I'm not in this for superstardom. I do it purely for the love of the sport. I just love fighting.

The general public don't like boxers. They prefer tennis players.

My final fight was called 'Unfinished Business' - and I finished it.

I've won titles at home, I've won them abroad, I've defended titles abroad and lost them, and gone on to dominate my next opponent to win them back.

Some fighters had blinding speed and reflexes in their heyday but faded badly with age.

There have been many boxing comebacks over the years, and sadly many of them do not have a happy ending.

I don't think I'll be fighting when I'm 40.

Many top professional sportsmen from different sports see a psychologist.

It's not too late actually to speak to somebody about psychology, it's never too late.

A three-month training camp writes you off, I wake up and I literally can't get out of bed.

Boxing is not like any other sport, you have to weigh up the risk and reward. Things like playing football, tennis, you might be three sets to love down, but boxing you're going to the hospital on a stretcher and you know potentially you are going to get an injury you can't walk away from.

I boxed till my late 30s, so 47, that's impossible really to be at your best and if you aren't at your best you shouldn't be boxing.

There is an age limit of 35 on amateur boxing. They should consider putting an age limit on professional boxing.

I always give Calzaghe credit. He was a great fighter, really tough, unbeaten in 46 fights. He's never, ever given me any props at all. And for that I'd love to punch him in the face really hard.

Gennady Golovkin is a small middleweight, I'm a big super-middleweight. The fight was maybe talked about a year after I retired and it was never going to happen.

You can't talk about Golovkin in the same breath as me. If he thinks he can beat me, he's not from planet Earth.

I don't talk for the sake of talking and I don't talk with a forked tongue.

When I say I am going to win a world title, I mean it; when I say I'll fight the best, I mean it; I say I'll fight Joe Calzaghe because I wanted to. When he vacated, I lost sleep over that. It had nothing to do with money or the belt. He was renowned as the best super-middleweight in the world and that is what I want to be.

Audley Harrison is quite a soft, gentle guy. He gives it all the talk but, when he's in the ring, you can see he's scared to death.

I'm quite a ruthless, cold-hearted bastard. I always have been.

My mum and dad split up when I was five years old, and that was quite upsetting. But ever since then, I've been very hard.

I'm a winner.

I know what it's like to fight against the crowd from when I went to Denmark to fight Mikkel Kessler. He's like David Beckham over there, he gets blanket coverage in the papers all week, and you could hear a pin drop when I was landing my shots. There was no respect for The Cobra out there. There was no noise, no love, nothing.

I've been through the highs and lows. I know what it's like to taste defeat and it's not nice.