How necissary is a tough life for making a tough fighter?

In the the 1700's a wealthy guy by the name of John Jackson try his luck on boxing(Barekucks) Well he did pretty well. How about great. Going so far as to win the title from Danial Menonza, and retiring as champ, and remains a legend to this day.

I think it can work both ways, Genes play the biggest part imo. Also you need to be tough mental, which is why the poorer class has much more fighters than the upper class. I think John Jackson is the only one from the elite.

 

I don't think it's necessary at all, but there does seem to be a correlation between tough lives and tough fighters.

 

Middle Class (or just about)

Leonard
Floyd Mayweather (ghetto middle class)
Marco Antonio Barrera (studying law?)
Ali (not quite middle class but for the time not bad at all)
Delahoya

 

I don't think "poor" always equates to a tough life, either. At least, not the kind of "tough life" that makes a determined, courageous fighter.

What can prepare you for what it feels like before that fifteenth round, with some old man screaming into your ear that you have to knock this guy out to win? You can barely hear him over your opponents 20,000 hometown fans screaming obscenities at you. You've been getting a pasting the entire fight, your opponent is just grinning, gloating across the ring at you...you don't even have the energy to stand up and walk to ring center, or even to survive the round, let alone knock him out.

What about when you get caught and hit the canvas, the world goes blurry, and you hear thousands jeer? You look up and see your opponent strutting towards the neutral corner (or god forbid, standing over you like the harbringer of death) with his arms in the air. You can't even feel your feet, how are you going to get back up and survive the round? Win the fight?

Nothing can prepare a human being for something like that. It takes something special, deep inside of the fighter, to gut it out and win, something that doesn't come from just working on a farm or eating shitty food while you were growing up.

 

You don't have to come from poverty to become a good fighter, but most fighters do come from poorer backgrounds, as many see it as a way out of their situation, and never had an opportunity to have an education or other job skill training, so they no no ther way to make a living. Just the same, there have been a few fighter who came from the middle class who did pretty well. Off the top of my head the following guys come to mind:

1. Both Bobby Czyz and Mike Rossman came from suburban middle class New Jersey towns, and went on to become world champions.
2.Gerry Cooney grew up on Long Island, and was the #1 ranked contender at heavyweight.
3. Sean O Grady
4.Ricky Hatton

 

This is an interesting question, Bokaj. I think we'd first have to define what a tough life is with regards to how that may translate to the ring. I'd say that, "poor," is a common trait amongst the great majority of real fighters, but there are exceptions as has already been pointed out. One thing that seems safe to say is that in general, the fight game makes such demands on a body, on a mind and a soul, that if you don't have to be there, alotta guys, most guys, will soon opt for a different path. What options are there for a certain fighter? Can he go into business with his dad or his uncle? Can he do the nine to five thing without losing his mind? Is the area he's raised in so out-of-the-loop from the center of commerce, that it is either get in the ring or plow the friggin' fields? Does he have the verbal wherewithal to communicate with the civilians?

Here on the Classic the great fighters and great eras of old are discussed and revered, and it's close to unanimous that one of the greatest eras for the game was just following WWII. That of course is no coincidence. Too many returning soldiers, too few jobs, the fight game could be a quick fix. A tough life doesn't necessarily mean extreme poverty. It doesn't have to mean an upbringing on Public Assistance (Welfare), in the ghetto (projects) or no formal education; (today that could very well imply that without a college education you are at an extreme disadvantage), which I don't buy by the way. I know too many derelicts with bachelor's or master's degrees, and too many state-of-the-art thinkers and doers who never got past high school.

One thing you gotta have is what has been called killer instinct, hate, anger, etc, whatever you want to call it you better have it, and if you don't when you step into the ring for the first time you better have a capacity for it, 'cause chances are the other guy will. Where you got it, genetics, poverty, an abusive father, a sense of pride so strong that you will not be denied, I think can vary from fighter to fighter, but that ability to get to that place where you just don't give a ****, where you'll pay the physical and mental costs without minding or even much noticing, and of course have no problem throwing a punch that may in fact drive through an opponent's jawbone, these are the things that make boxing a unique sport. Other full contact sports touch upon it, football, hockey, but boxing is the one sport where the best thing you can do is separate an opponent from his consciousness, to drive him through the ropes or through the canvass. Where this ability comes from I think is from a variety of circumstances. A complicated question Bokaj because I think "toughness" can come from a lot of places. The best we can do is try to find generalizations that for the most part hold up.

 

There will be heros and cowards from any background and in any era.

What perhaps gives earlier fighters the edge is that they had a lot more riding on their fights.

If Joe Louis's career had gone tits up he would have had to go back to working as a manual labourer.

In John L Sullivans day a manual labourer would be a broken down old man by his 40s with no pension, so a fighter with a chance to make it at world level literaly had nothing to loose.

 

Absolutely.

The scary thing is that you can go back further in time and have a fighter for who the concequences of his career failing would literaly be on a scale between death and homelesness.

 

It's an extremely tough occupation. If you have more options in life, you're more likely to choose a different path when the going gets tough.

 

It's not required, but it often helps. I think this part of Chinxkid's post gets to the main point:

For a lot of people it's a tough life that gives them that, especially when we're talking about anger, rage, and hate. Sometimes though, as has already been pointed out, whatever sort of fire, competative spirit, warrior ethic, or whatever just comes along in a person, often ones you wouldn't think it likely to find that in. (Hell, I shock a lot of people by being into boxing and the martial arts like I am, and there's plenty of others like that too, whether they be fighters or fans).

You could go into a ton of other factors, including biological hardwiring and mental conditioning but sometimes there's someone who just has it that drives them into combat, even if you can't define what that it is.

 

Since when did De La Hoya have a middle class upbringing? De La Hoya grew up in the barrios of East LA, in or near poverty.

Growing up poor or lower middle class is not necessary, however is it the norm rather than the exception.

 

ruben olivares dad was a fairly wealthy fella. he had a booming construction business or something

ali's dad did well for himself

I don't know if srl and odlh came from middle class backgrounds. i remember reading something about ray where he said that he used to eat out of restaraunt garbage