'I was a miner and I was a cowboy but mostly I was a hobo. I fought wherever I could, in school halls, outside saloons, any place they were putting up a purse. I once walked thirty miles across the desert to a town called Goldfield in Nevada so I could fight for twenty dollars.

I got beat a lot. I improved. But I remember the beatings I took. Once I got beat so bad they had to take me out of the ring in a wheelbarrow. Later some said I was a killer in the ring. They got that wrong. I killed nobody. But I took out other guys quick. That much is true. I got more one round knockouts than anybody, sixty knockouts in the first round.

I beat a good Heavyweight in New Orleans once in fourteen seconds. I knocked out Fred Fulton, six-foot-four, 250 pounds, in nineteen seconds. How come? Not because I was a killer. Other way round. I was always afraid that I'd be the one who was killed. Get 'em quick and you live to fight another day.'

- Jack Dempsey