A better question is which successful boxers DIDN'T love boxing. Think about the literally thousands of men and women completely unknown who train daily in gyms all over the world. The thousands of unpaid amateur's that didn't turn pro. The hundreds of pro's that completely stayed around far to long. The tough man contestants from years back. The street fighters that fight only for bragging rights. One must have a love for any combat sports not just boxing to endure the pain that comes with it. So not loving the sport yet doing it anyway, is the exception, not the rule.
Tatsuyoshi. The guy still trains like an active pro despite his age. Boxing was everything to him. His last loss against a Thai journeyman was hard to watch.
Mike Tyson Paulie Malignaggi James Toney Gerry Cooney seems to really love it now Floyd Patterson Gabe Rosado
Larry Holmes. At age 37, he was retired, with tens of millions in the bank, financially set for life. He had escaped boxing with his health fully intact, had no personal demons, had no family issues. By any normal metric, he had accomplished the dream by age 37. So he takes one more fight because it was too much money to turn down, gets stopped for the first time, retires again. Ok, sort of understandable, one final cash-out fight. Then... 3 years later, he becomes an active fighter again, fighting until age 50 or so, ending with a rematch (21 years later!) with Mike Weaver. Finally reties. Then... comes back again at the age of 52 for a freakshow fight against Butterbean for a tiny purse. Nothing he did after the Tyson fight makes any sense, given his own personal situation, other than pride and a love for fighting.
When he loved it, Joe Frazier really loved it. He'd read passages from the Bible about fighting because he just loved combat. Which makes it strange that, at quite a young age, he found something else. Music. But even then, he couldn't stay away and spent his last days living in a gym, training fighters and just being boxing. Johnny Owen, too. As Hugh McIlvanney said in reference to how the shy Johnny got confidence through boxing 'Boxing gave him a voice that he lacked. It was a tragedy that he was articulate in such a dangerous language.' Johnny is the poster boy for those who would ban boxing given his death but he could as easily be the poster boy for the sport. It gave his life meaning and purpose he couldn't get anywhere else.
Holmes definitely didn’t love the sport and has never followed it too closely. He 100% viewed it as a career and nothing more. His comebacks were all for money even though he didn’t need it. The 90s return was because he realized he could still be competitive and get to big fights and knowing big fights bring big money. He often would take fights so he could use the purse to buy real estate or a business interest in full upfront without dipping into money he already had in the bank. He’d take a fight today if someone made a good offer
