Panama has Roberto Duran Mexico has Julio Cesar Chavez and nowadays Canelo Panama has Manny Pacquiao England has Frank Bruno Germany had the Klitschkos despite being of Ukrainian heritage who are some others, maybe Canada and George Chuvalo, Italy and Nino Benvenuti?
Jofre was HUGE in Brazil said to be only second in popularity to Pele sports wise.. Maybe the pressure of that popularity nudged him out of retirement If I overstated it , I am sure I will be corrected soon
Benny Lynch, Scotland Jimmy Wilde, Wales Henry Cooper, England Barry McGuigan, N. Ireland / Ireland Marcel Cerdan, France Anton Christoforidis, Greece
I will throw out a few: Carpentier for the French Schmeling for the Germans Uzcudun for the Basques Nelson for the Ghanaians Tiger for Nigeria and in particular the Biafrans
Harry Simon (Namibia), to name a boxer who is maybe not on everybody's radar. I have a few family members in Namibia and they told me, rather casually, about him. He seems to be very famous in this country, but also because of some horrible car crashes.
Azumah Nelson for Ghana Vic Toweel, Coetzee, Sanders, Mitchell, Matlala, Bungu, Ncita and possibly Thobela for South Africa
D1ck Tiger in Nigeria is one I haven’t seen. Maybe over time a lot of them sort of lose their national hero status or it’s smaller now. Regarding the OP, Canelo is not a national hero. He’s quite polarizing. A lot of people think he’s a fraud and c0cky. He’s not mutually beloved in the manner Chavez was, or Olivares was, or even Napoles, despite being from Cuba. Arguello has to be one of the biggest for sure.
Yeah, he was. Brazilians tend to only care about soccer, and aren’t the types to care about the past for the most part so he’s not famous anymore unless you’re a boxing fan and in that case he’s a god. He did vote third on a big poll among journalists in 1999 as their third greatest athlete ever behind Pele and Aryton Senna. Considering that’s almost a quarter century after his career and Senna had recently died and their success in soccer that’s an amazing placement.
