Gary "Blue" Meekins struggles against unusually high obstacles to turn his hopeless life into that of the American dream. As an adolescent growing up in the crime riddled streets of Harlem and losing both parents in a violent murder, Blue became a survivor by any means necessary. After going through a series of financial woes, Blue runs into two of his old childhood acquaintances, Chip and Dutch, who are now hardcore criminals. They offer Blue a part in a robbery of a supposed neighborhood drug dealer. During the robbery, Blue realizes he has been fooled into robbing an innocent family. The events haunt Blue and lead him to give up his life of crime and return to his childhood boxing gym and longtime trainer/mentor China Banks. While Blue struggles in the fighting circuit, he is suddenly laid off from work and his longtime girlfriend Crystal, decides she has had enough of Blue's short sighted dream of becoming a boxing champion, and leaves him.