Transcripts of the 1998 Induction Speeches

Matthew Saad Muhammad
Oh man, this is such a joy. Look at all the people. Look at that. Look at that. I'm so honored. I'm so happy. That all you guys, all you ladies came out here to be part of this induction. The people who are staying here, all the fighters, all the champions, all the retired fighters. I want to say thank you to the dais, to all the world champions. Wow, I don't know where to begin. I want to thank God for making it all possible for me. If it wasn't for me it would never have happened. Although my mother and father, they made me but then they erased me. But it's okay. God is real and I can't think about what happened then. I can only go on and think about the present. And I want to really thank the Boxing Hall of Fame for bringing me out here. Man, I'm a little nervous. I'm a little nervous. I'm looking at all these people looking at me. Man. I want to thank my mother and father, Laveech. Catherine and Samuel Laveech from Alaska. I want to thank also Joe Johnson. His mother raised me when I was a child about two years old. So it was his mother that adopted me. The Santos family and for them. I'm happy. They didn't have to do that. They had about 10 other children of their own. I was only, I guess, about the 11th. They took all of us in and they treated us the same. It was no little "u" big "I." And that's the thing I can always remember. And also Neil Gelb who works with me now, my attorney. I want to thank him for being here and his associates. And I see al these great fighters here. These promoters, managers. Emanuel Steward. Lou Duva, that's my man. He's in the house. Bob Foster. Ken Norton. Eddie Futch. Marvin Hagler. Everybody. Jose. Carmen Basilio. There's so many of them. I can't start. You guys really put me on the spot. But I'm gonna try to involve myself still in boxing. I enjoy the game and I will always enjoy it because it made me who I am today. I didn't make it for what it is. And it's a good thing. I just want to be part of it. I still want to be part of it. I don't know if I'll take any more fights on. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I'll think about it. You gotta think about it first. They say I'm pretty good looking. I don't know. I'm gonna try anyway. That's all I'm gonna say. Thank you very much.

Miguel Canto (translated by Gene Aguilera)
Good afternoon. It's a great pleasure for me to be here today. It's very emotional for me. Again, it's a very emotional moment and I don't even know if I deserve to be here, but it's great to be here. I love the sport of boxing very much. I'd like to say hello to my wife, Rocille. I'd like to say hello to Ed Brophy and thank the Hall of Fame for bringing me all the way out here. It's a great honor for me and my wife and my family to be here. And I just love the sport of boxing. Thank you very much for having me here. I was a champion in boxing and I'm just gonna continue to be a champion for the rest of my life.

Lou Duva
What's the category? Non participant. Now can you imagine me in a fight and I'm a non participant? I can't believe that. I'm looking to kick the hell out of somebody and they're calling me a non participant. Well, maybe I gotta slow down. I don't know what it is. But this is an honor. To stand before you people here and get this award. A legend? What the hell is a legend? My daughter Donna sends me for bread and milk and I forget the bread. I go on a two week diet and all I lose is 14 days. They call me a legend? I like what I'm doing. I have two families, just so you know it. I have two families. And it's the greatest joy in the world. I have my blood family, which is right over there. Stand up. My new prospect. Mikey. Right over there. Mikey, my new grandson. And then I have my fistic family. My fighters. I think I gotta be the luckiest son of a gun in the world. To have two families such as this. They're in my corner, they're in my fighter's corners. Everybody is family in what I do. I mean this is not a one-man show. I mean I'm the ham that takes the bows but they're the ones that put everything together for me. When you take my daughters, my son Dino. Dino, right there. He is promoting. One of the tops when it comes to promoting. My son Danny who passed away a couple of years ago. He was without a doubt one of the greatest brains in boxing. My fighters loved him, everybody loved him. He knew what it was all about and he fought for the fighters. And I can't say enough about him. But his wife Cathy, there's Cathy right there. And if I could, let me introduce my trainers. One of my trainers. Ronnie Shields. Ronnie's right there. And one that I feel is gonna be ... he's young, he was a great fighter, I think he's gonna be one of the greatest trainers around, he's training Evander Holyfield, my son-in-law Tommy Brooks. And naturally, I got the gang over there. You know.

But my family has always been held together because there was always love there. My wife who passed away, Eunice, would always teach the girlfriends, the wives, how to cook Italian food. I mean that was our thing. You know. And they cooked for all the fighters. Rocky Lockridge, Johnny Bumphus. I mean Meldrick Taylor, Pernell Whitaker, Mark Breland. That's all they ate was Italian food. Either that or I made them go a couple of extra rounds. It's a great team. It's been a great life, you know. When you take a kid like Pernell Whitaker, 14 years we've been together. When I say we've been together, he's been together with my kids, my family. He's grown up with my family. There's not a birthday that goes by, christening, wedding that he's not there. And we're there for him. I mean we catch every punch he catches. We catch every punch for every fighter of ours. We know what it's all about. Everyone of my daughters knows what boxing is all about. They care for the fighters. And this is I think, has been the backbone of our success. Is that we care for the fighters. And now I can't, they wanted me to say something about my career. How the hell can you say something about your career. I've been doing this for 60 years and everybody says to me now, you're 76 years old, don't you think it's about time you retire. And I say what are you crazy, you want me to go back to work? This is my life. You have Mark Breland there. Mark has been right with us all the time. I'll never forget the day I worked with Mark in Las Vegas, he scored a knockout and won the welterweight championship. They took me to the plane, I jumped on the plane, went into Philadelphia, I worked with Darrin Van Horn, we beat Robert Hines for the junior middleweight championship. We had two titles in 24 hours on both coasts. You can't beat that too much. These are the kids. The fighters. The trainers. We had the great George Benton working with us. Ace Marotta working with us. This is not a one-man show, anyone who thinks they're gonna do it on their own, it's not there. You need teamwork. You need a team. You need people who will participate. You have to have confidence in the fighters. You have to give them confidence. We don't only teach them about boxing. We teach them about what life is all about and what's gonna happen when your career is over. We try and hold in the team. Johnny Bumphus, who's been with me right from the start. He's now working. He's down in West Palm Beach right now working for me as a trainer, bring him right back in again. I mean it's all of those guys. Mark Breland he's helping us out all of the time with the young fighters. Pernell Whitaker. Any one of these here fighters has done it. They've been a credit. The thing that maybe you don't understand also, the people out there. Some of these camps, what they should be doing, and I know all I can talk about is what we're doing. These kids when we go to camp, they go to schools, they go to churches, they go to Boys clubs, Girls clubs and they speak about what's wrong and what you should be doing. Who could relate better than Pernell Whitaker, Mark Breland to these fellas. Evander Holyfield, you call him up and say, hey we got a pending riot in Paterson, New Jersey. Be right up. He jumps on the plane, he's up there walking the streets of Paterson taking care of the riot out there. They want to give something back. They've got to give something back to the community. I don't mean boxing. You've got the kid out there. You've got to be a role model. You gotta know what you're doing out there and that's what my guys do. This is why you gotta love these guys. You gotta love what it's all about.

You know there's a lot of great champions up here. You know when you talk about Emanuel Steward and you talk about Eddie Futch. Great trainers. Great trainers. I don't want to be thought about that, hey, they were great trainers and so was Lou. No. All I want to be known as is I'm the guy who fought for my fighters. That's all I want to be known about. Thank you very much.