Buz convinces Tod to take a detour to stop in Youngstown, Ohio, where Buz knows one of his childhood heroes, Johnny Copa, will be fighting in an upcoming boxing match. Buz's idols were those he knew from the streets and back alleys of New York, they who all gave Buz a good thrashing of his own once or twice in their day. Buz has not seen Johnny in over a decade, and although Johnny wrote the occasional letter once he hit the road as a boxer, those letters dried up years ago. In the process of tracking down Johnny once in Youngstown, Buz makes a bet with some local yahoos who badmouthed Johnny on the outcome of the bout, Buz staking everything he and Tod currently have in their pockets - $130 - as Buz knows Johnny can put them up in whatever fancy hotel wherever he is staying. When they eventually catch up with Johnny in the run down hotel where he is staying, Buz and Tod learn directly from him and his entourage - his road trainer Scully, and his "girl" Susan - that Johnny is now washed up as a contender, he only getting bouts with up and coming locals who know they can beat Johnny and thus use him solely as a stepping stone to move up. Scully is more a person just to pick up the physical pieces after the bouts than he is a trainer. And Susan, who loves and wants to marry Johnny, is not sponging off Johnny as she pays her own way by whatever odd jobs she can get from town to town, those jobs sleazy or not. Buz can see that the Johnny now standing in front of him is indeed at the end of his career. But Buz is determined to help Johnny win the bout, more for Johnny's self-esteem than for the $130, so that he can go out a winner and move on to whatever the next phase of his life with Susan. Buz just has to convince Johnny of all of this.
—Huggo