Assignment Five: Urbanization and sports—from bare knuckle boxing to Jack Johnson

The sport of boxing in the twentieth century was very common within the working class, especially popular among the young men, yet there were long time competitors that strived to continue and uphold their titles within the ring, for other reasons besides having the title – reasons that young competitors would not yet fully understand. Being in the ring was a scary place to be, but with the right training and preparation, one could leave the ring with glory from defeating their opponent – exemplified by the press, and with large sums of money to make all ends meet. As young competitors joined the sport and prepared for their upcoming matches, they were more often than not competing for one reason and one reason only – the glory, the admiration, and the reputation. But there comes a time when all motivation within the ring changes. Although the boxers had nothing against each other, and the game had to be played, the incentive behind the aging boxers was no longer the same as it was during their youth. They were no longer competing just for the glory; they were now competing for their families at home; competing to make ends meet to continue to support their loved ones. When taking a look at the lifestyle behind the sport of boxing in the twentieth century for the working class, I found that a quote from the boxing movie Rocky interpreted the lifestyle quite well. The quote is as follows, “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!” For the men of this era, life was not necessarily a walk in the park. Within the ring they were hit again and again by their competitors, round after round to compare who had the greater physical ability to keep moving forward, to keep fighting. Yet, once leaving the ring, the battle was not over. For these families living as the working class, life was a continuous battle, the rounds were never ending and the hits would come unexpectedly. The older the men and women became in this era, the more vital it was for them to find ways to provide for themselves and their families. That is why the motivation changed within the ring. The older men were no longer competing just for the magnificence of being a great boxer; they were challenging their opponents in order to win a well-deserved battle so that they could come home and not go to bed hungry, so that they could afford their house payments that were long overdue, so that they could provide and meet the needs of their family. A battle such as this is not one most people would like to face, but the working class had no choice. The men and women took life as it came, sometimes they would win and sometimes they would lose, but one thing they all had in common – was that they kept moving forward.