Boxing Champ Sergio “the Latin Snake” Mora

The Best Education Is Getting Your Ass Whooped

Sergio “the Latin Snake” Mora is currently a boxing analyst for DAZN. He is a former WBC light middleweight champion and was the first winner of NBC’s The Contender series. Before joining the Zócalo program “What Does Boxing Owe Its Champions?”—presented in partnership with UCLA College, Division of Social Sciences and ASU Global Sport Institute—Mora chatted with us in the green room about growing up in East Los Angeles, where he got his nickname from, and LeBron’s Lakers.

Boxer and Actress Kali “KO” Mequinonoag Reis

It’s Not Me, It’s ‘We’ for the Things I Fight For

Kali “KO” Mequinonoag Reis is a professional boxer and actress. She hails from East Providence, Rhode Island, and is a member of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe, and is the first …

California State Athletic Commission Executive Director Andy Foster

I’m Just Like Michael Scott from The Office

Andy Foster is the California State Athletic Commission executive director. Previously, he served as executive director of the Georgia Athletic and Entertainment Commission and also as regional director of the …

Sport and Ethnic Studies Scholar Rudy Mondragón

I Want Boxers' Stories to Live on

Rudy Mondragón is a UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California, Los Angeles. Before moderating the Zócalo program “What …

Boxing Isn’t Only a Labor of Love—It’s Work

The Industry Will Require Collective Effort to Overcome the Challenges Champions Face in and out of the Ring

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 …

Boxers Know the Power of an Entrance

The Way a Fighter Steps Into the Ring Communicates Everything From Pride to Protest

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 …