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Johnnie Bradfield, a deadly and cynical prize fighter, has just slugged his way to the championship when, during a drunken brawl in his apartment, his manager, Doc Wood, accidentally kills Magee, a newspaper reporter, and fixes the evidence so it appears that Johnnie has done the deed.  Doc then makes his getaway, but perishes in a car accident while wearing Johnnie's watch.

The next morning, Johnnie awakens in a strange place and reads a newspaper article informing him that he has perished in a car wreck after murdering a reporter.  On the advice of a shady lawyer, the champ flees, changes his identity and becomes an outcast.

He lands in Arizona, where he casts his lot with Grandma, who runs a date ranch with the help of Peggy and the Dead End Kids.  The Kids have been sent from New York by a kindly priest who wants to rehabilitate the boys.  At the ranch, the regeneration of the boxer begins as Peggy helps him to fight his inborn tendency to believe that everyone is a sucker and the world has it in for him.

Johnnie's salvation comes when he enters a local fight ring to win some money so that he can help his friends open up a filling station.  Meanwhile, New York detective Phelan cleverly picks up Johnnie's trail and tracks him to ringside where he is fighting a heavyweight.  As Johnnie slugs his heart out for his friends, the detective begins to reflect and, realizing that the fighter has been punished enough, returns to New York without his prisoner.

Notes
The film is based on the play Sucker by Bertram Millhauser and Beulah Marie Dix (published April 4, 1933, New York).

According to a news item in HR, Warner Bros. executives decided to add several scenes to boost the production values of this film after watching a rough cut.  The picture marked John Garfield's first starring role in films.

In 1933, First National produced The Life of Jimmy Dolan, the first screen version of the Bertram Millhauser-Beulah Marie Dix play (see above).  Actors Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and Gabriel Dell were featured in Warner Bros.' "The Dead End Kids" films.  Although their character names were different in those films, their characterizations in They Made Me a Criminal were similar.