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Is There Racism in Boxing? You Bet Your Boxing Gloves There Is!

Drew The Picture covered a very touchy topic in Boxing and even more so, in our society! Do you agree with his thoughts in this article?

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racism-2014By Andrew “Drew The Picture” Hames

Much has been made of recent comments on the topic of racism in the sport by its recently retired and always controversial former P4P King, Floyd Mayweather, JR. While I believe that much of his own public perception has much more to do with his individual character, leaving him out of the remainder of this discussion in light of the focal point, would anyone honestly be surprised about this issue had it been brought up by any other fighter, commentator or boxing media? I hate to break it to the self-righteous, impartial fans of the boxing public, but racism is and always has been as commonplace in our beloved sport as corruption.

It stands to reason that every historic rivalry our sport has between countries, from the famous “Mexico vs. Puerto Rico” wars, to “Cuba vs. Puerto Rico”, “Irish vs. British”, and all of the above versus America alone shows just how prevalent racism is and always has been in promoting the culture of our sport. One of the primary reasons the sport thrives in spite of not being considered mainstream is the support system of devoted loyalists to the idea of their own culture’s ethnic supremacy by way of their top fighters in the first place.

Alan Minter told Marvin Hagler he’d never lose to a black fighter, and Hagler was showered by an assault of flying beer cans for stopping Minter in front of his UK supporters at the revered Wembley Arena. Decades later, Bernard Hopkins guaranteed unbeaten Welshman Super Middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe that he’d never let a white boy beat him, and was ridiculed by the media for saying far worse than Minter ever was. In turn, Hopkins lost a split-decision to Calzaghe, and he and Minter both essentially were forced to eat their words. However, Hopkins and Calzaghe remain good friends till this day, and both contend that that the racial tension was only for promotional purposes.

The Wacko Brothers primarily promoted the Heavyweight showdown between Larry Holmes and Gerry Cooney as a black-and-white race war. Oscar De La Hoya refused to fight fellow Mexican fighters at one point of his career, feeling as though he was met with contempt by his own people for twice defeating the Mexican legend Julio Cesar Chavez, and not being accepted as a “Real Mexican”. Ali accused any black man who rooted for Joe Frazier in the first fight of their great trilogy of being an “Uncle Tom” since Frazier’s handlers were primarily wealthy, white Wall Street investors.
Most recently, current Heavyweight champion Tyson Fury has made a reputation out of insulting the nationalities of virtually every fighter he’s faced. Let’s also not forget the names boxing media has bestowed upon certain fighters, such as Manny Pacquiao being dubbed the “Mexican Assassin”, years after Roger Mayweather was given this same exact moniker. Argentine Luis Firpo was disrespectfully depicted as a “Big, hairy, Argentine Ape” by Time Magazine amid his classic fight American Heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey. Beyond that, while Ali was stripped of his titles and demonized as a traitor to his country for refusing to enter the draft for America’s war with Vietnam, Dempsey himself refused to enter the World War I draft, and it somehow escaped punishment or scrutiny thereafter.

Suffice to say, we shouldn’t pretend racism in boxing is at all a new concept. Honesty, I believe it would be fairly delusional of any of us to believe that racism could still be as prevalent as it is in modern day society, and somehow no longer exist in boxing, arguably the most corrupt sport in modern day society.

I only took on this topic as a premonition of topics to come, a sneak preview into much deeper agendas I believe the sport to carry beyond race alone. We’ll discuss some of those aspects later. But while our sport ultimately comes down to the green, rest assured that the black, white, brown and yellow have just as much influence….

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