Does extreme poverty really produce world champions the majority of the time or is this a myth?

[famicommander]

Lineal heavyweight champions Mike Tyson, Rid**** Bowe, and Shannon Briggs all grew up within half a mile of each other in the same poor neighborhood. At one point Bowe and Briggs lived in the same building. Zab Judah, Danny Jacobs, Mark Breland, Luis Collazo, and Paulie Malinaggi are from that neighborhood too, among others. All in the same ~2 square mile neighborhood in Brooklyn.

[anonymous2.0]

It probably has something to do with how cheap boxing is compared to other sports. What are you really buying, hand wraps, some sponges as knuckle guards, maybe a heavy bag secondhand? My gym runs kids classes and the owner loans gloves out all the time to kids. Boxing is definitely more towards the cheaper side of equipment when it comes to sports as opposed to say tennis, hockey, football, etc.

[MikeyMike100]

Devin Haney, Marco Antonio Barrera, and Chris Eubank Jr grew up wealthy.

I think Lennox Lewis was middle class. Same as Tyson Fury dont think he was poor.

[Haka]

I’ll destroy this argument easy


hw top 10 should be all Africans

yet none.


all the Africans are from wealthy western euro countries.

western euros are weak. Period.

Can’t disagree with that. Most are weak as hell, don’t want fight or compete at all.

[Ctx94]

Anyone know?

Like in the move the dark knight

every now and then the pit will throw something back… a monster

look at sugar ray Robinson, Roberto Duran, Floyd mayweather and manny paquiao

[baroidi]

Parents from middle-upper class aren't sending their kids to boxing gyms where they risk getting brain damage. Rich kids take up field hockey and lacrosse.

[BustedKnuckles]

I’m sure if rich people got their kids into boxing at an early age and gave them the best training possible, rich kids would become champions.

Imagine a rich dad sending his 6 year old son to the Wild Card gym or to Robert Garcia’s gym and pay them extra to give his son extra attention?

The thing is that boxing is linked to “street cats”, it’s a sport that is generally beneath rich people in terms of participating in it. Street people are linked to poverty, which leads to trying to make it out of the ****** doing the only thing you know, which is fighting.

Edit: They censor getto with an H now.

That's basically what I came here to say. Adversity can strengthen or break a person. It depends on the person. But in combat sports there's plenty of adversity just in the training of one man vs another man.

But people who have less money and options are more willing to pursue a sport that involves bodily injury. But then again lots of bjj gyms are in good spots, and cost a fortune.... hmmm... then maybe it's just cause boxing gyms are only in the hood. I don't see them in the nice part of town.

[Smash]

all the Africans are from wealthy western euro countries.

western euros are weak. Period.

u see there is a bit of an issue with this, the vast majority of west euro countries dont have any boxing scene whatsoever & if they do its very small, i mean u never if ever see germans, spanish, portuguese etc etc involved at all, no numbers playing = bad results, the countries that u see competing for belts have a good participation rate with decent to good numbers at it

[Toffee]

You need a combination of hunger from the fighter and financial investment in their career.

The ideal champion has so many ex wives and illegitimate kids that the hunger for money never goes.

[BoxingParadigm]

Being poor is not ideal, but it can often mold the right character to succeed as a fighter. Often you'll see those with less opportunities, i.e. poor people choose boxing as their wat out, where as a more privileged person is more likely to choose something else (another sport, degree or career path) because of the options they may have that someone from more limited resources wouldn't have.