The Baddest Man On The Planet
Briggs Says Nyet
Carlo Rotella on Shannon Briggs: The eclipse of the American heavyweight echoes the recent string of American failures in international basketball and baseball competitions and the continuing influx of athletes from around the world into these and other sports here at home. Formerly American-ruled games seem to be becoming like hockey and soccer, in which the U.S. is just one competitor among many, no more fearsome than Sweden or Spain. Jingoistic fans should worry that soon the only sport that homegrown Americans can count on dominating will be football, which almost nobody else plays. And those who believe that certain aspects of sport qualify as Black Things — like basketball or the heavyweight title — might even suspect a conspiracy.
Briggs played on these anxieties when he called himself the Black Hope, the American Hope. Joe Louis became such a contradictory hero, simultaneously representing African-Americans and a nation that did not treat them as equal citizens, when he fought his rematch with the German champion Max Schmeling. That was in 1938, during the buildup to World War II. How did we get to the point where we need a Black Hope now?
