The history of professional fighting is littered with hard luck stories. Kids who grew up poor, in broken homes, under difficult circumstances. Men and women who turned the anger and difficulty of their circumstances into discipline and training to become top shelf professional combat sports athletes.
In fact, at this point, the story is so ubiquitous that it’s in danger of becoming a cliche. To the extent that even ex-UFC champ Michael Bisping is arguing that fighters who didn’t come up struggling deserve a little extra credit for still being driven to enter the life of a pro fighter.