Were there any all time greats who were bullied as kids?

I believe I read many years ago that Mike Tyson was picked on as a kid. Thing that apparently drove him over the edge was one of the neighborhood bullies killed one of his pet pigeons

 

Getting pissed off at a bully and learning to kill them bare-fisted is a common entryway to boxing, I think

 

Willie Pastrano.

He lost the light heavyweight championship the third time he risked it, losing to Jose Torres in March, 1965.Fighting was the only thing Pastrano ever did right. A fat little kid, shamed by his father, who beat him with a belt for not striking back at neighborhood bullies who taunted him as "jelly shaking on a plate," Pastrano went to a boxing gym to lose weight. He found talent

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Joe Calzaghe admitted to being bullied as a child.

 

Didn’t Marvin Hagler go to a boxing gym the first time after some street thug beat him up? Or something like that?

I’d say Roy Jones Jr was bullied by his father. I know part of what he would do is ride alongside Roy when Junior was young (on a bicycle maybe?) and hit him on the back of his legs with a switch to push him to go harder and faster.

And I think that was the least of it.

 

If I recall right, I think Ali got into boxing at the suggestion of a police officer after he tried to report a kid for stealing his bicycle. Does that count?

 

Jack Johnson admitted that he ran from
fights when young - his sister often taking care of business on his behalf.

His mother nicknamed “Tiny” told him the next time he ran, he’d copping a whole lot worse than he was running from when he came home.

Thereafter, Jack stood his ground and fought the bullies, for better or worse.

Given his Mum’s ultimatum, apparently taking on his bullies was very much the lesser of two evils. Lol.

 

The Spinks brothers started boxing because they were bullied from memory.

 

Probably most of them at some stage.

 

Max Baer's older sister used to protect him when he was growing up.

 

He definitely was, called a fairy and other such names.
Suppose that incident made him snap.

 

Didn’t they reveal that story of his stolen bicycle as a lie like the story of Ali throwing his gold medal in the river after been racially abused when he came home after the olympics ?

 

I don’t think the bike story was a lie. Even Joe Martin, Ali’s first trainer and who was a policeman at the time confirmed that Ali who was upset was told that there was a policeman who trains boxers nearby he could report the theft to. It turns out the Cassius was by now threatening to “Whup” the thief. Martin’s reply was if he wanted to do this he better learn to fight. Which he did. The medal thing was apparently bull****. Ali simply lost it. Imagine losing an Olympic medal. And aGold at that. Anyway it sounded better to come up with the “I threw it into the Hudson River” thing.