The same year as Robert Wise's The Set-Up, his old associate Mark Robson made Champion which is a similarly scathing critique of American individualism made via a boxing picture, but with a very different narrative approach. This is about how much humanity a poor boxer must divest in order to succeed, and the sociopathic exploitation of others that must happen for him to achieve personal wealth and status. It is a dystopic analysis of the mythology of the American dream.
In a deserved star making performance, Kirk Douglas (as Midge Kelly) is the dirt poor nobody who has suffered the indignity of poverty and when at absolute rock bottom is taken on by Paul Stewart's cynical boxing manager. In his fight to become champion, Kelly betrays everyone he encounters on the way.
There is an excellent support cast in Champion, led by Arthur Kennedy as the boxer's brother who has a manifest physical injury where the fighter has a hidden moral affliction. Kennedy loses out painfully to Douglas' unrestrained egotism. He is very affecting in the shadows of the film.
The boxing scenes are superb (with Douglas very convincing) and Harry Gerstad got an Oscar for editing. Franz Planer's photography is as ever gorgeous. But it mainly scores as a vehicle for Kirk Douglas who is remarkable in a very physical role not all that common in melodrama in that era. His implicit and explicit aura of violent threat is very powerful.