Quotes

[on what he learned after the Muhammad Ali fight] When the fight was almost reaching the end, I was out on my feet, I was blind from the two eyes, I was bleeding from my nose, mouth and ears, Ali kept shouting, "What's my name?" and, hoping that he would just finish me and end my suffering, I answered to him, almost begging. "It's Muhammad Ali, it's Ali, please, enough!". The most poignant thing during the beating wasn't the punches or Ali screaming to me, but the fact that I knew that my wife and family were watching at that ringside, the humiliation hurt more.

[talking about the damage Muhammad Ali inflicted on him during their match] I had a great chance to win that fight. I was bigger than Ali at that point. But during the second round of the fight, we got caught in a headlock and he took his thumb and poked it in my eye. And my eye slits like it's an egg, that's what the doctors explained to me.