Seeing that we just celebrated the Fourth of July holiday, many of us have the sensation to feel patriotic. Whether it is by the way we dress, putting up the American flags at our homes or on our cars, we all have that urge to represent the great old U.S.A with pride.
Even in our favorite sports we as a nation tend to become overly patriotic when our favorite American athletes are facing non American athletes. This is most apparent when it comes to one on one sports such as my favorite sport, boxing.
Which brings me to one major reason why boxing as a sport has been in quite a slump for years and that is the lack of All-American superstars in the ring.
Ask yourself when was the last time we had an all American superstar shine in boxing and was drinking all American soda and making a cheezy smile into the camera, or making a cheezy smile on the box of an all American cereal? One may have to go all the way back to the 1980's where the great Sugar Ray Leonard was doing those classic 7-Up commercials or when Mike Tyson was so hot he had his very own legendary old school Nintendo game.
Or if we even take it to the movies. In Rocky IV when the classic 1980's Cold War themed film had one of the greatest if not the greatest ring entrances of all time where the all American Apollo Creed came out to an extremely overly patriotic flamboyant Las Vegas like show with dozens of Vegas show girls and the great James Brown singing: Living In America. Creed was wearing the proud Red White and Blue trunks, robe and Uncle Sam Top Hat into the ring.
This type of ring entrance despite being completely fictional and Hollywood makes any American proud and hyped up to see their all American hero representing our nation to the world and it makes us want to watch the sport of boxing. But ever since these rad 1980's boxing has been dominated primarily by Europeans, Mexicans and many other Latinos and this may be a major reason why boxing has not been on top of the world as it was for so many decades.
It is a well known fact that in order to really make the big bucks you must shine on the main stage which is America. You have to have the big fights in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. So even though boxing has been for the most part dominated by non American fighters they still need to fight in America in order to truly become international super stars.
So here is the question I have for all of you. Who is next to rise up and represent for the great U.S.A? Which all American fighter will stand up and become the next big super star to bring America back on top of the boxing world?
Who is going to be our next Leonard, Tyson or Creed? More importantly how much longer do we have to wait for him?
Happy Birthday America! You are looking good with a brand new improved leader!
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