Was Andrew Golota Ever Known as the "Last White Hope" in America?

Joe Mesi

 

Golota was a fighter who looked the part, but proved time and again that he couldn't play the part. He looked like a Polish Ivan Drago, and he definitely knew how to fight. I wouldn't be surprised if even now at age 50, if he called Don King and said I want to make a comeback, that people would look forward to it.

 

I don't think that America cared about race enough after the civil rights era to have a "white hope." Living through the eighties and nineties, everyone was crazy about Mike Tyson. His skin color was never an issue.

 

America didnt care about race after the civil rights era to mention white hopes?

What about Cooney and Cortzee in the 80s? The race angle was the biggest marketing sell for the Holmes v Cooney fight which was called one of the biggest heavyweight title fights in history at the time. When Cortzee won the title, one of the most reported notes about his win against Dokes was that he was the first white heavyweight champion since Marciano decades earlier so I think race was definitely still an issue in boxing in the 80s.

 

who needs golota .. we had ALL the titles for the better part of 10 years.. keep dreaming fan boys the Kbros are going no where you can't make it go away i don't care how much you pray

 

His contemporary, Tommy Morrison, probably fit that role better.

 

Is he somehow more white and American than the K bros?

 

Not as far as I'm aware. In fact I've never heard anyone in real life say "white hope" without irony.

 

Last time "The Great White Hope " title was blatantly played up was Holmes vs Cooney, and Cooney to his credit hated that angle, and it was primarily created by the media and of course Don King. It got started a little with Tommy "The Duke "Morrison, but nowhere near what it was for Cooney.

 

No. He was not overtly sold as that. At the time, white heavies were still rare, tho. So, there was the obvious difference. That said, Golota was quality, at least for a minute. So he deserved some attention.

 

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That’s really more for American white heavyweights. Golota was just known as “that crazy guy who hits guys in the nuts”. He was sort of a punchline. I remember Jay Leno making jokes about him during the Tonight Show, and a Bulls-Lakers game in 1996 (when Kukoc went nuts) when they were talking about cheap fouls or getting hit in the groin, something like that, and the commentator made a reference to Andrew Golota.

 

As I said in my previous post, I think it was more of a case of him looking like a destroyer, than being white. Although being from Poland and living in Chicago certainly endeared him to Polish-American fans.