BoxRec

which champions had grown up the poorest ?
and were there any rich kids who became champions ?

Jake LaMotta was pretty poor. He had grown up in a tenement slum in the Bronx.

Isn't the hobo Dempsey always placed on the first list? -- It would seem that the first list must be a very long one.

Maybe a place to find 'rich' guys becoming fighters might be to go back to the origins of the game when the amateurs were as versed as the professionals.

The guys who came out of the Athletic Clubs and pursued the game out of love, not out of love of money.

Jack Skelly (Gentleman Jack), the lightweight from the nights of the "Carnival of Champions" was an accomplished amateur who battled George Dixon, he might be one of those type of guys.

I doubt we will find too many latter day fighters coming from wealthy backgrounds, but I guess there are probably a few, just don't know how to identify them.

Of course there are the legacies like Ali's daughter or De La Hoya, but they probably shouldn't count.