A History of Boxing in Mexico: Masculinity, Modernity, and Nationalism by Stephen D. Allen (review)

This book traces the construction and contestation of Mexican revolutionary nationalism through the lens of boxing. Covering the 1920s through the 1980s, Allen argues that sports like boxing united a population dislocated from rapid industrial urbanization. Bridging the city and countryside, the working-class and elite, boxing made Mexico a modern, cosmopolitan destination for tourism and foreign investments, yet still rooted the sports in traditional symbols of national pride.

Building on anthropologist Heather Levi’s work with lucha libre (professional wrestling), as well as recent scholarship on state formation and on sport and emotion, Allen demonstrates that middle-class nationalism and modern masculinity go hand-in-hand in post-revolutionary Mexico. Boxing became a lens into Mexico’s national identity—its mexicanidad—, its growing internationalism, and above all, its modernity. On the other hand, Allen convincingly demonstrates how the sport also served as a barometer for hope and anxiety about Mexico’s future while also showing the limits of revolutionary nationalism’s ties to sports.

Chapter One begins with a background of boxing as an elite sport during the Porfiriatio, but shows how post-revolutionary administrations fostered ideas about nationalism vis-à-vis sports. Boxing occupied an important role in showing the masculine side of the athletes (aggressive in the ring) but also their reserve and conservative lifestyles (no drinking or womanizing). Sports programming was also one of the state’s methods for assimilating indigenous populations into the fabric of the mestizo nation. Allen highlights how the boxing commission used Aztec warrior symbols in advertising their events but in reality had little interest in contemporary indigenous life. Rather, the appropriation of native symbols anchored Mexico in an imagined traditional past as it rapidly adapted a consumerist lifestyle.

Each subsequent chapter offers a biography of a different boxer. ranging from those representing PRI Presidentialism to counter-cultural boxers. For example, Chapter Four’s sketch of 1960s boxer Vicente Saldívar depicts his warm relationship with Mexican presidents, with Saldívar often appearing alongside them at events. During the 1950s and early 1960s, boxing became a grandstand for Mexican presidentialism, a shining symbol of national progress that politicians could feed its constituents right on the television screen via images of state-of-the-art athletic stadiums, trendy apartment complexes, international sports teams competing in Mexico City, and large Mexican companies advertising high-end luxury items during commercials. Saldívar also represented Mexico’s connection to modernity when he boxed internationally.

Yet Allen does not romanticize this connection; he describes the long lobbying by corporate magnates and politicians to have Mexico host the 1968 Summer Olympics. For student protesters, the Olympics were just one more example of how the PRI was out of touch with the basic needs of its people. In response to huge marches and protest speeches in the weeks leading up to the opening ceremony, the government authorized deadly force against the students, leading to hundreds of deaths and hundreds of disappearances. Using the work of Elaine Carey, Allen shows how the1968 student movement changed not just trust in government or gender relations, but also how boxers presented themselves. After the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, many boxers distanced themselves from politics, hesitant to cozy up again so tightly with the PRI government, and instead forged a new path more centered on the boxer’s personal lifestyle, replete with quirky traits and relationship gossip. Thus, the Tlatelolco massacre damaged respect for the PRI as it lost its control over politics and popular culture.

Boxing is also a site of contestation over what it means to be Mexican. In Chapter Six, Allen argues that conceptualizations of mexicanidad pushed boundaries when 1970s boxers such as José Nápoles (an Afro- Cuban who immigrated to Mexico) tried to represent Mexico. Can an Afro-Cuban immigrant boxer embody Mexicanidad? On one hand, Nápoles represented a black symbol of Mexican nationalism, showing the intersection of race, citizenship, and boxing...