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 Does Boxing Owe Its Champions?”—presented in partnership with UCLA College, Division of Social Sciences and ASU Global Sport Institute—he chatted with us in the green room about photography, his research, and what connects him to boxing.

June 2, 2023

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

by Talib Jabbar | May 24, 2023

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

by Rudy Mondragón | May 22, 2023

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 …

When Black Prizefighters Consider Family as Much a Symbol of Masculinity as a Knockout

By Defining Themselves as Family Men Outside the Ring, They Link Patriarchal Pride With Athletic Prowess

By Louis Moore | March 21, 2018

Standing 6 feet 7 inches, with an athlete’s body, Deontay Wilder dreamed of going pro in either football or basketball. But at 19, with a newborn girl who had spina …

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