The history of Mexican boxing
According to Boxrec, there are 3126 professional Mexican male boxers in the world right now (april 2021). That is more than any other country.
Mexico has provided more world champions than any other country. Julio Cesar Chavez, Marco Barrera, Ruben Olivares, Carlos Zarate to name a few. Surprisingly, few books deal with the history of boxing in Mexico.
Stephen D. Allen is an Associate Professor of History at California State University, Bakersfield. He wrote A History of Boxing in Mexico: Masculinity, Modernity, and Nationalism, published in 2017. We talked about the role of boxing in Mexico and the ‘Mexican style’ of boxing.
Diego Fabian Eligio during the Mexican national anthem before his fight against Yvan Mendy, July 2019 in Le Cannet, France. © Karim Foudil / Asloum Event
How did you get interested in boxing and what was the context of the writing for this book ?
My interest in boxing dates to my childhood. My father was, and still is, a big fan of boxing. I grew up with the sport and was aware of the significance of Mexican boxers. After traveling a few times to Costa Rica and recruiting migrant farm workers and their children (most of whom were Mexican) for free education programs, I became aware of how sports connected me with people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds than my own. Eventually, I went to graduate school and became aware that very few people had written about the history of Mexican boxing from an academic standpoint, despite its importance to Mexican national culture. The book I published was based off my doctoral thesis from Rutgers University and based off two years of doing research in Mexico City (which was amply funded by a Fulbright grant and my university).
In your book, we saw that the success of boxers like Macias or Becerra unite the people. In a country with such a complex history, do you argue that boxing help to forge mexican nationalism ?
Historians of Mexico often talk about the "Many Mexicos" that exist and it's true that Mexico is a divided country, economically, socially, and regionally. I argue in my book Mexican boxers were powerful national symbols because they overlapped many of these "Mexicos." On one hand, many of them came from humble urban backgrounds - many were migrants from the countryside to the city or the children of migrants - and this made them relatable public figures to the many Mexicans who were migrating to cities throughout the twentieth century. At the same time, their international successes - world championships, title fights in locales like Los Angeles, London, and Paris, etc. - pleased elites who were looking to broadcast a modern, powerful image of Mexico abroad. In the middle of the twentieth century, Mexican elites were very keen on using sporting events and successes as a way to attract international investors and tourists. The most obvious example is the hosting of the Olympic Games in 1968.
Today, what we call 'Mexican style' of boxing means being aggressive, coming forward, throwing a lot of punches... Has boxing in Mexico always been like that ?
The question of style is a fascinating one and one on which I still waiver. On one hand, there are many examples of aggressive Mexican boxers dating back to to the 1930s like Rodolfo Casanova, who defeated a top contender in his twelfth match and was known as an exciting fighter to watch. The most obvious example is Julio César Chávez, who embodied that style and is probably the most celebrated Mexican boxer to date. On the other hand, there have been many exceptions over the years. Boxers like Raúl Macías (who lost an opportunity to unite the world bantamweight championships to Alphonse Halimi in 1957), Vicente Saldívar (arguably the first Mexican boxer to dominate at a global level), and Salvador Sánchez (considered by many to be the second greatest Mexican fighter, after Chávez) enjoyed successful careers with less aggressive styles that featured more counterpunching.
So there are many exceptions to the rule, but Mexican boxers have gained a reputation for aggressiveness, which should not be mistaken with recklessness. As you and the readers are certainly aware, there is a great deal of strategy and skill associated with this technique - angles of punches, head movement, etc. Reyes gloves (the puncher's gloves) come from Mexico, so there is a lot of strategy, technique, and innovation surrounding this approach. On a side note, there is a punch often associated with Mexican boxers which has been called, at least in the U.S., 'the Mexican liver punch.' In Mexico, it's known as el gancho al hígado. In Mexico, boxer Kid Azteca is known for popularizing it. I heard in a radio interview with him that he actually learned it from a North American who came to fight in Mexico. So, the style incorporates many influences and has influenced other boxers, particularly those that trained with Mexican trainers like Nacho Beristáin.
In your opinion, why boxing became one of the most popular sport in Mexico ? And why are there more professional boxers in Mexico than any other country ?
There are few factors that I believe have led to large numbers of Mexicans becoming boxers. The first is urbanization, which is usually associated with industrialization. There are many of examples of boxers coming from humble, urban backgrounds throughout the world. Generally, boxers are newcomers, or the children of newcomers, to cities. This is the case with other ethnicities and nationalities, whether they are Irish coming to the U.S., Algerians coming to France, or African Americans moving from the U.S. South to the more-industrialized North and West. For a lot of young men during this time, boxing provided an opportunity to assert honor and masculinity in a new environment. In recent years, women's boxing has grown in Mexico and across the globe, but in the years I study women were not permitted to box in Mexico City.
Another factor involves Mexico's close links with the United States, particularly Los Angeles. Because of the large Mexican-American population in Los Angeles, Mexican boxers were able to fill arenas there, which was good business for local promoters. There were many abuses of boxers, but, on the whole, Mexican boxers made more money in Los Angeles than they did boxing in Mexico. George Parnassus, a Greek immigrant to the U.S., was one of the first to realize this opportunity, and started promoting boxers from Mexico in the 1940s. By 1968, he became the promoter of boxing events at the newly built Forum (which was also home to the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers) and ushered in a 'Golden Age' of Mexican and Los Angeles boxing. In the late 1960s, there was talk that the epicenter of boxing had shifted from New York City to Los Angeles. Interestingly, Parnassus did packed arenas with lower-weight boxers headlining the bills. Traditionally in the U.S., heavyweight boxers headlined bills, but Parnassus sold out the Forum with bantamweights like Rubén Olivares and welterweights like José Nápoles. The importance of Los Angeles declined in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as the Las Vegas casinos began promoting fights to attract people to gamble. That said, the importance of Mexican and Mexican American boxing fans to the sport cannot be understated.