Philosophical Fight Log: Day 5 – City of Champions
I was born in 1980, in Brockton, Massachusetts, otherwise known as ‘The City of Champions’ for its production of not one but two of Boxing’s greats; Rocky Marciano and ‘Marvelous’ Marvin Hagler. Some of my most vivid childhood memories were those of family gatherings where the men of the family would congregate around the television to watch Marvelous Marvin best the likes of Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearns, and others. I remember it being a very big deal and a shock to everyone in the local area when Hagler surprisingly lost to a young and upcoming ‘Sugar’ Ray Leonard. It was almost as bad as a Celtics’ loss to the Showtime Lakers. Almost.
Later on, in my early High School years, the brash, Peter McNeeley, training out of neighboring Whitman (where I actually grew up) would end up fighting a recently-released-from-jail, prime, and highly-motivated Mike Tyson, who violently dispatched the journeyman within the first 90 seconds of the bout. A decade or so later, as MMA began to eclipse Boxing both in popularity and viewership, local mixed martial arts legends like Joe Lauzon, Alex Karalexis, and Josh Grispi would emerge to become the new faces of combat sports within the region as well as for my particular generation.
This is all to say that, Brockton and its surrounding area has always been a ‘fighting’ city. It is in the DNA of its streets, its buildings, its culture, and its people.[1]
Literally founded as a ‘model city’ for the nation in the 1880s, Brockton was the first city in the world to have a three-wire, underground electrical system that Thomas Edison himself actually threw the switch to activate.[2] During this era, Brockton was also the unofficial shoe capital of the country and essentially functioned like a mini-Detroit but for the production of shoes instead of automobiles. In neighboring Whitman, the majority of the town, including my grandparents and much of my family, worked at the famous ‘Shank Shop’; a large, industrial factory that produced shanks, a particular part of the shoe. These shoe factories were the heart and lifeblood of the local economy. And very much like boxing or fighting, these factories served as contexts whereby the average working man could literally use his hands to provide for both himself and for his family, with hard work, competence, sweat, and dignity.
That being said, there has always seemed to be a close connection between gritty, industrial, blue-collar cities and combat sports subculture.
‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier famously emerged out of Philly. Mike Tyson, of course, was forged by an early childhood on the streets of Brooklyn. Connor MacGregor, from the gritty streets of Dublin. And Darren Till and now Paddy ‘the Baddy’ Pimblett from working class Liverpool. I’m not sure what the causal connection is between these things, or as to why you always seem to find such a close connection between combat sports and these kinds of environments. Something about environmental pressures or class or what not. Who knows? But the tight connection is there nonetheless.
Does the city produce the fighting man or does the fighting man produce the city?
The answer isn’t obvious.
But, when viewed from afar, the city and the fighter begin to look increasingly indistinguishable.
That said, Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler are now both dead, and the industrial and manufacturing base of Brockton and its surrounding towns have long since been outsourced overseas for cheaper labor. The Shank Shop is now a set of luxury apartment buildings and the remainder of such buildings and buildings like them now litter the South Shore, Massachusetts landscape like temple ruins from some bygone civilization long-abandoned. The city’s best days seem to be long behind it.
That being said, the fighting spirit of the City of Champions and its surrounding areas still very much lives on and can still very much be felt here and there, now and again, in certain pockets and moments and spaces if one knows what to look for and to listen for. Make no mistake about it, there is still plenty of fight in the old city; in its streets, in its fighters, and in its people; and electricity, though of a different sort, still very much runs deeply and powerfully through its underground, palpably and tangibly so. And if one pays close enough attention, and if one is silent enough, then sometimes, on certain occasions, during certain moments, the city itself even speaks back, and one can still hear and feel the fighting spirit of the old ‘Brockton Blockbuster’s’ ghost.
(Disclaimer: For anyone familiar with the area, I’m most definitely not trying to claim that I grew up in ‘the mean streets’ of Brockton. Leafy, suburban, blue-collar Whitman, my home, is very soft and comfy compared to actual parts of Brockton and I don’t want to appear that I’m misrepresenting myself as being from where I’m not. That said, the main point here is that the greater surrounding region still very much feels the social, economic, and cultural effects of cities like Brockton nonetheless and has felt such effects for some time now.)
[1] Indeed, nearby Abington boasts the likes of John L. Sullivan, arguably the greatest bare-knuckle-boxer in American history.
https://www.sportshistoryweekly.com/stories/bare-knuckle-boxing-john-sullivan,427
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brockton,_Massachusetts#Historical_firsts