Morgan Freeman credited as playing...
Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris
- Frankie Dunn: It wasn't your fault. I was wrong to say that.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: You damn right. I found you a fighter. You made her the best fighter she could be.
- Frankie Dunn: I killed her.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: Don't say that. Maggie walked through that door with nothing buts guts. No chance in the world of being what she needed to be. It was because of you that she was fighting the championship of the world. You did that. People die everyday, Frankie - mopping floors, washing dishes and you know what their last thought is? I never got my shot. Because of you Maggie got her shot. If she dies today you know what her last thought would be? I think I did all right.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.
- [Eddie has his feet up on the desk]
- Frankie Dunn: You got big holes in your socks.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: Oh, they're not that big.
- Frankie Dunn: Didn't I give you money for some new ones?
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: These are my sleeping socks. My feet like a little air at night.
- Frankie Dunn: How come you're wearing them in the daytime, then?
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: 'Cause my daytime socks got too many holes in them.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: Frankie likes to say that boxing is an unnatural act, that everything in boxing is backwards: sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step back... But step back too far and you ain't fighting at all.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: The body knows what fighters don't: how to protect itself. A neck can only twist so far. Twist it just a hair more and the body says, "Hey, I'll take it from here because you obviously don't know what you're doing... Lie down now, rest, and we'll talk about this when you regain your senses." It's called the knockout mechanism.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: Some people say the most important thing a fighter can have is heart. Frankie'd say: show me a fighter who was nothing but heart and I'll show you a man waiting for a beating.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: She came from southwest Missoura, the hills outside the scratchy-ass Ozark town of Theodosia, set in the cedars and oak trees, somewhere between nowhere and goodbye.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: People love violence. They'll slow down at a car wreck to check for bodies. Same people claim to love boxing. They got no idea what it is. Boxing is about respect. Getting it for yourself, and taking it away from the other guy.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: To make a fighter you gotta strip them down to bare wood: you can't just tell 'em to forget everything you know if you gotta make 'em forget even their bones... make 'em so tired they only listen to you, only hear your voice, only do what you say and nothing else... show 'em how to keep their balance and take it away from the other guy... how to generate momentum off their right toe and how to flex your knees when you fire a jab... how to fight backin' up so that the other guy doesn't want to come after you. Then you gotta show 'em all over again. Over and over and over... till they think they're born that way.
- [last lines]
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: [Narrating] No matter where he is, I thought you should know what kind of man your father really was.
- Frankie Dunn: How many times do I got to tell you that bleach is bleach. Why can't you just buy the cheap stuff, you always have to buy the expensive stuff.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: It smells better, Frankie.
- Frankie Dunn: Bleach smells like bleach.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: [narrator/Dupris] "Maggie always did like taking 'em out in the first round."
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: All fighters are pig-headed some way or another: some part of them always thinks they know better than you about something. Truth is: even if they're wrong, even if that one thing is going to be the ruin of them, if you can beat that last bit out of them... they ain't fighters at all.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: Boxing is an unnatural act. Cos everything in it is backwards. You wanna move to the left, you don't step left, you push on the right toe. To move right, you use your left toe. Instead of running from the pain - like a sane person would do, you step into it.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: Yeah right, you're the smart one. You're the one learning Greek.
- Frankie Dunn: It's Gaelic.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: Well you just protected yourself out of a championship fight! How do you say that in Gaelic?
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: She's getting pretty good.
- Frankie Dunn: Yeah, real fast. It's almost as if someone's been helping her.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: Oh, I don't know. She might just be a natural. Looks like she's got something.
- Frankie Dunn: She's got my speed bag, that's what she's got.
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: I wonder how the hell she got that.
- Frankie Dunn: [walking away] I wonder!
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: Anybody can lose one fight, anybody can lose once, you'll come back from this you'll be champion of the world.
- [first lines]
- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: [Narrating] Only ever met one man I wouldn't wanna fight. When I met him he was already the best cut man in the business. Started training and managing in the sixties, but never lost his gift.