Boxing

Professional prizefighters and sites for professional boxing matches are found all over the world. But the origins of modern boxing can be traced to one country and era: England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Although protoforms of combat or blood sports existed in ancient Greece and Rome, they have little connection with the sport of boxing as practiced and understood today. The antecedent of modern boxing was bareknuckle prizefighting, which sprang up in England almost simultaneously with that country's emergence as a major capitalist world power.

To be sure, the less restrictive moral atmosphere accompanying the decline of Puritanism in the mid-1600s permitted a revival of the rough sports of antiquity. Early on, boxing had close ties to the city because it was supported by urban wealth when local squires migrated to the metropolis along with increasing numbers of working-class men. The rise of boxing came in large part from the growth of commercialized leisure and popular recreation.

Before the rules formulated by Jack Broughton, one of the earliest of the new breed of "scientific boxers" who appeared on the English sporting scene in the early 1730s, bare-knuckle fighting largely consisted of butting, scratching, wrestling, and kicking. Under the Broughton Rules, elements of wrestling remained, but there was more emphasis on the fists, on skilled defensive maneuvers, and on different styles of throwing a punch effectively. Broughton, for instance, developed the technique called "milling on the retreat," or moving backward while drawing one's opponent into punches, a technique Muhammad Ali used to great effect during his reign as heavyweight champion over two hundred years later. Broughton also used gloves or "mitts" for training his pupils, many of whom were among England's leading citizens.

Under the Broughton Rules, which were superseded by the London Prize Ring Rules in 1838, boxers fought for indeterminate lengths of time, a fight not being declared ended until one fighter could not come up to the scratch mark in the center of the ring. A round lasted until one fighter was felled; both men then returned to their corners and were given thirty seconds to "make scratch" again. London Prize Ring Rules governed the sport of prizefighting as a bare-knuckle contest until the coming of gloves

and the Marquis of Queensberry Rules. The first heavyweight championship fight under the Queensberry Rules was held between the aging John L. Sullivan and James J. "Jim" Corbett on September 7, 1892. Not only did the fight usher in the age of Queensberry, it also ushered in the age of American domination of the sport, as both Sullivan and Corbett were Americans.

The golden age of bare-knuckle fighting in England, overlapping with the Regency period, occurred between 1800 and 1824, an era captured by Pierce Egan, one of the earliest boxing journalists, in his classic work Boxiana (1828–1829). Records of the first black boxers of note date from this era. Bill Richmond was a slave who learned to box by sparring with British seamen. He was taken to England in 1777 by General Earl Percy, a commander of British forces in New York during the American Revolution. Richmond, known as "the Black Terror," became the first American to achieve fame as a prizefighter. He stood about five feet tall and weighed between 155 and 170 pounds. Richmond beat such established British fighters as Paddy Green and Frank Mayers. Among his losses was one in 1805 to the British champion Tom Cribb, who was a title aspirant at the time. Richmond, who died in London, is probably best known not for his fighting but for being a second to the first black fighter to challenge for the championship.

That man, also an American ex-slave, made an even bigger name for himself as a prizefighter. Tom Molineaux apparently came from a boxing family, as it has been claimed that his father was an accomplished plantation scrapper. Although there is no record of Molineaux's career before his arrival in England, it is well established that many planters engaged their more athletic slaves in sports. Given that most young planters had taken the obligatory European tour and discovered boxing to be the rage among British gentlemen, it is little wonder they imported it to America.

Molineaux, who became known in England as "the Moor," arrived in England in 1809 and quickly defeated Bill Burrows and Tom Blake. Molineaux was matched with Tom Cribb, the champion, for the first time on December 18, 1810, a bitterly cold day (during the bare-knuckle era, most fights took place outdoors). It was one of the most talked-about and eagerly anticipated sports events in British history. Molineaux apparently won the fight, knocking Cribb out in the twenty-eighth round. However, Cribb's seconds accused Molineaux of illegal tactics. During the pandemonium that ensued, Cribb was able to recover, finish the fight, and beat Molineaux, largely because the black boxer had become chilled by the damp cold. The two men fought a rematch in 1811, with Cribb the easy winner because Molineaux had failed to train and had generally succumbed to dissipation. He went downhill rapidly after his second loss to Cribb and died in Ireland in 1818, a shell of the figure he had been in his prime.

Despite the impact of Richmond and Molineaux, blacks did not constitute a significant presence in boxing until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the United States became the principal venue for professional matches. This era can be referred to as the pre-Jack Johnson age; the coming of Johnson signified a new epoch not only in boxing but in American sports history. The years 1890 and 1905 are considered among the worst in American race relations, when blacks experienced Jim Crow and American racist practices in their most virulent, oppressive, and blatant forms. Life for black fighters was far from easy: They often were denied fights against whites or, if permitted, found they were expected to throw the fight. They were paid less and fought far more often than did their white counterparts.

Among the important black fighters of this era were Peter Jackson, George Dixon, Joe Gans, and Jersey Joe Walcott. The latter three were all champions in the lighter weight divisions. Boxing under the Queensberry Rules had evolved to the point where there were now firmly established weight divisions, in contrast to the bare-knuckle days of Richmond and Molineaux, when boxers fought at "open weight" and there were sometimes great weight disparities between the contestants.

Peter Jackson was arguably the best heavyweight of his generation. Many experts felt he could have taken the measure of the then-champion, John L. Sullivan, had not Sullivan—in keeping with the intense racism of the times—drawn the color line and refused to meet Jackson. The "Black Prince," as Jackson was called, was born in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. His family emigrated to Australia when he was twelve years old and returned to the Virgin Islands three years later. Jackson did not come back with them, opting to seek his fortune as a sailor. During his years as a sailor, Jackson developed his boxing skills. He became the Australian heavyweight champion, but on discovering that America was a place to make one's name, he emigrated in 1888.

At the age of thirty, in 1891, Jackson fought contender Jim Corbett to a sixty-one-round draw, but it was Corbett who fought Sullivan for the title the following year. Although Jackson enjoyed success as a fighter, he left the ring for the stage because he was unable to obtain a title match against either Sullivan or Corbett after Corbett defeated Sullivan for the championship. Jackson toured with a stage production of Uncle Tom's Cabin for several years. At thirty-seven, out of condition and well past his prime, he tried a comeback against Jim Jeffries, only to be knocked out in three rounds. Despite the frustration Jackson endured, he was widely admired by many white sports enthusiasts for his gentlemanly demeanor, and he was idolized by blacks. The abolitionist Frederick Douglass in his old age hung a portrait of Jackson in his home. Jackson died of consumption in Australia in 1901.

George Dixon, known to the world as "Little Chocolate," was a smooth and cagey boxer who began his professional career on November 1, 1886. He first became bantamweight champion, although there was dispute about the exact weight qualification for this division. He eventually became the world featherweight champion, a title he held from 1892 to 1900. Dixon was a popular fighter who was often featured in white sporting publications such as the National Police Gazette, as well as being seen in the haunts of the black entertainment world. Life in the sporting world eventually wore Dixon down. He was knocked out by Terry McGovern in New York in 1900 and lost his last fight to Monk Newsboy in 1906. His health ruined, he died penniless in 1909.

Joe Gans, "the Old Master," is considered by many historians of boxing to be one of the greatest lightweights of all time. He was born in Baltimore on November 25, 1874, and launched his professional career in 1891. He

reigned as lightweight champion from 1902 to 1908. Gans was plagued by ill health, eventually losing his title to Battling Nelson in a rematch. In 1909 he tried to win his title back in another battle against Nelson, but he was sick and aging and easily beaten. Gans died in Baltimore a year later of tuberculosis. It has been suggested that Gans had become a follower of Father Divine, a black religious leader, who was also then living in Baltimore. However, at this stage in his career, Father Divine was known only as a healer; it is not clear whether his followers believed he was God, as they later did. Because Gans was afflicted with an incurable disease that was ravaging the black community, he may have been drawn to Father Divine as a last-ditch effort to seek a cure.

Joe Walcott was born in Barbados on March 13, 1873. Called "the Barbados Demon" because of his whirlwind punching power and ability to endure punishment (a style that can be likened to that of the popular 1970s junior welterweight champion Aaron Pryor), Walcott held the welterweight title from 1898 to 1906. He retired from the ring in 1911 and worked for a time as a janitor, winding up, as many black fighters did, with no money from his ring efforts. He was killed in an automobile accident in 1935.

In the twentieth century, three periods demarcate the history of blacks in boxing: the Jack Johnson era (1908–1915), the Joe Louis era (1937–1949), and the Muhammad Ali era (1964–1978). There have been many impressive and important black fighters aside from these heavyweight champions. Henry Armstrong, a dominant force in the 1930s, became champion of the featherweight, lightweight, and welterweight divisions simultaneously, the first fighter to achieve such a feat. Sugar Ray Robinson, welterweight champion and winner of the middleweight title on five different occasions, dominated his weight division in the 1950s and was one of the most stylish and influential boxers in history. Archie Moore, "the Old Mongoose," was champion of the light heavyweight division from 1952 and 1962. Floyd Patterson was Olympic champion

in 1952 and heavyweight champion from 1956 to 1962, one of the youngest men ever to hold that title. Sugar Ray Leonard, Olympic champion in 1976 and champion in the welterweight, junior middleweight, middleweight, and super middleweight divisions, was one of the most popular fighters in the 1980s. And the controversial Mike Tyson, who was imprisoned for rape, became the youngest man ever to win the heavyweight championship when he won the belt in 1986. Tyson was one of the most ferocious and unrelenting fighters ever to enter the ring.

These are a few of the notable black fighters of the twentieth century. But none of these men exercised the social and political impact on American society that Johnson, Louis, and Ali did. These three not only changed boxing, but their presence reverberated throughout the world of sport and beyond. People who normally had no interest in either boxing or sports took an interest in the careers of these three.

Like many black youngsters, Jack Johnson learned the craft of boxing as a child by participating in battles royal, where five, six, or seven black youngsters were blindfolded and fought against one another in a general melee. The toughest survived the ordeal and made the most money. It may be argued that battles royal were not necessarily more brutal than ordinary prizefights, but they were surely far more degrading.

Johnson fought his first professional fight at the age of nineteen, and the defensive skills he learned to survive the battle royal stood him in good stead when he challenged white fighters in the early twentieth century. Black fighters at this time were expected not to win many fights against white opponents; if they did win, they did so on points. Johnson was among three other black heavyweights who fought during this period: Joe Jeanette, Sam McVey, and Sam Langford, also known as "the Boston Tarbaby." Johnson became a leading contender for the title. After much wrangling and many concessions, he fought Tommy Burns for the heavyweight championship in December 1908 in Sydney, Australia.

Although the color line had been drawn against black challengers to the heavyweight title, Johnson succeeded in part because he was in the right place at the right time. Many in the white sporting public felt it was time to give a black a shot at the title, and Johnson was at that point well liked by the white sporting fraternity. Publications such as the National Police Gazette, not noted for any enlightened racial attitudes, campaigned vigorously for him to get a title fight. When Johnson defeated Burns, he became the first black heavyweight champion, the most prized title in professional sports.

Soon, however, the white sporting public soured on Johnson. His arrogance and his public preference for white women provoked a cry for "a great white hope" to win the title back for whites. In 1910 Jim Jeffries, a former champion, was lured out of a six-year retirement to take on Johnson in the Nevada desert, a fight that was the most publicized, most heatedly discussed, and most fervently anticipated sporting event in American history at that time. It was the first prizefight to take on significant political overtones, as many whites and blacks saw it as a battle for racial superiority. Johnson was easily the most famous—or most infamous—black man in America, and the fight occurred at the height of racial segregation and oppression of blacks in the United States. Johnson easily won the fight, and the victory caused race riots around the country as angry whites brutalized rejoicing blacks. This was Johnson's last great moment as a professional athlete.

In 1912 Johnson's first white wife, Etta Duryea, committed suicide at the champion's Chicago nightclub. In 1913, on the testimony of a white prostitute with whom Johnson had once been intimate, he was convicted under the Mann Act and sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison. His personal life now in shambles, with no future as a fighter because he was thoroughly hated by the white public, he fled the country for Paris.

Johnson lost the title to Kansan Jess Willard in Cuba in 1915, a fight Johnson claimed he threw in order to regain entry to the United States. In fact, he did not return until 1920, when he served his time in prison with little notice. Johnson went on to become a museum raconteur, an autobiographer, a fight trainer, and an occasional participant in exhibitions. He died in an automobile accident in 1946.

When Joe Louis defeated Jim Braddock in June 1937 to win the heavyweight title, he was the second black to become heavyweight champion, and the first permitted even to fight for the championship since the end of Johnson's tenure in 1915. During the ensuing twenty-two years, there were only three black champions of any division, and two had brief reigns: West African Battling Siki was light heavyweight champion from September 1922 to March 1923; Tiger Flowers was middleweight champion for six months in 1926; and Kid Chocolate was featherweight and junior lightweight champion from 1931 to 1933.

Joe Louis's father was institutionalized for mental illness and his mother remarried. The family relocated from Alabama to Detroit because of job opportunities in the automobile industry. Louis had little interest in school and was attracted to boxing. He had a distinguished amateur career before turning professional in 1934 under the management of John Roxborough and Julian Black, both African Americans. Louis's trainer, Jack Blackburn, a former fighter of considerable accomplishment, was also black. Mike Jacobs, an influential New York promoter, steered Louis toward big-time fights, and thus Louis's career was carefully guided to the championship in three years.

Image was everything for Louis, or at least for his handlers. In order to be accepted by the white public, he had to be the antithesis of Johnson in every respect. Johnson had bragged and consorted with white women publicly; Louis was taciturn and seen only with black women. Louis went about his business with dispatch, never relishing his victories or belittling his opponents. This latter was an especially sensitive point because all of Louis's opponents, before he won the championship, were white.

Louis came along at a time when blacks were more assertively pushing for their rights, unlike the era of Johnson. The labor leader A. Philip Randolph scored a significant victory when he achieved recognition for his union from the Pullman Car Company and achieved further gains when his threatened March on Washington forced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Federal Order 8802 in 1942, integrating defense industry jobs. Louis came of age after the Harlem Renaissance and after Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association movement, both of which signaled greater militancy and race awareness on the part of blacks.

Louis's most important fight was his rematch against German heavyweight Max Schmeling in 1938. Louis had lost to Schmeling in 1936 and for both personal and professional reasons wanted to fight him again. Because Schmeling was German and probably a Nazi, the fight took on both racial and political overtones. Louis became the representative of American democracy against German arrogance and totalitarianism, as well as of American racial fair play against Schmeling's image of racial superiority and intolerance.

Louis won the fight easily, smashing Schmeling in less than a single round. As a result, he became the first black hero in American popular culture. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army and donated purses from his fights to the war effort. He retired in 1949, after holding the title longer than any other champion and defending it successfully more times than any other champion. Money problems, particularly back income taxes, forced him to make a comeback in 1950. He retired permanently after his loss to Rocky Marciano in 1951. In later years, Louis became a greeter in a Las Vegas hotel. He suffered from mental problems, as well as a period of cocaine addiction. He died in Las Vegas in 1981, probably the most revered black boxer, and arguably the most revered black athlete, in American history.

Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Clay Jr., had a distinguished career as an amateur boxer, culminating in a gold medal at the 1960 Olympic Games. Always outgoing with a warm but theatrical personality, the photogenic young boxer spouted poetry, threw punches with greater grace and speed than any heavyweight before him, and was generally well received by the public. Although many people disliked his showy, sometimes outrageous ways, others thought him a breath of fresh air in boxing. The young Clay fought an aging but still intimidating Sonny Liston for the championship in 1964, defeating the older man in a fight in which Clay was the decided underdog.

It was after this fight that Clay announced his conversion to the Nation of Islam. Shortly afterward, he changed his name to Muhammad Ali, probably one of the most widely and thoroughly discussed and condemned name

changes in American history. Ali's popularity among whites plummeted as a result of his conversion.

But he was not done provoking the white American public. In 1967 he refused induction into the armed services on religious grounds. His spiritual leader, Elijah Muhammad, had served time in prison during World War II for taking the same stand. Ali was stripped of his title, and his license to fight was revoked. Despite outcries from more liberal sections of the white public, Ali was in effect under a kind of house arrest for three and a half years. He was not permitted to fight in the United States and was not permitted to leave the country to fight abroad while his case was being appealed.

Ali was finally permitted to fight again in late 1970 in Georgia against journeyman heavyweight Jerry Quarry, whom he dispatched in a few rounds. During the interval of Ali's exile, the sentiments of the white public had changed significantly. Many turned against the Vietnam War. The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy only two months apart in 1968 made many think the country was on the verge of collapse, and as a result there was a greater sense of tolerance and understanding. Ali's religious beliefs no longer struck the public as bizarre and threatening. Finally, blacks had achieved some political leverage in the South, and this was instrumental in getting Ali a license to box again. Ali eventually won his case in the U.S. Supreme Court when his conviction was overturned as one of a series of decisions that broadened the allowable scope for conscientious objection to war.

Ali lost his claim to the title when he suffered his first professional defeat at the hands of Joe Frazier in March 1971, the first of three epic battles between the two great fighters. But Ali eventually regained his title in 1974 when he defeated George Foreman in a shocking upset in Zaire. He lost the title again in 1978 to Olympic champion Leon Spinks, but regained it a few months later in a rematch, becoming the first heavyweight to win the championship three times.

Ali was by far the most popular champion in the history of boxing. His face was, and still is, recognized more readily in various parts of the world than that of virtually any other American. Ali has been particularly important in creating a stronger sense of kinship between American blacks and people of the Third World. He is the most renowned Muslim athlete in history.

Like many before him, Ali fought too long, disastrously trying a comeback in 1980 against champion Larry Holmes, who badly thrashed him over ten rounds. Ali's health deteriorated throughout the 1980s. Parkinson's disease, induced by the heavy punishment he took in the ring, took its toll. Nevertheless, Ali remained a formidable physical presence, an athlete who continued to be honored around the world for his courage both in and out of the ring.

With Ali's departure from boxing, the heavyweight division was dominated for a considerable period by Holmes, a formidable fighter but a man of little personality, wit, or engagement. Although Holmes enjoyed considerable popularity during his reign, it was fighters from the lighter weight divisions who attracted media attention and huge purses during the late 1970s through the 1980s. Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Matthew Saad Muhammad, Aaron Pryor, Dwight Muhammad Qawi, Thomas "Hitman" Hearns, Marvin Johnson, Mike "the Body Snatcher" McCallum, Livingstone Bramble, and Michael Spinks were among the best and most highly publicized fighters of the day.

Relying on the popularity of several highly skilled Latin American fighters, including the redoubtable Roberto Duran, Alexis Arguello, Pipino Cuevas, and Victor Galindez, which enabled fight promoters to once again use ethnic and cultural symbolism as a lure for a diverse and fragmented public, these black fighters were able to bring greater attention and larger sums of money to boxing arenas in the 1980s than ever before.

After Holmes, the heavyweight class fell into complete disarray, as it had during the 1930s before the coming of Joe Louis. A succession of undistinguished champions paraded before the public. Not until the emergence of Mike Tyson did the category reclaim its position as the glamour division of the sport. Tyson enjoyed greater financial success than any other heavyweight in history. However, he was poorly advised and surrounded by cronies who did not protect his interests or their own. Tyson pursued a self-destructive path of erratic, violent behavior and suspected substance abuse, and was finally imprisoned for an assault on a black beauty contestant.

Following Tyson's imprisonment the heavyweight crown remained split. However, Evander Holyfield was popularly recognized as heavyweight champion, especially after he scored a surprise victory over Tyson in 1996 and successfully defended the title in a rematch (following which Tyson was suspended for biting Holyfield's ear during the match) in May 1997. In 1998 Tyson's boxing suspension was lifted.

After Tyson's period in the limelight, no single boxer captured public attention. In the late 1990s and the first years of the twenty-first century, no one fighter held on to the heavyweight title. Several black boxers were among the champions, including Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe, and, in a startling comeback, George Foreman, by then in his forties. During this time, as during the period after Muhammad Ali's retirement, boxing's popularity was kept alive mainly by smaller fighters. Oscar de La Hoya became a big name, drawing a huge following, especially in the Hispanic community. Other popular boxers were the African-American fighters Roy Jones and Sugar Shane Mosley, and Felix Trinidad of Puerto Rico. These fighters became stars through television pay-per-view, through which viewers themselves generate the payouts for prizefights.

In 2001 two daughters of former heavyweight champions entered the ring, bringing a female angle to prize-fighting. However, many saw the match between Muhammad Ali's daughter, Laila Ali, and Joe Frazier's daughter, Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, more as a publicity stunt than a serious fight.

In the late 1990s and early twenty-first century, boxing suffered from scandal and confusion, including criminal convictions of several prominent fighters, squabbles among boxing organizations over the authority to sanction fights and proclaim champions, injuries and deaths in the ring, and claims lodged by lower-class fighters of exploitation by promoters. Nevertheless, boxing continues to be a big-money sport, winning huge audiences through closed-circuit television.

See also Ali, Muhammad; Foreman, George; Frazier, Joe; Louis, Joe; Olympians; Robinson, Sugar Ray; Tyson, Mike

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gerald early (1996)
Updated by publisher 2005