Boxing has big pictures (Raging Bull, Creed), big personalities (Muhammad Ali, the original G.O.A.T.), and big spectacles (pay-per-view fights adorned with flashing lights, raucous crowds, and stylized ring entrances). You might be forgiven for thinking that being a professional fighter translates into making big money.

But the challenges contemporary boxers face are not only physical and mental, but overwhelmingly financial. This begs the question: What does boxing owe its champions? This was the title of last night’s Zócalo program, presented in partnership with UCLA College, Division of Social Sciences and ASU Global Sport Institute. It all came down to, as moderator Rudy Mondragón put it, “centering the boxer as the worker.”

Mondragón, a scholar of ethnic and sports studies at UCLA, was joined on stage at the ASU California Center in downtown Los Angeles by California State Athletic Commission executive director Andy Foster, former middleweight champ and DAZN host Sergio “the Latin Snake” Mora, and professional boxer and actress Kali “KO” Mequinonoag Reis.

Before diving in, Mondragón noted that boxers are independent contractors with no employee-employer relationships, as in other professional sports leagues. This usually means no collective healthcare, minimum salary, workers compensation, or pension. The lack of security hits harder because boxing is such “high risk work”: many professional boxers wind up physically unwell and penniless in their later lives. Any story of progress for boxing will require “igniting conversations and potential future action that will require collective effort among all boxing stakeholders,” Mondragón added later. 

“I believe that fighters have distinct stories,” he said. Turning first to Reis, he asked her to tell hers.

Raised in East Providence, Rhode Island, Reis is a member of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe and is the first Indigenous woman to become a World Champion fighter. She is the baby in a family of five and described her upbringing as artistic, musically-inclined, and focused on playing sports.

“The solo aspect of boxing was intriguing,” she said. “In boxing, you have to be self-accountable.” When she asked people to help her learn the sport, they repeatedly told her that she should probably “do girl things” instead. But Reis persisted, eventually convinced a fighter in her community to teach her, and joined a gym at the age of 14. “It was love at first punch.”

Mora, who was born and raised in East Los Angeles, shared three influences that led him down the boxing-as-a-career trajectory. The first was knocking out his friends when they sparred at community BBQs—what he calls the East L.A. version of The Little Rascals—through which he learned that he was a good fighter. Second was needing high school credit and, thus, enrolling in a program that included boxing as a sport credit. And third, a police officer mentor reassured Mora that no matter what happened with fighting, he would always have other career options, including becoming a police officer himself. This mentor encouraged him to at least give the sport a real shot.

Illustration by Soobin Kim.

But it was being selected for the reality television show The Contender that launched Mora’s financial success. The show featured professional boxers as contestants and, in true reality TV fashion, they lived under one roof and they sparred. Mora won the first season. The prize: a million dollars.

When he joined The Contender, Mora was in the red (“I had minus $150,” he said) and his highest paycheck from a fight had been $11,000 (“I thought I was rich!”). But that was by no means good enough to carve out and sustain a living. “A reality show saved me,” Mora later stated, more pointedly.

Mora’s and Reis’s stories, though distinct, coalesced and intersected throughout the evening’s conversation. They described hustling, moving in and out of various gigs and jobs, and struggling through poverty. “I just did whatever I could do,” Reis said. She braided hair, fixed motorcycles, was a waitress, personal trainer, club security guard, and a residential counselor at a group home for girls. It got so bad, she said, that she had to file as homeless to receive an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card.

Mora cut his friends’ hair for $3 a pop. “I never really had a job. I never applied for a job,” he said.

Both fighters described moving up from the “B side.” Foster jumped in to explain.

“I’m concerned with the B side. Those people don’t have anybody,” he said. Promoters who have signed boxers typically set up matches that allow their boxers to win. The B side boxer is the other guy: the “underdog” or “underside” of the match ticket—somebody with no manager and no promoter, the person they “bring in to lose.” The B side boxer has to be competitive enough for the Commission to approve the fight, but shouldn’t be good enough to win, Foster said. In the past, B siders often received just $1 to fight.

Mondragón highlighted some progress on this front: Under Foster’s leadership, in 2016, a regulation passed that outlawed the $1 contract.

The panelists discussed other promising solutions to make the industry of boxing more fair and stable, especially in California. Since there is no centralized governance of boxing, states regulate boxing differently. California regulates the most boxing events in the country and is home to the largest share of the over 23,000 registered professional boxers (3,300 males, 150 females). In 1982, Foster said, the state launched a pension program for boxers funded by ticket sales (not taxes).

When a boxer turns 50 they can access those funds, but many boxers don’t know about this. Mora himself has a pension, having fought in California, and found out about it only three weeks ago after talking to Mondragón about this event. As a remedy, Foster’s commission has hired investigators to look for these fighters, and has worked with the Mexican Consulate since many fighters with “lost” pensions are Mexican nationals.

Beside getting access to the pension, Foster, Reis, and Mora all advocated securing health insurance for fighters—perhaps through unionization—and acknowledged a need for better financial literacy. “Financial education is the main thing I would want fighters to be a part of,” Mora said.

As Mondragón wrapped up the discussion, online audience questions poured in. One asked the boxers: What is one thing you’d want to tell your younger self as a key piece of advice for those that look up to you now?

Mora didn’t hesitate: “There’s a great lesson in getting your butt kicked. Every kid needs to get their butt kicked. It teaches you humility, it teaches you respect for another person, it teaches you that you’re fallible, it teaches you that you need to work hard.”

The post Boxing Isn’t Only a Labor of Love—It’s Work appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

The first time I really paid attention to boxing ring entrances—the long, celebratory walks fighters take from their dressing rooms to the ring before a bout—was in 1992, when I watched the classic match between Julio César Chávez and Hector Camacho that symbolically pitted Mexico against Puerto Rico. I was a 7-year-old U.S.-born Mexican, yet it was Camacho’s entrance that drew me in: the blaring strains of McFadden and Whitehead’s “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now”; the flashy Captain Puerto Rico outfit; the way Camacho danced his way to the ring.

Camacho lost the fight, but he won the narrative—at least, as far as I was concerned. His ring entrance was a bravado performance of political and cultural resistance. It made such a strong impression on me that it launched me into my career researching the political economy of boxing. Today, I excavate ring entrances to understand the ways boxers make their mark on their sport—and the world.

The ring entrance allows boxers to reach new markets and increase their earning potential. It also provides a way for them to express themselves, and to communicate messages of political and cultural dissent. For this reason, the boxing ring entrance is the most important ritual in sport. It forces the world to witness boxers in all their performative glory.

Every single boxer in the history of the sport, dating back to the establishment of the 1867 Marquess of Queensberry rules, has made that long walk. Jack Johnson blew kisses at racist fans who razzed him in Sydney in 1908, and enjoyed adulation during ring entrances in later decades. In 1989, Sugar Ray Leonard entered the ring to fight Thomas “Hitman” Hearn wearing a white and red-striped robe with the word “Amandla” stitched on the back. Amandla is the isiNguni word for power, and was used by the African National Congress as a rallying cry in efforts against apartheid in South Africa. Ring entrances are spaces where boxers exercise agency and express their cultures, lived experiences, and social identities.

An effective political ring entrance has three crucial components. The first is music, which helps boxers communicate pointed messages. In the 1990s, when Mike Tyson entered the ring to Public Enemy’s “Welcome to the Terrordome,” it amplified Black hip-hop culture, and Chuck D’s powerful message. When I spoke with Chuck D and asked him what it meant to him when Tyson entered the ring to Public Enemy’s song, he replied, “Well, Tyson never lost when he did.” By linking his athletic prowess to a soundtrack that spoke truth to power, Tyson legitimated and boosted calls against racial violence.

The second is fashion and style. Boxers get to select their own uniforms and ring outfits, and their fashion choices are often connected to their lived experience and culture. World champion Kali Reis describes her purple-and-white, wampum-festooned trunks as “boxing regalia”—and they are a direct manifestation of her experiences as a multiracial Black Indigenous woman, hearkening to the tradition of fancy dancing, a type of dance performed at powwows that was reserved for men until Indigenous women challenged that societal norm. Kali is part of this rich rebellious history. By wearing garments that express her identity, she rebels against dominant structures and ideologies.

The final crucial component is an entourage. Popularized by Sugar Ray Robinson, the entourage is a traveling team, rooted in a boxer’s obligation to bring along the people who have contributed toward their success. Entourages are also a way to show the world who you are and what you stand for. In 2002, world champion boxer Fernando Vargas was scheduled to fight against Oscar De La Hoya. Vargas entered the ring with his boxing hero Julio César Chávez, a Mexican boxing icon who represented a Mexican working-class ethos, to express his pride in being Brown and Mexican. This ring entrance was particularly powerful given its timing: In post 9/11 America, the population of immigration detention centers was rising, along with anti-immigrant sentiment.

On September 13, 2018, after a successful weigh-in at Save Mart Arena in Fresno, California, fighter José Ramirez wears his “Pro-Immigrant and Proud” t-shirt. Its message is a response to President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration administration. Photo by Rudy Mondragón.

Kali "KO Mequinonoag" Reis enters the ring with her entourage, the Ashaa Takook Bird Group of the Kumeyaay/Diegueno Nation, at Sichuan Casino in El Cajon, California on August 20, 2021. Photo by Rudy Mondragón.

Deseree "Shines" Jamison enters the ring wearing a boxing robe that reads "Queen of the Ring" at Commerce Casino in Commerce, California on July 30, 2022. Photo by Rudy Mondragón.

Today, fighters such as José Ramirez continue to use ring entrances for collective empowerment. Ramirez’s parents were Mexican immigrants to California’s Central Valley, and he grew up witnessing the harsh work conditions they endured doing agricultural work. Ramirez started boxing at seven; at 14, he began working the bell pepper fields to help his family. Somehow, he kept up his training. In 2012, he represented the U.S. at the London Olympics, and soon after, he made his professional debut.

In the first years of Ramirez’s career, he partnered with the California Latino Water Coalition to raise awareness about funding for water infrastructure. When Donald Trump became president, and delivered his now-infamous speech calling Mexican immigrants murderers and rapists, Ramirez leaped to action again. At his first world title fight, against Amir Imam in March 2018, he used his ring entrance to unveil a pro-immigrant, anti-Trump message. He wore a white and red Fresno baseball jersey and a red cap, similar to Trump’s MAGA hats, but refashioned with the message “Pro-Immigrant and Proud.” His trainer at the time, the famed Freddie Roach, accompanied him to the ring, wearing the same hat. Ramirez won the fight, earning the World Boxing Council World Super Lightweight championship.

I made it my priority to attend his next fight, in Fresno, and to sit ringside, so I could see what he would do next.

Seconds before Ramirez’s descent to the ring, fans yelled, “You can do this s–t!” and “Avenal homie!,” referencing his Central Valley hometown. Ramirez and his entourage stood at the edge of the tunnel, wearing their “Pro-Immigrant and Proud” hats and t-shirts and waiting for their cue. The sounds of his theme song, “Yo Soy José De Avenal” started playing, and they began their walk.

The song was performed live by Chuy Jr. (son of Jesus “Chuy” Chavez of the well-known norteño group Los Originales de San Juan), who composed the song for Ramirez in 2017. A corrido, or traditional Mexican narrative song, it is about Ramirez’s roots in Avenal, his perfectionism in and out of the ring, his courageous no-quit spirit, his family, and his mother’s hometown of La Piedad, Michoacán. Its lyrics frame a compelling counternarrative to Trump’s racist rhetoric. For the 80 seconds of Ramirez’s ring entrance, the fight centered Mexican culture, unity, and the visibility of undocumented immigrants.

I sat down with Ramirez a few weeks after this fight and asked him what “pro-immigrant and proud” meant to him. Whether it was our president or our neighbors, he explained, “the reason they like to divide people is to make them weak. The message is for me to remind everyone that they should be proud that they’re immigrants and they come here and are doing something positive.”

Ring entrances are ephemeral, only lasting a few minutes. But through music, fashion and style, and entourages, these shows subtly and overtly communicate pride, dignity, and at times political protest. Beyond the pyrotechnics and pageantry, there is a story in every ring entrance.

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