"Show me a boxer and I’ll show you a kid with an unhappy childhood"

Are you being serious or trolling?

I said "fighters I've known personally had great childhoods and came from middle or lower middle class families.".

I know they had great childhoods because I knew them personally!

I then used the word "AND", and stated that they came from middle or lower middle class families to dispel the myth of the previous thread I told you I had read.

You are the ONLY one trying to link the class someone was raised in to their happiness. I have not done so at all. I have stated them separately but obviously should never have mention the previous thread as you have found it thoroughly confusing.

 

Cotto said he was a fat kid who would spend his day raiding the fridge and watching TV until he decided to change his life, that's not a happy childhood. Furthermore he's very shy.

Besides, are you gonna make generalisations on two fighters?

 

Dont know about Hatton and Khan... But Zaghe claims to have been bullied at school, dont really know about Froch either, but his father seems to be kinda rough IMO..

 

Joe Frazier grew up broke, but he had a happy childhood and came from a great family by his own account. Being broke and/or coming from a crazy AZZ family def "helps".

Anyone know Barrera's story? How was his childhood? He's the most famous well off upbringing ATG boxer story.

 

Terry Norris had an AWESOME childhood where he started beating up baseball pitchers

 

Cotto shouldn't talk about Hatton like that!:-(

 

Calzaghe, Pac, Tyson, Hopkins, Mayweather etc. The same is meant to be true for body builders in a way in that they are full of inadequent feelings about them selves. Ricky Hatton was driven by a need to please everyone, you can tell that from his interviews.

 

Not true at all.

My cousin Shane a very happy person with a great family life.

Tito comes across as a person with a great family.

Cotto also the same.

Vernon Forrest came from a very stable home though I believe it was a single mom home. But it was stable and loving.

Ali came from a black middle class two parent home.

Leonard though very poor growing up came from a loving single mother home.

I think Pacman again though extremely poor came from a loving family oriented single mother home.

That statement is just being provocative, but still very much ignorant.

 

Im in agreement that for the fighter there needs to be some perception of unhappiness within them, whether justified or not, for them to get into such a brutal sport. I had that perception and was just full of rage as a youth. For me, it was the perception though, not the reality.

Now, plenty of people box for fitness, but dont get into the sport seriously,

 

Assumption is the key word. You can re-phrase it the way opposite way too as an assumption. I think they're many counter-examples.

Marciano
Barrera
Ali (Debatable I guess)

 

I was about to joke about the story of Froch having his bike stolen (from outside a shop, I think) as a child.

But it actually brings up an interesting point. It may not be that fighters have to of had an unhappy childhood generally. Maybe they are spurred on by perceived injustices, however small they my seem to us.

Using Froch as an example. That incident seems so trivial and small to many and yet he, as a grown man and warrior still talks about it. Even if the entire rest of his upbringing was great (which I'm not saying it was/wasn't).

Could the thought of tiny incidents like that and the desire to never let something like that happen again be the reason some guys box?

I must also point out that even people who have had great childhoods still have unhappy moments. I'm sure their are people who have been through terrible things but still insist their childhood was happy. While others with no suffering, remained unhappy.

 

You must be crazy? I AM saying they were happy! But I'm not saying they are happy BECAUSE they come from middle or lower middle class families, which is what you insinuated in one of your posts. Do you understand now?