I have a Ph.D. in philosophy and sports science. At 14, I went through this really tough Soviet training system. A lot of my roommates got psychologically broken or physically injured. Either you came through, or you were out. I made my Ph.D. work in the field of young athletes aged 14-19 because at this age any human is changing.

The challenge for me is his size because, for the first time in my career, I'll be meeting an opponent who is taller than me and has a longer reach.

That's the most terrible mistake you can make: to relax. It's difficult to become a champion, but it's more difficult to maintain it for many years because you're getting too comfortable.

There's certain things that you cannot cross, no matter who you are, what you're doing or where you're coming from.

I think we have tremendous media covering the sport of boxing, even if boxing is a little bit lost in popularity with MMA sports. And I think that with the show 'Lights Out' it's going to get more attention to the sport, and it's going to put more attention to the problems that athletes in general have.

Aggression means emotions. Emotions means you’re gonna get off your plan and that means you’ll lose the fight.

I think that boxing is actually not as dangerous as the politics. In boxing, you're gonna get a bloody nose or a black eye. In politics you can obviously get either dioxin in the food or bullet in the head.