did not want to see a Mexican become more popular in boxing than Muhammad Ali.
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