American - Athlete | August 4, 1956 - 8
When somebody used to compliment me, I'd spend 10 minutes trying to talk them out of it.
Gerry Cooney
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I always felt I was wounded. That I was no good, a piece of crap, and that I wouldn't amount to anything, because that's what my father always told me. I just felt like I didn't belong anywhere.
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My father was one tough man.
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I had personal problems. I was spending 50% of my life on my family, 50% on boxing. Neither was getting anywhere. It was killing me. So I had to break away from fighting.
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The road hasn't always been paved for me. People identify with that. Everybody passes through hard times, and I think that's part of my appeal - that I have, too.
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People haven't seen enough of me. My fights haven't gone the distance, and people have a lot of questions. I want to find out for myself as much as the people do. I want to find out what I can do.
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After every fight, I knock myself down. I start from scratch again. I say, 'I'm not as good as I thought.' It makes you work harder. It makes you push harder. It's more than money. It's more than the title. It's my pride, and it can be scary thinking about it. I could lose. It's scary.
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I don't fear Holmes, but I think he's a good fighter. He has a lot of pride. But I wouldn't be fighting him if I feared him. It's going to be a tough fight. People say with all the hoopla out there, I won't be able to handle it. I believe the pressure's on him. I'm just going to do my thing.
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Too many guys don't know what to do with their lives after boxing. I was lucky because I had two managers who didn't trust each other, and so they were always making sure where all the money was, and because of that, so did I.
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I retired when I was 30, with all my marbles and a few bucks. But a lot of guys leave boxing penniless with no skills. Men in their 30s and early 40s, old for boxing, young in life, but also old in the job market if you're just getting started with no education. These guys need someone in their corner.
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Too many fighters stay in the game for too long. They stay because it's awfully hard to walk away from the roar of the crowd. Really hard. You live for that and so you stay too long. And you might have a wife and kids to feed. So you keep fighting because you don't know how to do anything else.
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We try to tell these guys that the end of a boxing career isn't the end of their lives: it's the beginning of a new one.
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