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Boxing was the only career where I wouldn't have to start out at the bottom. I had a good resume.

If you look at my career, towards the end you will see I was fighting like once a year. I was not part of the Don King top heavyweights, so I was kind of kept out. His guys were getting three to four fights a year and I could only get one.

I'd had 35 professional fights and mentally I was tired of it. I'd sort ot fallen out of love with the sport.

If you can believe this, I didn't fight for my first world title fight till I had 58 fights, so I really appreciated what I was fighting for and for whom as well.

It is up to the people and boxing fans to give me the respect I deserve once I have finished my career. I personally do not think about my legacy.

I'd always told people that I would have liked to pursue some sort of professional fight career. I don't know if I'm quite right for it, since I'm extremely prone to injury. I've been boxing for a couple years, and I've messed around with some Jiu-Jitsu, and I've always felt that there's such a passion in a real fighter's heart.

I wanted to win the gold medal and then go home and further my education in college. I had no intentions whatsoever to become a professional fighter because I had heard horror stories about former boxers who made money but, in the end, ended up with nothing. I didn't want to be one of those guys.

In 1968, I fought and won the world middleweight karate championship by defeating the world's top fighters. I then held that title until 1974, when I retired undefeated.

I was lucky. I held on to some of my money. I didn't really know what I wanted to do after boxing. But I found what I wanted to do.

Boxing is a sport, but it's also entertainment. I wanted to transcend the sport and be considered just not as a fighter, or a champion, but someone very special.