By Chester Rivers: Reading between the lines you all know what the title is insinuating. For those who still don’t understand let me put it in simpler terms. Boxing is more profitable when an African American holds the heavyweight title.
Race is as taboo of a subject in an open forum as they come but it is also the subconscious force that drives boxing’s revenue. Let’s not forget boxing is the sport that gave us terms such as “the great white hope”.
Ironically boxing is the first professional sport in American that allowed people of color to participate. While Jack Johnson could not use a public restroom of his choice in 1910, he would participate in the one of the largest gates in boxing history. Johnson, the first black man to hold the heavyweight title, defeated Jim Jeffries in front of 30,000 boxing fans. The fight itself was billed as Jeffries being the hope of the entire white race to regain the title.