4 ideas
He is marched through a string of bought knockouts until he is marketable enough for a title shot, then badly beaten by the real champion. After the syndicate's expense accounting, his share of a huge purse comes to almost nothing, and the organization that built him drops him.
The syndicate hides the fixes from Toro himself, so he truly believes he is a great fighter. His sincere confidence makes the fraud convincing to crowds and press in a way a knowing accomplice could not. The same ignorance means he is the one person who never sees the collapse coming.
The syndicate books training, travel, managers' percentages, and 'loans' against the fighter's earnings. The talent that generates the gate can end up owing money, while the paper structure of shares and deductions quietly moves the value upward to the owners. The exploitation works through ordinary-looking bookkeeping rather than open theft.
Eddie Lewis, the narrator and press agent, is not reporting Toro's fame; he is building it with invented backstories, planted stories, and friendly sportswriters. Seeing the press agent as the builder of the product, not a neutral describer, shows that the story told about a public figure can be the main thing being sold. It also shows that a skilled writer who lends his craft to that story shares the guilt for it.