Top 10 heavies: Social impact

Perhaps we are spending too much time debating the top 5 slots (Sullivan, Johnson, Dempsey, Louis Ali) which we prety much agree apart from the order.

A more interesting question is who fills slots 6-10, where the criteria get more complicated.

 

Well, I guess Schmeling is a lock for the Top10. Tyson perhaps should be in there too, given that he kept boxing alive and inspired many people to pick it up. Marciano perhaps? He proved that even small fighters with many disadvantages on their side can do anything with will and determination. Should have inspired many. Gene Tunney, wasn´t he senator or something later on, probably had some social impact through that. Same goes for Vitali as he is some kind og politician in the Ukarine.

 

We should probably be making more of Schmeling and Carnera here.

They became quite important chess peices in European politics at the time.

 

Yeah, the nazis wanted to set up a "European world hw title" to rival the American world hw title. The Schmeling-Neusel - then rated number 4 and 3 in the world - fight originally should have been for this title but they abondoned those plans. I don´t remember why though.

 

Schmelings significance wen't deeper than that.

He was used as an ambasador to help secure the olympic games for Berlin. He also campaigned in the Austrian refarendum to integrate the country with the German Reich.

Even Carnera was a big enough political pawn that the alies spread misinformation that he had been killed in Italy fighting with the partisans. After the war the partisans tried to lynch him and it was only by brandishing a rifle at them that he survived.

 

I know, that was one reason why he was seen as a nazi. Schmeling was a patriot, one reason why he didn´t leave Germany like other German celebrities like Marlene Dietrich. And as a patriot he did as much as possible he could do for Germany, even when it meant getting used by the nazis. I think he was very torn apart between his patriotism and his rejection/refusal of nazism. Many German patriots, especially the nobility, saw the nazis as a way to restore Germany´s greatness after WW2 and ignored/neglected their danger for what they seemed to be the greater good. They thought they could controll them, instead they were used by them to seize power.

 

Schmeling has to be a lock, in part because Louis doesn't have the same social impact in the U.S. without him.

 

Johnny Du Plooy deserves a mention here.

 

"was probably the biggest visible figure in bringing big-time professional boxing and spectator spots in general to the forefront of American culture and commerce."

I was wondering, so I looked up some facts.

Babe Ruth--In his first season with the Yankees in 1920, the Yankees drew 1,289,422--that is for home games only. For the decade, the Yankees drew over 10,000,000 in home games. Road games is guesswork, but I would estimate they drew 7 to 8 million, so the total of fans who paid to see Ruth in official games during the 1920's is probably something like 18 million.

Sure, baseball is a much different sport. Boxing is a big event sport and baseball is every day, but this is grossly more people than saw Dempsey fight in his handful of bouts.

And even as a big event, baseball's world series drew. Attendance ranged from 178,737 for the 1920 series to 328,051 for the 1926 series.

Was Dempsey bigger than Ruth in the US. I really doubt that. Babe Ruth's death in 1948 was like the death of a president.

Baseball aside, college football also drew outstanding gates. The 105,000 fans who attended the Tunney-Dempsey fight at Soldier's Field in 1927 is impressive, but was beaten that autumn by the 120,000 who came out for Notre Dame-USC. In 1929 Notre Dame and USC drew an official paid attendance of 112,912 at Soldier's Field. The Army-Notre Dame game drew an average of 78,000 to Yankee Stadium every year from 1925 into the 1940's.

My point is not to deny Dempsey's drawing power as a boxer, but only to point out that he came within an era of exploding interest in spectator sports of all kinds and his drawing power was really not unique.

*My take is that without Dempsey boxing might have fallen far behind sports such as baseball and college football. As it was, it remained one of the three major sports at least through the fifties.

 

Three years ago I made this list:

1. Joe Louis-broke the colour bar. That has to rate as a pretty serious impact.

2. Jack Johnson-Hugely divisive figure in an early and violent period of the civil rights struggle.

3. John L Sullivan-First global sports star. Legitimised boxing as a sport.

4. Jack Dempsey-Brought boxing to the mainstream.

5. Muhamad Ali-A truly global and controversial figure in the civil rights struggle.

6. Max Schmeling-A pivotal political tool in European politics of the period.

7. Primo Carnera-See Schmeling.

8. Mike Tyson-A truly global figure, who ultimately brought the sport into disrepute.

9. Max Baer-A hero for the Jewish community in the early years of Nazi Germany.

10. Sonny Liston-A divisive symbol at a crucial juncture in the civil rights movement.

What has changed since then is that Vitally Klitschko might merit a place on the list, and I certainly would not have expected that!

 

Debatable, yes, but there's a difference between being accepted and being embraced. Louis was accepted, but he would not have been embraced to the same level had it not been for the Schmeling storyline. It was the perfect storm of athletics serving as a metaphor for politics.

Schmeling is the difference between Joe Louis: Great Champion, and Joe Louis: American Hero. If the exact same scenario played out with a random fighter from the U.S., I don't think it carries near the social impact.

 

I actually think this might be the order right here. :deal