A Quote by Joe Calzaghe
You think that after becoming world champion, you're going to be a massive superstar with lots of lucrative bouts against great fighters, but that never materialised for me.
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Trust me, I've seen a lot of fighters come in hot and they disappear faster than they came in after a loss or two. This is the UFC and the best fighters in the world are here. If you fight the great fighters you're bound to lose.
The Jens Pulver fight was one that was on a massive level: I was a world champion fighting a former world champion, and a guy that I looked up to. We had a great fight.
I'm not going to say I was Britain's greatest ever world champion. I think Joe Calzaghe was the best - although I think I fought a lot better fighters.
Confident fighters are dangerous fighters. I know that. But there other fighters who said before a fight they were stronger than me, hit harder, were going to knock me out. Walters is a good champion but really how many quality fights has he been in compared to where I have been in my career? We both have speed, we both have power. It's an explosive fight. This is going to end in a knockout. I will go into the ring and do my best.
My self-belief, really is what kept me going, I always believed I could be a great champion, a world champion.
There are plenty of massive fights out there for me, I know that, but the goals always going to become world champion.
I'm pretty excited: to be inducted into the Hall of Fame is a massive achievement... and to be inducted with Oscar de la Hoya and Felix Trinidad, two great fighters, is a massive honour for me and my family.
I've had ups and downs in my career, and if you look at it as a bookmaker, the odds of me becoming a world champion were never in my favour, but I never stopped believing in myself and never stopped trying.
For me, success is being happy. I used to think it was lots of houses, lots of record sales, lots of stories to tell. But some massive life changes, getting a divorce and my dad dying, led to a huge period of reflection.
As a champion, I can't fight against weak fighters.
There's different kind of champions. There's the champion that becomes champion and they're not champion for long. And then you have the guy who becomes champion and he stays at the top for like a decade. And those fighters tend to be very intelligent.
For me, I believe George Foreman was a bad example because when he became world heavyweight champion again at 42, that made a lot of fighters think they could also carry on.
You decide whether you want to box on, or not. And for me of course, I wasn't going to be leaving the business until becoming a world champion, and defending it numerous times.
The situation right after the fight wasn't too good; I believe I'm still the only champion in the world who never received the belt inside the ring once you've won the title. I held that against the English fans for a long time but I felt that also motivated me.
I don't think I'm mainstream. I think what I am is lots and lots of different cults. And when you get lots and lots of small groups who like you a lot, they add up to a big group without ever actually becoming mainstream.
For me, I think Andre Drummond is going to be a superstar. We didn't have that. We had a lot of very good players. I think Drummond will be a superstar if he continues to work. The media, everyone is behind him.
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