Boxing

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BOXING

Fighting of one sort of another appears so "natural" a part of the history of the United States that it would be hard to quarrel with eminent boxing writer A. J. Leibling, who once observed that "the Sweet Science [of boxing] is joined onto the past like a man's arm to his shoulder" (Rotella, p. 597). While it is generally perceived as one of the more "traditional" and taken-for-granted of masculine pursuits, boxing, like other sports, did not assume its generally recognizable form until well after the first settlers washed ashore during the colonial era. Nor, despite its popularity throughout the twentieth century, is there any guarantee that it will continue to thrive in the twenty-first.

Boxing in the current century has changed so much that some people may have trouble recognizing the sport. For instance, it may be difficult for some of those people to imagine a time when African Americans did not command a strong presence at the top of the boxing world (while serving as icons of the country's societal troubles or national ascendance, no less). Others may find it equally curious that boxing clubs were once a visible part of the urban landscape, or that radio and television (of the pre-cable variety) regularly featured boxing matches as part of their broadcasts. For still others, it may be hard to conceive of a time when women did not participate in aerobic boxing or take part in sanctioned amateur or professional bouts. All of these statements speak to the historicity of boxing as well as to the ideas, issues, and relationships it speaks both to and for.

Though occasional boxing matches did occur in the eighteenth century, such fistic engagements were rare. Even the championship bout between Briton Thomas Cribb and the free black American Tom Molineaux, held in England in 1810, drew little attention from the American press. More common forms of fighting at this time included cockfights and honorific gouging matches in the southern backcountry. The difference between gouging and boxing hinged on the inclusion of referees, and seconds to monitor the action in the ring. Ring codes adopted at this time attempted to define and refine the etiquette of fighters and spectators alike, ranging from prohibitions on eye gouging, hair pulling, head-butting, making offensive remarks, and hitting below the belt, to guidelines for creating the ring itself. But while bare-knuckle prizefighting by the 1840s was beginning to emerge out of the everyday textures and enmities of male working- and lower-class urban culture, historians Elliott Gorn and Steven Riess suggest that it remained a local, sporadic affair most evident in cities with larger ethnic communities such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and New Orleans. Although patterns were developing, the lines demarcating everyday grievances from battles fought in the ring, or from the combatants and their audiences, remained permeable.

The intensification of certain trends in the 1850s—the growth of cities and immigrant populations, expanding consumer markets and leisure time, and developments in transportation and communications, especially—allowed for matches to be arranged through newspapers and information about these bouts to circulate in advance, thus creating a more regular menu of bouts and a paying audience to witness these burgeoning spectacles. John Morrisey's victory over Yankee Sullivan for the American championship in 1853, for instance, elevated Morrissey to the status of Irish folk hero and reflected many of these transformations. The Civil War, which gathered men of a similar class standing and shared male culture from across the country, widened the spread of boxing and deepened the bonds of toughness through a regimen of sparring and regulated matches that contained the internal conflicts that flared up in the midst of real combat.

Yet while these more structured exhibitions helped to channel the tensions of wartime and seemed to put the sport on firmer footing, prizefighting remained illegal in many states well into the early twentieth century. Bouts were frequently held in saloons or dance halls in order to avoid police interference. Though contests of particular interest were often announced in the National Police Gazette, by this time the most important source for sports information, news of upcoming bouts usually spread by word of mouth so that participants and spectators alike gathered hastily at a designated location.

By the late nineteenth century, however, a confluence of forces altered the course of pugilism and elevated both the sport and its practitioners to a prominence that would last for nearly half a century. The social, economic, and technological forces that gave rise to factory production, transformed the nature of work and working-class life, provided opportunities for immigrants, and reshaped relations of class, gender, and race crested at the turn of the twentieth century. Specifically, more efficient and streamlined methods of production reconfigured the meaning of work, increased leisure time, and recast notions of masculinity for men of both the managerial and laboring classes. For those who worked primarily with their minds (the new managerial class) or their hands (who were losing control over the work process), new outlets and mediums had to be found for exercising, asserting, or imagining a new relationship to one's body; one's masculinity.

Alongside, then, the newer amusements appearing near the century's end—whether dance halls, movies, fairs, or attractions such as Coney Island—boxing assumed a starring role in the commercial entertainments that would dominate the urban-industrial landscape. The Marquis de Queensbury rules adopted in 1892 mirrored many of the rationalizing tendencies and rhythms of the industrial age. The new codes dictated an end to bare-knuckle fighting, as combatants would now wear thinly padded gloves in the ring; created rounds of three minutes with intervals of rest lasting one minute; dispensed with holding or wrestling moves; created a new knockdown rule of ten seconds; continued the tradition of fighting to the finish by refusing to set a limit on the number of rounds in a match. These rules also smoothed some of the sport's rougher edges, thus making it somewhat palatable and comprehensible to a broader, more "respectable" audience.

Perhaps more than anyone, the mighty John L. Sullivan ushered in the age of boxing celebrity. His career bridged the end of the bare-knuckle era and the beginnings of the Marquis de Queensbury generation. His magnetic physique, Irish American working-class background, and forceful ring prowess translated into a persona that appealed to people within and beyond the working class. The increasing circulation of newspapers, in addition to new promotional techniques within the sport of boxing, nourished and cultivated this appeal with a broader audience. Sullivan's loss at the hands of a more slender, technically proficient James Corbett in 1892 marked, for many, the beginning of the "modern" generation—in boxing and U.S. history. In their differing styles and roles as "fighter" and "boxer," Sullivan and Corbett also embodied a contrast that would continue to mark the most riveting championships of the twentieth century.

Fighting styles were not the only differences that made for a compelling match: race had become a factor as well. While Steven Riess has noted that five African Americans held championships between 1890 and 1908, none of these men were as famous or infamous as Jack Johnson, the first black man to win the heavyweight title. Johnson's proficiency within the ring and his seemingly brash, confident demeanor outside it offended the sensibilities of many who were particularly troubled by his relationships with white women. Johnson's championship match with Jim Jeffries in 1910 drew intense media scrutiny both before and after his victory, which touched off racial skirmishes in as many as fifty cities. Johnson's reign—which lasted until 1915—also initiated a pattern whereby African American heavyweights throughout the twentieth century—including Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Sonny Liston, and Mike Tyson—would alternately serve as princes of the nation's loftiest ideals or emblems of its most worrisome disorders.

In a broader sense, Johnson's title run intersected with and was embedded within a host of social transformations that would dramatically reshape the significance of boxing generally and of individual fighters specifically. The exploits and personalities of heavyweight champions during the first half of the twentieth century were packaged and marketed in such a way as to make them celebrities on the order of movie stars. Indeed, boxing and film grew up together, as clips from boxing matches were some of the first and most popular moving images displayed on screen. Both were part of the same constellation of forces—an emerging visual (film), sonic (radio), and more standardized print culture—that reshaped the production and consumption of images.

It is because of these changes, in part, that Jack Dempsey's title run (1919–1926) drew some of the largest crowds to ever witness live sporting events, including the estimated 150,000 who packed Soldier Field in Chicago to "see" Dempsey fight Gene Tunney in 1927—a fight that was also heard by millions on radio. The sophisticated use and circulation of such images helped to raise Joe Louis's fighting prowess and personal qualities into the embodiment of national virtue during the 1930s and World War II era. In addition to these iconic figures, local boxing clubs flourished during the industrial era and provided an alternative form of labor, recreation, or bodywork for many young men, whether Irish, Jewish, Italian, or African American.

By the end of Louis's career in the late 1940s, television was already beginning to supplant radio as the primary medium for gaining access to national and local fights. While televised fights proved immensely popular initially, they eventually led to the diminished attendance at, and demise of, local boxing clubs.

Television also became intertwined with growing evidence of, and concerns about, the role of organized crime in fixing the outcomes of particular matches. While such activity had always existed, sustained efforts to regulate the sport were launched in the post–World War II era in an effort to curtail such practices. Well-known fighters such as Rocky Graziano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jake LaMotta, and others, were asked to provide information about racketeering and the Kefauver Commission held hearings in 1960 to investigate these and related problems. Though several bills were proposed in response to the findings of this commission, no legislative action was taken until an amendment to Title XVIII of the U.S. Code was adopted in 1964 during President Lyndon Johnson's administration.

The timing of that amendment coincided with Cassius Clay's/Muhammad Ali's ascendance during one of the most tumultuous periods in U.S. history. If there is any one thread that can be woven through Ali's remarkable twenty-year career, it is Gerald Early's insistence that "like all great heroes," Ali embodied the "incendiary poetics of actual self-determination" (Early, p. 14). Able to glide among and between various constituencies without being captured by any of them, Ali remained true to his religious principles in refusing to serve in Vietnam, losing three and a half years of a luminous career and remaking himself upon his return. In reclaiming the championship he lost, Ali also absorbed a great deal of punishment and later developed Parkinson's disease, rekindling concerns about the brutal effects of such a nakedly violent sport.

As contrasted with more recent developments in the heavyweight division—which has always buoyed the sport generally—Ali was pushed throughout his career by other African American heavyweights, including Joe Frazier and George Foreman. Though many expected the young and ferocious Mike Tyson to continue this tradition when he won the title at the age of twenty in 1986, his career was derailed by violent episodes outside and within the ring, incidents that effectively rewrote the narrative of greatness predicted of him.

While the heavyweight division was nearly dormant by 2004 and waiting for the "next" great heavyweight to appear—if he will appear—good boxers could still be found in the lighter-weight divisions, where a host of Latino and African American fighters, among others, kept interest in the professional side of the sport afloat. Those who make it to the top can expect paydays in the millions, their fights viewed on cable television channels such as HBO.

Equally interesting—if not more compelling, in fact—is a quieter, more recent development among women who are taking up the sport at the amateur and professional levels in the postindustrial era, honing their craft in boxing clubs nestled imperceptibly in the urban landscape. Well-known fighters such as Christy Martin and Laila "She-Bee Stingin'" Ali represent only the most visible side of this general movement. They, and other men and women who practice the sport as a way of reclaiming the body and physical labor in a society radically different from the one that nurtured boxing early in the twentieth century, may be reshaping the manly art while still drawing on its finer traditions of craft, skill, and bodywork. As Carlo Rotella has observed, reflecting on the masculine heritage of boxing, "The sweet science, still joined to the past like a man's arm to his shoulder, can only sustain itself if it remains joined to its traditions and accumulated lore. But boxing may also find itself joined to the present, and the future, like a woman's arm to her shoulder" (Rotella, p. 598).