I'm just trying to change my life because I'm not above killing any drug dealer for money.

I don't have to be that gentleman ["baddest man on the planet"] anymore. Now I have to be "this" guy. And in order to be "this" guy, I have to be smiling, I have to be gregarious, I have to be entertaining, and I have to be friendly. This is what my career needs now. I've adapted. But 20 years from now, I may need a different persona.

I was blessed with speed and a good punch. Everybody thinks I'm the hardest puncher ever. But I just think I was really fast, and my punches got to the target faster. That's what made my knockouts always seem spectacular.

It's just good that Detroit is coming back. I'm so happy it's coming back because it needs to come back. When I do my trips around the world, and I can be anywhere, but I always see somebody from Detroit or Chicago. Those guys are world travelers.

There are nine million people who see me in the ring and hate my guts. Most of them are white. That's okay. Just spell my name right.

My main objective is to be professional but to kill him.

I don't know that person anymore, that guy in '86, '87. I don't know that guy no more. I don't have no affinity for that guy no more. I have no affinity for the guy who said, 'I am the greatest fighter God produced.' I have no affinity for the guy who said he would try to push his [opponent's] nose bone up into his brain. I just don't know that guy. I don't know who he is. I don't know where he came from. I don't have no kind of connection with him no more.