South Africa had some amazing boxing talent, especially if you consider they are a relatively small country (about 30 million inhabitants?) and the "white" talent pool is even smaller.
In the uk id bet a lot of great white potential heavys play rugby,it pays well these days if your decent,and is better supported and liked,boxings a pretty lonley sport,and the top guys are the only ones who really get well known
Jerry was an outstanding heavyweight , better than any of the White americans in the 80's... But.. Todays Eastern white heavys are too strong and big ... Jerry was a ledgend....
Talking of South Africa, a few of those big white fighters were in the POLICE FORCE of the apartheid regime. Somehow I doubt that the blacks were allowed or even desired to be in the ring trading blows with a big white cop. A successful black fighter would have been an ideological threat, a symbol of black strength - that aint happening. There's no way that there was any equality in the development of black athletes. And the situation in Africa now, perhaps the levels of poverty are too great. They say poverty breeds fighters, but at a certain level poverty makes the development of top level athletes very difficult. Ghana and Nigeria are probably the most successful African countries.
Well I would disagree. I am still at 33 (even if I do say so myself) a rather good second row as a pro/am Rugby player, but I sucked as a boxer. I had heart to a point, but when your old man tells yo,u you have no co-ordination, it is time to give it up!
there were many Black fighters fighting in other nations of Africa as well as South Africa, but the talent of heavyweights at the time were the White dutchmen. It may be a feeling of superiority and it may not, however is it the mental aspect of it that makes the White America Heavyweight stay out of boxing and is it the mental aspect of it that makes the Russians of today confident...Just a thought but the mental aspect of Ali in the 60's was strong and I was wondering how much of that plays a role in boxing
Sorry, but that's just completely wrong. In the 1920s and 1930s there were literally dozens of Jewish world champions. You may have overlooked many of them because you simply didn't know they were Jewish. Everyone knows Barney Ross and Benny Leonard were Jewish, but perhps you didn't realize that Ted 'Kid' Lewis, Jackie Berg, Al McCoy, Bob Olin, Al Singer, Lew Tendler, Charlie *********, Kid Kaplan, Maxie Rosenbloom, Jackie Fields, et al. were as well. the list goes on quite a ways. Go back a few years earlier and you'll see Battling Levinski, Joe Choynski, and Abe Attell. Jews were on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder in American in the early part of the century, and of course that's where you'll always find your boxers. Heck, Benny Leonard's nickname was "The Ghetto Wizard"!
This is true. In fact the term Ghetto was an ethnic term used to describe a Jewish neighborhood. At one point, the Jews who were a small portion of the population had something like 1/3 of all the boxing belts.
I think for years there has been a feeling that a white man just can't mix it with a black fighter, this has probably been based on watching the incredible athleticism of fighters such as Louis, Liston, Ali, Tyson etc and really apart from Dempsey I have never seen a white man even come near what they could do. But i think the white HWs of today are showing that this doesn't mean you can't win a title and that other attributes are also needed
What is "athleticism"? I have never heard a definition that compels me to believe this should be a word. I, too, believe Louis, Liston, Tyson and Lewis were great athletes for the reason that they succeeded at the highest level in a singular athletic endeavor. "Athleticism" is an extremely broad term where "great boxer" could be used. And I would say the same of Monzon, Marciano and Calzaghe, and many more who are not non-whites, all just as effective in the ring as those mentioned above. I have been around this sport my whole life and just don't see this dichotomy. There are always swings in dominance of one ethnic group or another, but none are permanent.