morrison v mercer commentary

[littlepug]

rewatched this fight last night, the copy i have has harry carpenter doin commentry, throughout the fight he refers to morrison as "the white hope" or sometimes simply just "the white man" , cant see todays commentators comimg out with those type of phrases can you ? ( perhaps buncey would )

[orbtastic]

I think a white man's perfectly entitled to refer to another white man as "the white man", in the context of the fight? He was known as The White Hope for a while, the same way other white boxers in history were known. A few eyebrows might be raised had he referred to Mercer as "the black man" continually.

The term "Great White Hope" exists as a well known term...there have been books/plays/films about it but the term goes way back to Jeffries' time. I don't think it's racist to use the term.

[littlepug]

niether do i, it was just an example of how times change although i have heard bunce refer to a fighter as "the black guy", again nothing wrong with it but nowadays it will probably raise a few eyebrows.

[HomicideHenry]

I dont understand it now, and I dont understand it then. This fight wasn't the gross mismatch on paper as many are lead to believe---- this was a rematch from the amateurs, where Mercer won a very close decision over Morrison to get into the Olympics. In this pro rematch Morrison won the first three rounds, lost the fourth and then got caught and kayoed. After that team Morrison worked harder on Morrison's stamina and overall defense (as evident in the Foreman fight).