ON August 26, the world witnessed a boxing match between the undisputed lightweight boxing champion Floyd Mayweather and the current lightweight mixed martial arts champion Conor McGregor.
The former is black and American while the latter is white and Irish.
The fight earned the highest pay per view numbers and up to US$1 billion in revenue.
Mayweather won the highly anticipated bout by technical knockout in the first minute of the 10th round.
The referee called for a stoppage after McGregor received numerous clean power punches to the head which he neither blocked nor returned.
Though this fight was exciting, one issue which is rarely considered is the issue of race in boxing.
The majority of the people who attended and viewed this match were in support of McGregor.
Even Americans, with the exception of blacks and black boxers, were not in support of Mayweather who achieved his 50th win without defeat on this night, surpassing the record of Rocky Marciano who achieved 49 wins and no loss.
The Marciano family argue this fight shouldn’t count because Mayweather’s opponent Conor, was fighting his first professional boxing match as his field of specialisation is mixed martial arts.
However, they are both players of combat sports.
McGregor begun as an amateur boxer and, most importantly, had acquired a boxing licence and the fight was a commissioned one.
The issue of race was by far the most influential factor in drawing so much attention to this particular fight.
To fully understand this notion, we have to look at the history of race in the sport of boxing.
We will realise that these sort of bouts between undefeated blacks and white hopefuls began over a century ago.
Boxing became popular in the US in the late 1800s.
It began with men fighting against each other with bare knuckles.
The fighters would bruise their hands and by the 1900s, they were made to wear wraps and boxing gloves to minimise hand injury.
Boxing matches would go for 25 rounds after which a win, loss or draw would be determined by some judges.
The undefeated winner would be given the title of champion of the world and was called the strongest man in the world.
However, boxing, and thus the title, was reserved for whites only.
This was called ‘drawing the colour line’ and if there were any black boxers, they were not allowed to contend for the world title.
This would all change with the coming of a black boxer called Jack Johnson.
Johnson was not only black, he was very dark and the whites called him unforgivably black.
He was tall, muscular, fit and young when he beat Denver Ed Martin for the coloured heavyweight boxing title.
He had fought over 50 fights by this time and was a top contender for the world heavyweight title.
At that time, it was held by a whiteman, James Jeffries, who was exceedingly famous and praised.
Jeffries drew the colour line and would not fight against blacks because it would be disgraceful to the whites if the prestigious title of world heavyweight champion and the strongest man in the world were to be given to a blackman.
Johnson was persistent and when he saw that Jeffries would not budge, he followed another white world champion called Tommy Burns around the world.
It took him five years of following and challenging Burns with the fight finally taking place in Sydney, Australia.
He won the world heavyweight title after the police stopped the fight in the 14th round because Burns was taking a brutal beating.
It is important to note that the world lightweight title had been won by a blackman, Joe Gans, in 1902.
Television had not yet been invented and video footage was played in cinemas. Whites were shocked and devastated while blacks were ecstatic.
Newspapers warned blacks to not think themselves superior to whites following Johnson’s victory.
This did not work as blacks gained confidence and started seeing strength in themselves and weakness in whites.
The title represented the peak of masculinity which had been held by whites till Johnson defeated Burns in 1908.
The whites began looking and training for what they termed the ‘great white hope’.
This meant a white fighter who would dethrone the black heavyweight champion and bring the prestigious title back to the white race.
Johnson fought all the white hopefuls and defeated them easily.
Whites became desperate and started pressuring Jeffries to fight Johnson.
They had built myths around Jeffries and though he had retired and become a farmer, they truly believed he was unstoppable and was the only one who could defeat Johnson.
Jeffries refused for some time but after Johnson defeated the numerous white hopefuls, it became almost treasonous for Jeffries to refuse to fight.
Jeffries was also offered US$120 000 if he fought Johnson and he finally agreed.
He was initially out of shape but worked extremely hard in training till he got back in fighting shape.
The fight took place in Reno, Nevada, because boxing was infamous in other parts of the US.
The showing of the Johnson against Tommy Burns fight in cinemas had caused race riots that resulted in the deaths of people, mainly blacks.
Nevada, with its culture of gambling and gunfights, was not shaken by boxing matches and the only condition given by the Governor was that the match would not be fixed in any way.
Like the Floyd versus Conor match, the bout was called the Fight of the Century and had over 20 000 people in attendance.
The atmosphere was so tense that attendants had to be disarmed at the gates in anticipation of racial confrontation if Jeffries lost.
Jack clearly dominated the fight and beat Jeffries for 15 rounds, knocking him down twice before Jeffries’ corner threw in the towel to avoid further injury and humiliation.
After the fight, Jeffries said: “I could not have beat him at my best. Not in 1000 years.”
The greatest white hope had been defeated by a black.
Race riots occurred in over 25 states leading to 20 deaths and 100 injuries of mostly blacks.
Johnson was given US$65 000 for the win and had become exceedingly wealthy over the years.
He wore custom-made suits, drove sports cars, lived in white neighbourhoods. Johnson had affairs with several white women.
The latter was a taboo but he felt superior to any man, black or white, because he was the undefeated champion.
Both whites and self-respecting blacks frowned upon his desire for white women.
Seeing that the whites could not physically dominate this blackman, they resorted to attacking him by legal means.
They always gave him speeding tickets.
They also filed a lawsuit against him for trafficking and prostituting women.
They coerced white women whom Johnson had been acquainted with in the past and got them to testify against him.
After an arrest and a court hearing, Johnson realised the gravity of the situation and snuck out of the country by train while disguised as a member of a travelling black baseball team.
He escaped to Canada and Europe but because he was a fugitive, he was not given a warm welcome in most of the places he went.
The search for a great white hopeful continued.
A two-metre giant, Jess Willard eventually stripped Johnson of his title in Cuba, in 1915.
Johnson was 37 years old but won every round till he got exhausted and suffered a 26th round knockout.
Years of exile without training and competing, along with ageing had taken toll in the match which was scheduled for 50 rounds.
Willard managed to regain the title for whites who from thenceforth avoided black title contenders.
Johnson ended up in Mexico and after another seven years of exile he decided to return to the US where he was welcomed as a legend.
He turned himself in and spent one year in prison.