My dad always wanted me to box because he saw a career in it for me.

Heavyweight championship. People want to see the big guys bang. Other champions are great, too. But ain't nothing like seeing the big guys throw down.

My mother ran the household. In grade school, I came home crying one day. She said, 'What's wrong?' and I said, 'This kid said he was going to jump on me.' She grabbed me and slammed me on the floor. 'If you don't go out there and stand up for yourself, it's going to be me and you.' I didn't want that to happen.

My training sessions were nice, calm, and quiet. Just me and my trainers in the gym.

I pretty much admire anybody who has the discipline and the will to make a career out of fighting. It takes buckets of nerve.

With due apologies to Shakespeare, some people are born writers, some people achieve it after a lot of hard work, some people have a writing career thrust upon them. I am in that last group.

I've never been one of those actors who plays chess with his career and goes, 'I'm going to wait now and see what project comes up that can move me to this or that level.' I take stuff as it comes, and it just so happens that it hasn't dried up yet, touch wood.

When I used to wrestle professionally, I preferred being the bad guy known as 'The Heel;' you would get to 'work the crowd,' getting them to hate you and want to see you lose, while the good guy 'Babyface' would walk in, smile and shake hands with a few kids, and his acting job was done.