Billy Flynn (Jon Voight) is an ex-boxing champion in the city of Hialeah, Florida, who is trying to settle down as a horse trainer after giving up his boxing title. A boxer propositions that Billy enter a match with him in the future. Billy shows up at the gym with his son Timothy Joseph "T.J." (Ricky Schroder), who calls his father "Champ" as a nickname. Billy is angered when he learns the man has not arrived and storms out of the gym, leaving his son behind. T.J. later finds him drunk inside of a bar. When he takes him home, neighbor Josie (Mary Jo Catlett) asks about his drunken state on the street, to which T.J. tells her that Charlie (Stefan Gierasch) and his friends bought him four beers as a celebration.