“Khan seems to be talented when he doesn’t get hit. But when he got hit he got knocked out in half a minute I think. He’s a talented fighter. I think it’s a good test for Khan and if he doesn’t get hit he’s the goods. But he might be this generation’s version of Floyd Patterson. Tap him on the jaw and he goes tap tap on the canvas.” – Sugar giving his opinion of Amir Khan prior to his December 2010 bout with Marcos Maidana
“Hopkins has surprised us more times than Freddy from Elm Street. He keeps popping up and surfacing in fights that nobody thought he would ever win. Kelly Pavlik, De La Hoya, and on and on. Who knows what Hopkins can do or when the sand will go to the bottom of his hourglass?” – Sugar, speaking in October of 2010 about the great Bernard Hopkins
“I’m a big fan of his. What he did in his fights with Vazquez, those were thrilling fights. Each of the Marquez brothers gives you a thrilling fight each time out. I hesitate to say he has reached the end of the line, as witnessed by Bernard Hopkins coming back and back and back and back. I just don’t know where the end of the line is anymore. I think they keep erasing the line in the sand and taking it further.” – Bert Sugar reflecting on the career of two-division champion Rafael Marquez
“Las Vegas is suffering as a city, period. The gambling handle is down, and as far as the rooms, I think they pay you to stay there now. It’s suffering and Manny Pacquiao was always a big, big favorite there. Not only for the Filipino fans that he brought but by the excitement he brought. Watching him decimate Oscar De La Hoya. Watching knock out, with one punch, Ricky Hatton. One of the of greatest one-punch knockouts since Marciano-Walcott. I gotta tell you he has brought excitement to the ring and excitement to Las Vegas. And yes, they have missed him in Las Vegas.” - Sugar’s take on Manny Pacquiao’s two fights in Dallas, Texas in 2010 and how it impacted the city of Las Vegas, where the Filipino icon’s six previous events were held
“Martinez is one heck of a fighter. He’s the most unorthodox fighter I have seen since Prince Naseem. And he has power to boot. He took Pavlik apart. Martinez looks like he took a four-way cold tablet and he’s running three more ways to catch up with it. I don’t know where he is in the ring and that’s what makes him exciting, interesting and fun to watch.” – Sugar on middleweight champion Sergio ‘Maravilla’ Martinez
“He’s fought so often and in so many great fights that they all start merging together. I just knew when I saw this very gaunt, very thin man who had a face almost like a Mayan Indian, he just didn’t look like a fighter. He looked fragile. But if anything he was one of the most powerful punches I had ever seen.” – Sugar on the legendary Erik ‘El Terrible’ Morales
"You almost need a scorecard to figure out who's with whom. But again, the battle of the promoters is becoming as interesting as the battle inside the ring, isn't it?" - Sugar’s take on the promotional feud between Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions
“He was one of the best pro prospects coming out of the Olympics. Although he didn’t win and let it be known that many great fighters didn’t win. stepson Todd duBoef picked him out of a class of potentials and he had potential greatness. I thought this was a brawler. This was a steady, well-built brawler who came to fight. He’s the kind of fighter you really respect and look for in boxing. He’s the kind of fighter we need. He gives us that same almost unidentifiable intangible that made Arturo Gatti such a favorite. He’s a better fighter than Gatti and at the same token he comes back and keeps fighting. And you’ve got to like that as a fight fan.” – Sugar showing respect to Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto
"He's a never-ending slammer. 'Bam Bam' is the right name for him. He took punches and he blinked, but that was all he did. He kept coming. At any given moment in time we saw, basically, what he was made of. And that was just one gear. Bang, bang, bang and he knocked him out with two right hands when everybody was looking for the left hand." – Sugar on Brandon Rios’ title-winning effort vs. Miguel Acosta in February of 2011
“But Marquez is a warrior and I don't think he will step back from anybody. And he gave us two great fights against Pacquiao. I thought he won both of them, to be honest. Particularly the first one where he was knocked down three times in the first round to fight a draw. That means he won, not only a majority, but an overwhelming majority in the last rounds, the final rounds. And the second fight, if it hadn't been for one knockdown of Marquez by Pacquiao, Marquez probably would have won on all cards but he lost. I don't know that he did, but whatever it is. This is one warrior; one future hall of famer." – Sugar on Mexico City’s Juan Manuel Marquez
"They could have banned him for life and it wouldn't have bothered me. It says something about the commission. Who puts a man in the dressing room and it takes the opposite trainer, Naazim Richardson, to see it? What was the commissioner doing? Sleeping? Counting bricks on the wall? What was he doing?" – Sugar’s reaction to Margarito being caught with tampered hand wraps prior to his January 2010 bout with Shane Mosley
“After the Klitschko-Haye fight I need any excitement. I mean, talking to you is more exciting than that fight. I got to tell you, my foot went to sleep in the seventh round and I think I followed suit in the eighth. I don’t know what the hell was going on.” – Sugar feeling out of sorts after the lackluster heavyweight title fight between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye last July
“It was both. It was a legal sucker punch. There was nothing wrong with. Here’s something that nobody who may have seen this fight is alive to tell about it. In 1908 Staley Ketchel defended his title against Billy Papke, and as the custom but not the rule, Ketchel held out his hands to touch gloves at which point Papke hit him in the Adam’s apple, blinded him and he won the fight. Not illegal but sure as hell not ethically or morally a good moment for boxing or for anything.” – Sugar’s take on Mayweather’s victory over Ortiz
“I think the referee stole the fight. I’ve never heard of a point being taken away for pushing before. And this was two of them. And that was the decision. Peterson, a good performance, best he ever had, but I don’t think it puts him in that echelon where we can give him a fight against Pacquiao for crying out loud.” – Sugar reacting to Lamont Peterson’s upset over Amir Khan this past December
“I’d love to see a Manny and Floyd fight. When it was about to be made twice over it was the most anticipated fight since Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns, it just never happened. But I do think it is one of the fights I would like to look forward to. The question now becomes where does he go? What does Pacquiao do? Where is Floyd? These are all questions in the boxing fans eyes. Somehow, someway, somewhere if that fight isn’t made, boxing loses.” – Sugar speaking passionately in November 2010 about a possible fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather