With my style, training is very rigorous. You're toe-to-toe, getting beat on six days a week for five or six weeks leading to a fight. There's no fun, no glamour.
— Tommy Morrison
To all my young fans out there, I ask that you no longer consider me a role model. See me as an individual who had the opportunity to be a role model but blew it. Blew it with irresponsible, irrational, immature decisions.
I lived a permissive, fast, and reckless lifestyle. I hope I can serve as a warning that living this lifestyle can really lead to only one thing, and that's misery.
I hate being around boxing people. I'd rather be back in the gym.
I don't think I have HIV. I don't think that I ever had HIV. I think I had hepatitis. I got rid of the hepatitis, and since then, every single time I have tested for HIV, it has been negative. The original test was a false positive.
In the heavyweight division, you can't afford to make a mistake.
As a white fighter, you get twice as much criticism.
I'll tell you this: Tommy Morrison has a tattoo of Elvis Presley on his butt, he likes to hunt and fish, and his favorite movie is 'GoodFellas.'
I've got plenty of contacts in Hollywood.
Everybody's looking at me expecting me to shrink up and die.
I've seen God work in my life, and I know what he's capable of, and I know what he does for his people that love him.
I remember talking to Magic the day I announced I had HIV. He was preaching, 'Do what your doctor tells you.' Well, I didn't have a doctor then, so I got down on my knees, and I prayed.
The rush you get from competing in front of the whole world, there's nothing like it.
You can sit there and worry yourself sick if you're a mentally weak person.
I have a bad habit of fighting to the level of my competition.
Something that comes along with age causes you to simmer a bit.
I didn't live in L.A. I lived in Oklahoma, and I liked to do normal things with normal people.
I never - I mean, I never saw any doctor's report saying I was HIV positive. I never had a doctor explain to me and show me what was going on.
If I was black or Hispanic, I wouldn't get any criticism. Because I'm white, people expect so much more out of me. That's a little unfair, but life isn't fair.
I cut my hand swimming in the Caribbean, it gets infected, and Channel 9 is calling me saying they heard rumors I cut my fingers off.
I just want to fight the world. Fight the system. Fight everybody.
HIV's never been proven to cause AIDS. HIV ain't ever killed anybody.
I don't believe in past lifetimes, but if there was one, I had to be a gladiator.
I will lay down and die before I take any drugs.
I knew the HIV virus was something anyone could get but also believed the chances were very slim... I honestly believed I had a better chance of winning the lottery than contracting this disease. I have never been so wrong in my life.
The mind is a very strong thing.
I'm guilty of reverse discrimination. I'm white, and people don't think that white fighters are any good.
The rug was yanked out from under my feet by a misdiagnosis. All I want to do is fight.
I've fought tactical fights in a gym, but never in a fight before.
I've had a lot of people tell me I'm faster than Tyson.
People watch me... whatever I do, wherever I go.
The heavyweight division needs me.
I've got the most complex - my life isn't boring. It never has been.
I couldn't fart in an elevator without people wanting to sue me.
People think I'm crazy, and it's been written in the papers that I'm off my rocker.
I'll trust an attorney before I'll trust a doctor.
