Boxing, the sweet science, and lyrical quotes go hand-in-hand. We’ve assembled some of the best boxing quotes and captions for boxing fans. Have a read-through and let us know what you think.
Ten Best Boxing Quotes
- I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’
Muhammad Ali - To become a champion, fight one more round.
James Corbett - Life is like a boxing match; defeat is declared not when you fall, but when you refuse to stand again.
Unknown - The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.
Muhammad Ali - In boxing you create a strategy to beat each new opponent, it’s just like chess.
Lennox Lewis - In boxing, I had a lot of fear. Fear was good. But, for the first time, in the bout with Muhammad Ali, I didn’t have any fear. I thought, ‘This is easy. This is what I’ve been waiting for’. No fear at all. No nervousness. And I lost.
George Foreman - Boxing is the ultimate challenge. There’s nothing that can compare to testing yourself the way you do every time you step in the ring.
Sugar Ray Leonard - There’s a moment in fighting when the strength of muscle ain’t everything because the enemy has already given you enough energy to gain the victory.
Toba Beta - It ain’t about how hard you can hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
Unknown - Don’t count the days, make the days count.
Muhammad Ali
Good Boxing Quotes
- That man was beautiful. Timing, speed, reflexes, rhythm, his body, everything was beautiful. And to me, still, I would say pound for pound…I’d say I’m the greatest heavyweight of all time, but pound for pound, I still say Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest of all time.
Muhammad Ali - It’s less about the physical training, in the end, than it is about the mental preparation: boxing is a chess game. You have to be skilled enough and have trained hard enough to know how many different ways you can counterattack in any situation, at any moment.
Jimmy Smits - The possession of muscular strength and the courage to use it in contests with other men for physical supremacy does not necessarily imply a lack of appreciation for the finer and better things of life.
Jack Johnson - He can have heart, he can hit harder and he can be stronger, but there’s no fighter smarter than me.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. - There are no pleasures in a fight but some of my fights have been a pleasure to win.
Muhammad Ali - I can fight, but that’s the only thing I can do. When it comes to anything other than fighting or talking, I’m not very good.
Tyson Fury - Boxing is like chess. You encourage your opponent to make mistakes so you can capitalize on it. People think you get in the ring and see the red mist, but it’s not about aggression. Avoiding getting knocked out is tactical.
Nicola Adams
Short Boxing Quotes
- Boxing definitely has a part to play in taking away unwanted aggression.
Joe Calzaghe - A boxer is always armed.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana - Once that bell rings, you are on your own. It’s just you and the other guy.
Joe Louis - Fighting is like dancing. Look at a great boxing match, and it is dancing.
David Lyons - In boxing, they say it’s the punch you don’t see coming that knocks you out.
Katherine Dunn - Sure the fight was fixed. I fixed it with a right hand.
George Foreman - To see a man beaten not by a better opponent but by himself is a tragedy.
Cus D’Amato - Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
Mike Tyson
Inspiring
- All the time he’s boxing, he’s thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him.
Jack Dempsey - I’m not God, but I am something similar.
Roberto Duran - No Mas.
Roberto Duran - Never eat less than four hours before boxing. Then eat only lightly.
Gene Tunney - Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!
Howard Cosell - A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.
Jack Dempsey - God only made one thing in this world that’s perfect – and that’s my boxing record.
Floyd Mayweather, Jr. - I fight for perfection.
Mike Tyson - Boxing is like jazz. The better it is, the fewer people appreciate it.
George Foreman - Earnie Shavers could punch you in the neck and break your ankle.
Randall “Tex” Cobb - You never lose until you actually give up.
Mike Tyson - I was painfully initiated into boxing because the guys I fought were a lot bigger than me.
Sugar Ray Leonard - I made a lot of mistakes out of the ring, but I never made any in it.
Jack Johnson
Boxing Quote Meme
Motivational Boxing Quotes
- Never give up, which is the lesson I learned from boxing. As soon as you learn to never give up, you have to learn the power and wisdom of unconditional surrender, and that one doesn’t cancel out the other; they just exist as contradictions. The wisdom of it comes as you get older.
Kris Kristofferson - When I was a young fellow I was knocked down plenty. I wanted to stay down, but I couldn’t. I had to collect the two dollars for winning or go hungry. And, I had to get up. I was one of those hungry fighters. You could have hit me on the chin with a sledgehammer for five dollars. When you haven’t eaten for two days you’ll understand.
J.Dempsey - In order to be at the top and maintain your focus you have to have something that motivates you. For me, it was what I perceived as a lack of respect from the boxing world as well as the media, which made me want to work so hard and be great.
“Marvellous” Marvin Hagler
Famous
- People don’t realize what they had till it’s gone. Like President Kennedy, there was no one like him, the Beatles, and my man Elvis Presley. I was the Elvis of boxing.
Muhammad Ali - Even though I heard him say he doesn’t believe, cuz’ that’s why from watching Ali gave me a great deal of confidence and deep-down inner belief to believe there’s no man fighting that could beat me.
Mike Tyson - Getting hit motivates me. It makes me punish the guy more. A boxer takes a punch, hits back with three punches.
Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran - I don’t count the sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count. That’s what makes you a champion.
Muhammad Ali
Boxing Sayings
- If you lose a big fight, it will worry you all of your life. It will plague you – until you get your revenge.
Muhammad Ali - That’s the most beautiful thing that I like about boxing: you can take a punch. The biggest thing about taking a punch is your ego reacts and there’s no better spiritual lesson than trying to not pay attention to your ego’s reaction.
David O Russell - Boxing’s a poor man’s sport. We can’t afford to play golf or tennis. It is what it is. It’s kept so many kids off the street. It kept me off the street.
Sugar Ray Leonard - Boxing is the toughest and loneliest sport in the world. You’ve got all the fans, lots of hangers-on jumping up and shouting different words. But when you actually go in the ring, it’s a very lonely and scary place. It’s just you and the other guy.
Frank Bruno - It’s been like that forever. We got spoiled by Joe Louis, by Rocky Marciano. Muhammad ruined us for everybody. He was great outside [the ring]; he was great inside. We got so accustomed to it we thought we deserved it.
Angelo Dundee - To see a man beaten not by a better opponent but by himself is a tragedy.
Cus D’Amato - There are too many governing bodies. They’re all corrupt. I think they have replaced the old Mobsters with the kind of ‘corporate rule’ of boxing.
Larry Merchant - The three toughest fighters I ever fought were Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson and Sugar Ray Robinson. I fought Sugar so many times, I’m surprised I’m not diabetic.
Jake LaMotta - It’s different when you become a professional, because you also have to become a businessman, and that takes something away from it.
Sugar Ray Leonard
Muhammad Ali Boxing Quotes
- Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
- Service to others is the rent your room here on earth.
- It’s lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself.
- It’s hard to be humble when you’re as great as I am.
- Don’t count the days, make the days count.
- Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.
- The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses—behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.
- It’s not bragging if I can back it up.
- It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.
- I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.
Mike Tyson
- Everyone has a play ’till they get punched in the mouth.
- I love to hit people. I love to.
- I’m going to gut you like a fish.
- I feel like sometimes that I was not meant for this society.
- I’ll go back and take what the people owe me.
- I could feel his muscle tissues collapse under my force. It’s ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm.
- As long as we persevere and endure, we can get anything we want.
George Foreman Boxing Quotes
- They’ll take everything, even your tears.
- The question isn’t at what age I want to retire, it’s at what income.
- My kids idea of a hard life is to live in a house with only one phone.
- Many people fails not so much because of their mistakes; they fail because they are afraid to try.
- Being angry and resentful of someone is like letting them live rent-free in your head.
- To be successful in life, you must get in the habit of turning negatives into positives.
Sonny Liston
- A boxing match is like a cowboy movies. There’s got to be good guys and there’s got to be bad guys. And that’s what people pay for – to see the bad guys get beat.
- The only thing my old man ever gave me was a beating.
- How would you like to find out how good my right is?
- Newspapermen ask dumb questions. They look up at the sun and ask if it is shining.
- My punches are just as hard in Chicago as in New York.
Jack Dempsey Boxing Quotes
- A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.
- Nobody owes anybody a living, but everybody is entitled to a chance.
- All the time he’s boxing, he’s thinking. Al the time he was thinking, I was hitting him.
- The best defense is a good offense.
- Tall men come down to my height when I hit ’em in the body.
- I can’t sing and I can’t dance, but I can lick any S.O.B. in the house.
- Honey, I just forgot to duck.
Joe Louis
Nicknamed The Brown Bomber, Joe Louis was born in LaFayette, Alabama.
- Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
- If you gotta tell them who you are, you ain’t nobody.
- It hurt to even bump into him.
- Money can’t buy happiness, but it does quiet the nerves.
- Every man got a right to his own mistakes. Ain’t no man that ain’t made any.
- The one-time cotton picker was now the heavyweight champion of the world.
- He can run, but he can’t hide.
Inspirational Boxing Quotes
- The loss just made me hungry; it made me want to go out and win another title.
Thomas (Tommy) Hearns - Rhythm is everything in boxing. Every move you make starts with your heart, and that’s in rhythm or you’re in trouble. Your rhythm should set the pace of the fight. If it does, then you penetrate your opponent’s rhythm. You make him fight your fight, and that’s what boxing is all about.
Sugar Ray Robinson - The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It’s the same thing, fear, but it’s what you do with it that matters.
Cus D’Amato - Boxing is the only sport you can get your brain shook, your money took and your name in the undertaker book.
Joe Frazier - There is so much to learn from boxing, you can never have learned everything; anybody who says they know it all is lying. You can’t – there is always something new to learn.
Nicola Adams
Motivating
- If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, then they can sure make something out of you.
Muhammad Ali - Mental strength is really important because you either win or lose in your mind. And I’m not solely talking about sporting matches, boxing events – anything you do, you do it first with your mental strength. And you can actually train and develop it, and I am responsible for what I’m saying because I have experience with that.
Wladimir Klitschko - Boxing’s not that straightforward. You can practice and practice, but the real experience will always be different. Lots of things are like that, actually.
Franny Billingsley - To be a champ you have to believe in yourself when no one else will.
Sugar Ray Robinson - If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you. The tempt for greatness is the biggest drug in the world.
Mike Tyson
Boxing Captions For Instagram
- If you work hard in training, the fight is easy.
- I wanted to post a joke about boxing… but I forgot the punchline.
- A little progress every day adds up to big results.
- Heels off. Gloves on.
- You beat me to the punch.
- Come out swinging.
- Don’t let the weekend become your weak end.
- Keep your guard up.
- You don’t have to be extreme, just consistent.
- Heavy Hitter.
- Blow-by-blow.
- Fighting above your weight.
- Ready to take a dive.
- Duke it out.
- Time to throw hands.
- Throw in the towel.
- Here’s my corner.
- Glutton for punishment.
- That’s a low blow.
- Slugfest!
Boxing Sayings
- Killer instinct.
- On the ropes.
- The gloves are off.
- The ol’ one-two.
- Saved by the bell.
- The Rumble in the Jungle.
- Mean right cross.
- Roll with the punches.
- Rumble Young Man, Rumble.
- You big Palooka.
- Fight of the Year.
- Throw jabs, not shade.
- The only bad workout is the one that did not happen.
- The sweet science.
- Throw in the towel.
- Sore today, strong tomorrow.
- I’m nicer after boxing.
- Float like a butterfly.
- Win Rocky Win!
- I coulda been a contender.
— Phil Herman
Phil writes about sports, history, and boxing.
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