677845
research-article2016
IRS0010.1177/1012690216677845International Review for the Sociology of SportAstor and Riba
Research Article
Knocked out: Ritual
disruption and the decline
of Spanish boxing
International Review for the
Sociology of Sport
1­–19
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1012690216677845
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Avi Astor and Jofre Riba
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Abstract
Scholars have written extensively on the emergence of mass sports in modern industrial societies,
and the factors that have facilitated the development of ‘hegemonic sports cultures’. Less has
been written on how the structure and content of ‘national sport spaces’ change over time,
and the reasons that certain sports cultures have failed to sustain their popular appeal amid
processes of political, social and cultural transformation. This article analyses the sharp decline in
the popularity of Spanish boxing during the 1970s and 1980s. In explaining this decline, we draw
attention to a series of developments that disrupted rituals of spectatorship that were key to
sustaining the sport’s fan base. Our findings highlight the importance of ritual to the reproduction
of hegemonic sports cultures and identify ‘ritual disruption’ as a mechanism through which broad
societal changes may alter the configuration of national sport spaces.
Keywords
boxing, Catalonia, media, ritual, space, Spain, sport
Boxing was once one of Spain’s most widely followed sports. During the 1920s and
1930s, top boxers were public icons whose fame was on par with the greatest soccer stars
and bullfighters in the country. Major fights were staged in the largest stadiums available, sometimes attracting tens of thousands of spectators. After being sidetracked by the
Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), boxing gradually re-established itself as one of Spain’s
most popular sports and continued to attract a mass following through the 1960s. During
the 1970s and 1980s, however, Spanish boxing underwent a steep decline, despite the
presence of several world-class champions, such as José Manuel Urtain, Perico Fernández
and Javier Castillejo. Although boxing has undergone somewhat of a revival in recent
years, its popular appeal remains remarkably low.
Corresponding author:
Avi Astor, Department of Sociology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Avinguda Eix Central,
Edifici B, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain.
Email: [email protected]
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International Review for the Sociology of Sport 
While Spain is far from the only country where boxing has undergone a decline in
popularity, the depth of boxing’s crisis in Spain is striking. Whereas boxing continues to
attract a relatively wide following in other European countries, such as Great Britain,
Ireland, France and Germany, with major boxing events drawing large crowds and significant media coverage, in Spain promoters struggle to attract a sufficient number of fans to
attend events involving the best boxers the country has to offer.1 Moreover, boxing has
virtually no presence in mainstream Spanish media. As a contributor to the The Guardian
recently wrote, ‘Given that Spain is obsessed with sport, the country’s total antipathy
towards the noble art of boxing is a strange one…When the former world champion, Kiko
Martínez, challenged Scott Quigg for the WBA super-bantamweight title in Manchester
this month, you had to do some serious excavating to unearth any news on an athlete that
anywhere else on the planet would be a national superstar’ (Gibson, 2015).2
This article examines the processes underlying the major crisis that hit Spanish boxing during the 1970s and 1980s. We devote special attention to the context of Barcelona,
the historical centre of Spanish boxing and the city where the crisis was initially most
pronounced. In explaining the decline of boxing in Barcelona, we emphasize two main
developments that disrupted the rituals of spectatorship that had been key to sustaining
boxing’s popular following. The first was the closure of iconic venues where boxing
events had regularly been staged due to broader processes of urban transformation and
uncontrolled speculation affecting Barcelona and other major Spanish cities at the time.
The second was the essential disappearance of boxing from mainstream media due, in
part, to an ideological campaign led by the daily El País, which was a leading voice for
change during Spain’s democratic transition. By disrupting the regular organization of
boxing events and the habitual consumption of boxing news, these developments undermined the rituals of spectatorship that had sustained the public’s identification with, and
interest in, the national and local boxing scenes. Our findings highlight the centrality of
ritual to the reproduction of hegemonic sports cultures, and the role of what we call
‘ritual disruption’ as a mechanism through which broad societal transformations may
alter the configuration of national sport spaces.
The reproduction and transformation of hegemonic sports
cultures
Social scientists have contributed significantly to our understanding of the rise of
‘hegemonic sports cultures’ in modern, industrialized societies and the factors that have
enabled or prevented the popularization of various sports in distinct national contexts
(Markovits and Hellerman, 2001; Smith and Porter, 2004; Van Bottenburg, 2003).
Scholars have also studied how the global diffusion of sport has been shaped by processes of colonialism and globalization (Kaufman and Patterson, 2005; Maguire, 2011).
Less has been written on how the configuration of ‘national sport spaces’ may change
with time, and why certain sports that once enjoyed a mass following have been unable
to sustain their popularity amid societal transformations.
In their influential book on soccer and American exceptionalism, Markovits and
Hellerman (2001: 15) contend that national sport spaces generally took shape during the
‘crucial decades of industrial proliferation and the establishment of modern mass
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3
societies’. Those sports that succeeded in achieving a mass following during this period
had a major advantage over ‘newcomers’ that attempted to enter national sport spaces at
later moments in time. In explaining why hegemonic sports cultures tend to remain so
stable over time, Markovits and Hellerman (2001: 14) refer to the ‘stickiness’ of social
institutions, and the role of ‘tradition, habit, custom, and simple inertia’. Nevertheless,
like Bourdieu (1978), they recognize that the world of sport is a field of struggle that is
subject to change with shifting configurations of power and class structure. Hence, they
write that the ‘positions within any society’s sport space can thus be denied by dominant
groups and alliances of interests’ (Markovits and Hellerman, 2001: 15). Yet they do not
explicate the concrete mechanisms or pathways by which powerful actors may alter the
composition of national sport spaces.
At the most general level, we might distinguish between gradual and abrupt sources
of change in sport. Elias and Dunning’s (1986) seminal work on sport and the civilizational process centres primarily on gradual sources of change, as they show how longterm cultural transformations generated by shifting ‘figurations’ of social relations and
political power have progressively limited the presence of aggression, violence and danger in modern sport and leisure. In the case of combat sports, Elias highlights how in
ancient Greece and Rome restrictions on the types of manoeuvres that fighters could
employ to inflict harm on their opponents were scant. Moreover, it was not uncommon
for combats to result in serious injury or death. Modern boxing, by contrast, has been
subject to an increasing assortment of rules and regulations meant to limit the risk of
injury. While deaths do occur on occasion, the brutality of boxing pales in comparison to
that of ancient combat sports. The impetus toward limiting violence and ensuring the
safety of athletes, Elias argues, is the outcome of a more general civilizing process in
modern societies.
While shifting societal values and sensibilities are undoubtedly important for understanding the gradual evolution and transformation of sporting cultures over time, there
are certain limitations to gradualist approaches to explaining change. For one, social
perceptions of violence in sport are shaped not only by general social sensibilities, but
also by processes of cultural framing. For example, bullfighting is arguably a much more
bloody affair than boxing, and far more Spanish toreros have died practising their craft
than Spanish boxers. Yet bullfighting has remained a celebrated form of Spanish culture,
and the violence and danger endemic to bullfighting have not obviated an appreciation
for its aesthetic dimensions among a large segment of the populace.3 Secondly, the
emphasis on long-term changes in social values and sensibilities does not account for
how more proximate developments and events may produce changes in the public appeal
of different sports within shorter time frames.
Although Elias and Dunning were concerned primarily with gradual change in social
preferences for sport and leisure, their conceptual framework offers insight into possible
sources of shorter-term changes in sport as well. Sánchez García (2009) has adapted
Elias’ figurational approach to explain how relatively abrupt changes in political power
and social relations generated by major societal transformations may alter the configuration of national sport spaces in a rather short timespan. In the case of Spanish boxing, he
contends that Spain’s democratic transition during the 1970s led to the empowerment of
previously repressed segments of the middle class, which subsequently inflicted serious
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International Review for the Sociology of Sport 
damage on boxing’s reputation by setting in motion a ‘figuration of rejection’ via their
control of key media outlets. Questions remain, however, regarding the concrete mechanisms that account for how this general ‘figuration of rejection’ altered relatively
entrenched practices of spectatorship among the working classes.4
Developing a clearer understanding of the mechanisms that may lead to a relatively
swift decline of a given sport’s popular appeal is the focus of this article. Drawing from
recent work on the importance of ritual to the emergence and persistence of cultural
forms and practices (Collins, 2004; Couldry, 2003), we argue that the ritualization of
different forms of spectatorship is critical to the reproduction of hegemonic sports cultures. Major disruptions to the rituals that sustain the interest and affective attachments
of ordinary followers of a given sport may have dire consequences for the sport’s ability
to maintain its fan base. Such disruptions may result from a variety of factors, not all of
which derive from a conscious intent to undermine the sport’s popularity.
Elaborating the totality of meanings attributed to ‘ritual’ in the extensive anthropological and sociological literature on the topic is beyond the scope of this article. We
focus here on two senses of ritual that are particularly pertinent to sport. The first is the
interactive and emotive sense of ritual that Collins (2004) offers in his elaboration and
extension of Goffman’s (1967) concept of ‘interaction ritual’. Interaction rituals, according to Collins, are situational episodes of bodily co-presence that involve shared emotional experience and cognitive focus. Such rituals bolster feelings of solidarity and
reinforce the value that participants place on the symbols that represent the group or
activity with which they identify. Sporting events are prototypical examples of interaction rituals insofar as they entail large physical gatherings in which ‘the crowd collectively builds up a sense of anticipation and its shared enthusiasm over the flow of events’
(Collins, 2004: 58). Despite the fact that digital media may provide a clearer and more
detailed overall view of sporting events, many fans prefer the excitement that comes
from sharing the experience of spectatorship together with a large crowd. The energy and
emotion that fans feel when watching a live event amplify their veneration for the sport
and its main icons. Such ‘collective effervescence’, to use Durkheim’s (1915) terminology, also engenders a sense of belonging to a broader community of fans bonded together
by their shared passion for sport.
The second sense of ritual that we focus upon in our analysis is habitual action and,
more specifically, patterned forms of behaviour that foster a connection to broader
social worlds and values (see Couldry, 2003). In the realm of sport, seemingly mundane daily rituals, such as reading the sports section while eating breakfast or commuting to work, listening to sports programmes on the radio, or watching sports
broadcasts and highlights on the television or internet, constitute a means for fans to
remain informed about their favourite athletes, teams and leagues. News media play
a key role in building up anticipation for sporting events by providing the backstories
that imbue them with dramatic tension. Put another way, they furnish the narrative
context that enables fans to become wrapped up in the storylines and dramas that
make the world of sport so compelling.
Through habitual practices of spectatorship, individuals come to identify as ‘fans’ of
a given sport and become connected to the broader social and cultural worlds surrounding the sport. From a purely financial standpoint, habitual forms of spectatorship create
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the stability and reliability necessary for promoters and organizers to be confident that
their investments will yield a profit. This is true for both actual sporting events, as well
as the rest of the commercial industry built around sport.
Birrell (1981) has also analysed the connection between ritual and sport. She focuses,
however, on the importance of sports’ ‘ritualistic overtones’ to their overall social significance. Specifically, she argues that athletes mediate the relation between individuals and
the broader moral order through embodying societal values, such as courage and integrity, and displaying them in ‘dramatic and public situations’ (Birrell, 1981: 366). In the
analysis that follows, we contend that developing a firmer grasp of the ritualistic dimensions of sport is useful not only for understanding its wider social meaning, but also for
illuminating the mechanisms that underlie the reproduction or decline of hegemonic
sports cultures.
More concretely, we argue that the ability of sports to sustain the loyalty and support
of their fan base depends critically on the staging of events with sufficient regularity to
maintain fans’ affective ties, as well as a certain threshold of media coverage required for
ensuring that fans have access to the narrative context necessary for building up interest
and anticipation prior to new events. Major disruptions to the ordinary calendar of events
and/or significant alterations in the media coverage of a given sport may thus seriously
damage its position within the national sport space. Such disruptions may result from the
intentional actions of powerful individuals or organizations that have the ability to exert
influence over the staging of sporting events or the degree to which such events are covered in the media. They may also be the unintended consequences of broader social and
economic developments that bear upon the material and cultural infrastructure upon
which sports depend. As we show over the course of this article, the ritual disruptions
that proved most damaging to Catalan and Spanish boxing resulted from both consciously-intended attacks on the sport by new social actors that emerged with Spain’s
democratic transition and broader urban transformations whose ramifications for boxing
were largely unintended.
Gauging and analysing boxing’s popular appeal
Measuring the popularity of sport or the degree to which a given sport is ‘hegemonic’, in
Markovits and Hellerman’s (2001) sense of the term, is no simple task. One relatively
straightforward way of assessing a given sport’s popularity is through survey data. Such
data, however, are not always available or valid. In the case of Spanish boxing, two relevant surveys are worth mentioning. A survey on athletics in Spain published in 1975 by
ICSA Gallup found that 5.7% of respondents were ‘interested’ in boxing. Extrapolated to
the general population, this would have amounted to about 1.75 million followers (ICSA
Gallup, 1975). In a similar survey published by the Center for Sociological Research in
1981, just 1.1% of respondents indicated interest in boxing (García Ferrando, 1981).
These surveys, however, likely underestimated boxing’s general following, as they did
not include boxing as one of the predefined options for respondents to select. In order to
indicate interest in boxing, respondents had to write it in themselves under the category
‘Others’. The omission of boxing as a predefined option is surprising, especially in the
1975 survey, given the inclusion of far less popular sports such as sailing and shooting.5
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International Review for the Sociology of Sport 
Although the surveys may lack validity due to this omission, they do point to a significant decline in boxing’s popularity during the late 1970s.
Markovits and Hellerman (2001: 10) suggest assessing the extent to which a sports
culture ‘dominates a country’s emotional attachments’ when gauging its level of hegemony within the national sport space. Given the difficulty of developing precise measurements of emotional attachment, scholars have generally opted to employ what Kaufman
and Patterson (2005: 86) term a ‘qualitative, impressionistic approach’. This entails
observing the presence of a given sport in the media, the fame and endorsements enjoyed
by its biggest stars, the degree to which it is discussed by the public, and the general
scope of its following within the context(s) of interest.
The range of impressionistic information available is, of course, more ample for the study
of contemporary sports cultures than for those that existed in the past, as it is possible to
observe firsthand the degree to which contemporary sports are (or are not) significant topics
of conversation in sports bars, cafes and other relevant venues. Nevertheless, there are a number of materials available to gauge the popular appeal of past sports cultures. For this study,
we relied heavily on media coverage, analysing the number of articles dealing with boxing in
two major Spanish newspapers, ABC and La Vanguardia, which have been digitally archived
and indexed dating back to the late 19th century. We read and coded all articles with the keywords ‘boxeo’ and ‘boxe’ every fifth year since 1915 in order to get a feel for the evolution of
boxing’s coverage in Spanish newspapers targeting a general audience.6
As can be seen in Figure 1, newspaper coverage of boxing was at its peak during the
1920s and 1930s, prior to the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). As we explain in more
Figure 1. Total number of articles on boxing events every fifth year in the Spanish newspapers
La Vanguardia and ABC (1915–2015).
Source: Compiled by authors based on a review of the digital archives of each newspaper.
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detail later, Madrid gradually came to displace Barcelona as the centre of Spain’s boxing
scene, in large part due to Franco’s efforts to establish Madrid as the prime locus of all
major Spanish sports. This is reflected in the sharp rise in coverage devoted to boxing by
the Madrid-based ABC relative to the Catalonia-based La Vanguardia in the aftermath of
the war. Most importantly for the purposes of this article, we see a steep drop in coverage
from 1980 onward. A similar pattern may be observed in the more specialized sports
newspaper, El Mundo Deportivo, though the decline in its coverage of boxing occurred
slightly later than that of ABC and La Vanguardia (see Appendix).
Despite our reliance on media coverage to attain a general sense of boxing’s public
visibility and popularity over time, we are not uncritical in our interpretation of such
coverage. Indeed, a principal argument that we advance over the course of this article is
that the media’s coverage of sports, as well as other cultural activities, is not purely a
reflection of popular taste, but also of dominant definitions of ‘legitimate’ or ‘civil’ cultural practices and functions. Ideological positions on the morality of different sports
may have a significant impact on the degree of coverage they receive, especially those
that entail combat or other types of violence.
Given the ideological influences on the media’s coverage of combat sports, we have
not relied exclusively on quantitative indicators of boxing’s popular appeal, but also on
qualitative indicators, such as the content of editorials written on boxing over the years.
Such editorials provided us with insight into broad perceptions regarding the general
state of Spanish boxing during different time periods. For instance, as Spanish boxing
entered into crisis during the late 1970s and 1980s, editorials lamenting its decline were
relatively common. The following is a sampling of illustrative quotes from several such
editorials:
Since Barcelona lost the Gran Price – a shame that will always fall back on those who were
comically called the ‘leaders’ of the Spanish sport – boxing entered into a decline until it ended
up drowning. (La Vanguardia, 20 September 1977)7
Spanish boxing is a delicate patient that survives with more distresses than symptoms of
rehabilitation. (El Mundo Deportivo, 2 March 1980)
1980 ends and Spanish boxing, that dead sport, has three European champions. (ABC, 26
December 1980)
Boxing is half dead, in a likely irreversible ‘K.O.’, from the blows it has received from ‘cultured
people’. (ABC, 16 October 1985)
The panorama of Spanish professional boxing after the first six months of 1987 could not be
more desolate. (El Mundo Deportivo, 7 June 1987)
We also read books and essays on legendary Spanish boxers and fights, iconic boxing
venues and other facets of the boxing industry (Guillamón, 2014a, 2014b; León Gross
and Rivera, 2014; Lorente, 2002; Luis Garci, 2016; Roglan, 2007). Though written for a
general audience, these works include rich impressionistic accounts of Spain’s boxing
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International Review for the Sociology of Sport 
scene and its temporal evolution. Juli Lorente’s (1996a, 1996b) massive two-volume
chronology of Catalan boxing was a particularly useful source of information on the
historical trajectory of boxing in Barcelona and the rest of Catalonia.
In addition to our review of media coverage and literature on boxing, we conducted
semi-structured interviews with several informants who have special knowledge of
Spanish boxing in order to obtain their perspectives on how the boxing scene has changed
over time. One of our informants, Josep Pons, was a former amateur boxer in Barcelona
during the 1960s and 1970s. He is currently writing a chronology of Catalan boxing dating back to the early 20th century. A second informant was Javier Gallego, the director
of Catalonia’s most renowned boxing promotion company, Gallego Prada Promotions.
We also interviewed two journalists who specialize in Spanish boxing. Antonio Albalat
wrote extensively on boxing during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s for a variety of boxing
magazines, including Dicen (Spain), Boxeo de España (Spain), KO Mundial (Argentina)
and Ring Mundial (México). A second journalist, who preferred to remain anonymous,
covers more contemporary developments in Spanish boxing. Interviews were conducted
over the course of a year from the summer of 2015 to the summer of 2016. They were
recorded and transcribed in Spanish. The quotes included in this article have been translated into English by the authors.
Apart from formal semi-structured interviews, we had numerous informal conversations with boxing trainers and professionals affiliated with Gallego Prada, where one of
the authors has been training since September 2015. Several of these individuals have
been active in the Spanish boxing scene for decades. Given the profundity of our data on
Barcelona’s boxing scene, as well as the fact that Barcelona was the initial centre of
Spanish boxing, we have elected to focus in-depth on boxing’s evolution in the Catalan
capital. In focusing on Barcelona, we do not presume that our explanation for boxing’s
decline in the city is applicable to all contexts in which boxing has lost its popular appeal.
We are cognizant of how similar outcomes – in this instance the decline of boxing – may
result from distinct causal pathways in different contexts.8 Nevertheless, in-depth case
studies such as the present investigation facilitate the identification of causal mechanisms and contribute to the development of new theoretical concepts and hypotheses that
may subsequently be examined in other contexts (George and Bennett, 2005; Yin, 2009).
Through tracing the processes that led to boxing’s decline in Barcelona, we discovered the importance of a series of developments that disrupted the rituals of spectatorship
that had previously sustained boxing’s popular appeal in the city. Although we centre our
analysis on the impact of what we have termed ‘ritual disruption’ on Barcelona’s boxing
scene, we advance evidence suggesting that similar dynamics were at play elsewhere in
Spain as well. The concept of ‘ritual disruption’ that we develop, moreover, is broadly
conceived and may thus be explored in a variety of contexts, not only as it relates to boxing but also as it relates to the changing popularity of other cultural forms.
Boxing’s arrival to Spain
Barcelona was, without question, the original centre of Spanish boxing. In explaining
the arrival of boxing to the Catalan capital during the 18th century, chroniclers often
cite a short book written in 1914 by the Spanish journalist Isidre Corbinos that makes
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mention of an unnamed Menorcan sailor who learned about pugilism while working as
a crew member on a British ship and later introduced the ‘noble art’ to a Spaniard
named Bergé during one of his brief stops in Barcelona. According to Corbinos, Bergé
set up a small boxing studio in 1876 in the Barceloneta, an old fisherman’s neighbourhood located along the sea. During the early 1900s, boxing spread from the humble
studios initially founded by Bergé and his disciples to more prestigious clubs in the
city (Corbinos, 1914).
Whether or not this ‘origin story’ is true is difficult to ascertain, as it is based on the
writings of one journalist who offered little evidence to corroborate his claims. What is
clear, however, is that boxing quickly gained a foothold within Barcelona’s ‘sport space’
during the 1910s and 1920s. A variety of factors contributed to Barcelona’s emergence
as the initial capital of Spanish boxing. As a major port city, it had long been a locus of
cultural interchange and gateway for the entry of new cultural forms from abroad. Given
its proximity to France, moreover, Barcelona was heavily influenced by French culture.
Prior to boxing’s emergence as a mass sport in the city, the public’s curiosity had been
piqued by media coverage of French boxing (Sánchez García, 2009).
Barcelona also had a sizable working-class population due to the power of its industrial sector. In contrast to other Spanish regions, Catalonia had undergone a significant
degree of industrialization by the end of the 19th century, particularly in the textile sector
(Thomson, 2005). As in other European contexts, industrial production had expedited
processes of urban expansion and generated a concentrated mass of unskilled labourers,
many of whom arrived to Barcelona from more rural settings within and outside of
Catalonia. Boxing’s general appeal among the working classes made Barcelona a fertile
terrain for the sport to extend its base of fans and practitioners.
The first boxing federations in Spain were established in Barcelona, reflecting its
prominence within the national boxing scene. In 1921, delegates from several local clubs
created the ‘Spanish Boxing Federation’ and established its headquarters in the heart of
Barcelona’s Raval neighbourhood. The federation was subsequently admitted to the
International Boxing Union and oversaw compliance with international regulations
(Roglan, 2007). This enabled Spanish boxers to begin competing internationally, and as
early as 1927 Spain boasted four of Europe’s eight championship titles.
By the late 1920s, Barcelona’s boxing scene was one of the most, if not the most,
vibrant in Europe. Top boxers such as Josep Gironès, Young Ciclone, Víctor Ferrand and
Carlos Flix enjoyed immense fame, as evidenced by their pervasive presence in the
media, their assortment of lucrative product endorsements, and the tremendous crowds
drawn by their bouts. Professional and amateur boxing events were organized with regularity at several different venues, and dozens of boxing clubs were opened within the
city, as well as in its surrounding metropolitan area. Major fights were staged in the largest stadiums available, including the Arenas and Monumental bullfighting arenas and the
Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium on Montjuïc. The strength of Barcelona’s boxing
scene enabled promoters to attract top-notch boxers from around the world to fight in the
city. A fight between Spain’s heavyweight champion, Paulino Uzcudun, and Italy’s
Primo Carnera that took place in the Olympic Stadium on Montjuïc in 1930 drew an
estimated 60,000 spectators. Other notable international boxers who fought in Barcelona
included Max Schmeling, Freddie Miller and Panama Al Brown. The late 1920s and
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International Review for the Sociology of Sport 
early 1930s constituted, without a doubt, the golden age of Catalan and Spanish boxing
(Meyer and Girard, 1966).
The Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) brought an end to the golden age of boxing in Spain.
Very few sporting events of any kind were organized throughout the duration of the bitter
war. Resuscitating the boxing scene in Barcelona and elsewhere in Spain following the
war proved difficult for a variety of reasons. In addition to the fact that ordinary rituals
of spectatorship had been severely disrupted, many of Catalonia’s most popular boxers
were either exiled or killed as a result of their involvement or suspected collaboration
with the anarchists, communists, Republicans or other groups opposed to Franco’s rebellion (Pedret, 2004). Barcelona’s most beloved boxer, Josep Gironès, was exiled to
México and never returned. His close friend and European boxing champion, Carlos
Flix, was executed toward the beginning of the war. Other boxers, such as Víctor Ferrand
and Llorenç Vítria, perished in exile or at the hands of Franco’s death squads.
Once in power, Franco and his cronies actively sought to displace Barcelona as the
centre of Spanish boxing by reorganizing the national boxing federation and relocating it
from Barcelona to Madrid. The new Spanish Boxing Federation took measures to ensure
that the most anticipated championship bouts were staged in the Spanish capital. Gone
were the days of filling Barcelona’s bullfighting arenas and Olympic stadium with boxing aficionados. As a consequence, Madrid gradually came to supplant Barcelona as the
centre of Spanish boxing.
An additional factor that complicated the re-emergence of a vibrant boxing scene in
Barcelona was the lack of international boxers due to the Second World War. The boxing
scene of the 1920s and early 1930s had been highly international, with top-tier fighters
arriving to Barcelona from all parts of the world. During the late 1930s and early 1940s,
however, the boxing scene depended on a depleted stock of domestic boxers. This complicated efforts to stage fights that could attract a large attendance.
Despite these obstacles, boxing in Barcelona steadily recovered following the war, in
great part due to the emergence of a robust amateur scene. Given boxing’s vitality prior
to the war, there remained a relatively sizable number of youth interested in following in
the footsteps of the legends of the 1920s and 1930s. Although boxing’s fan base was not
as large as it had been during previous decades, it was gradually replenished and sustained by the regularity with which events were held at various venues in Barcelona and
its surrounding areas.
The Gran Price emerged as the main venue for boxing events in the Catalan capital
during the 1940s and 1950s. The iconic complex had originally been built in 1932 on a
parcel of land that had previously been the site of ‘Bohemia Modernista’, a large dance
hall where boxing matches had occasionally been staged. In addition to boxing events,
the Gran Price, which officially opened in 1934, hosted wrestling matches, dance shows,
operas, concerts, circuses and other public performances. However, boxing was clearly
its main attraction, and fights – both professional and amateur – were organized regularly
up until its closure in 1972, oftentimes filling its seating capacity of 4500.9 By all
accounts, the Gran Price was a shrine for boxing aficionados in the city. Its emotionally
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charged atmosphere continues to evoke a deep nostalgia among those once enmeshed in
Barcelona’s boxing scene.
The crisis of space
The closure of the Gran Price brought about a major crisis in Barcelona’s boxing scene.
It would be difficult to make the case that the Gran Price closure was the culmination
of boxing’s steady decline in the city. Boxing events were still being organized with
regularity during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In September 1972, just a month
before the Gran Price was officially closed, a fight between the Spanish champion,
José Manuel Urtain, and the Jamaican, Stamford Harris, grossed the most profit of any
event in the venue’s history. The closure of the iconic locale resulted, rather, from
broader processes of urban transformation that had unintended consequences for
Barcelona’s boxing scene.
Toward the end of Franco’s regime, Catalonia and other industrialized Spanish regions
underwent significant economic growth due to a series of measures that liberalized the
economy and facilitated international trade and investment. As the industrial centre of
Catalonia, Barcelona received a tremendous inflow of migrants from poorer and more
rural Spanish regions, such as Andalusia, Extremadura and Murcia. This, in turn, generated a surge in demand for housing and urban infrastructure. The highly permissive policies of Josep Maria de Porcioles, Barcelona’s mayor at the time, gave rise to rampant and
uncontrolled speculation in real estate, resulting in the proliferation of numerous illconceived construction projects of poor quality (Balfour, 1989).
Given the Gran Price’s central location within Barcelona, it was in high demand
among real estate investors. In 1970, rumours swirled that the locale would be sold. In
order to dispel these rumours, the owners of the Gran Price circulated a letter stating that
although they had received many offers they had instead elected to rent it to the National
Delegation of Physical Education and Sports for a period of two years. The rental agreement was celebrated as a ‘new era’ for the Gran Price, and plans were made to reform and
improve the building’s facilities. As the agreement neared its end, however, the owners
of the Gran Price began entertaining offers from investors, prompting boxing fans to
initiate a campaign to save the iconic locale. Amid the campaign, Iris Park, another locale
that had been an important boxing venue over the years, was sold. Efforts to save the
Gran Price ultimately failed, as it was handed over to the real estate giant, Núñez y
Navarro, and closed in November 1972.
The closure of the Gran Price constituted a major disruption to the ordinary routines
and rhythms constitutive of the boxing scene in Barcelona. Reflecting on the impact of
the closure, Juli Lorente (1996b: 420), a former referee and boxing chronologist, wrote,
‘Barcelona, little by little, was losing the hegemony that it had within the pugilistic
world, not for lack of fans, but rather for lack of locales where the fans were accustomed
to going…’ The weekly bouts at the Gran Price had been critical to maintaining the
active engagement of fans with Barcelona’s boxing scene. The locale had been the main
space in which boxing spectators gathered together on a regular basis to partake in the
shared experience of watching the sport they loved. For many, it was a weekly or monthly
ritual that broke up the monotony of everyday life. When we asked Josep Pons, a boxing
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International Review for the Sociology of Sport 
chronologist and former amateur who competed during the 1960s and 1970s, about the
impact of the Gran Price’s closure on boxing in Barcelona, he replied:
Look, I retired because of that. And like me, many [retired]. We loved the place – for us, it was
legendary. For us, boxing was the Price. It was our cathedral. (Personal interview, 16 July 2015)
Following the Gran Price’s closure in November 1972, the next boxing ticket in
Barcelona – a series of amateur bouts – was not organized until February of the following
year. Professional tickets eventually returned to the city in September 1973, but they
were only organized sporadically and did not include the same calibre of boxer as in
previous years. As Lorente (1996b) explains, promoters found it increasingly difficult to
arrange fights in Barcelona due to the lack of attractive spaces for boxing events.
Consequently, the best professional boxers from the city and its surrounding areas elected
to migrate abroad to advance their careers. Although the boxing scene in Barcelona and
the rest of Catalonia did not end with the closure of the Gran Price, it was dealt a serious
blow from which it never fully recovered.
While the crisis of space was arguably most pronounced in Barcelona, it affected the
boxing scene in other parts of Spain as well. Madrid, for instance, had its own ‘Price’
(formally the ‘Price Circus’) that served as a popular boxing venue before closing in 1970.
In an article published in ABC a decade later entitled, ‘Boxing, that strange cadaver’, the
well-known sports columnist Enrique Gil de la Vega (A.K.A. ‘Gilera’), wrote:
Boxing is… a spectacle that needs venues with medium capacity – six to ten thousand seats –
palazzos, not sports palaces with cycling tracks or velodromes behind the ringside seats and in
front of the stands… And the upper-level seats should be near the ring. When the two Prices
disappeared – those of Madrid and Barcelona – the ‘KO’ punch was not dealt to the circus,
which continues mounting its tents heroically, but to boxing… Is there any boxing venue
included in the Sports Council’s projects for building sports installations? No? Well, there is a
need for one in Madrid and another in Barcelona. And in Valencia. And in the Basque Country.
And in Galicia and Andalusia. (Gilera, 1980)
In this passage, Gilera flags the importance of ‘medium capacity’ boxing venues for
the vitality of Spanish boxing. While major title bouts were generally staged in large
venues like Madrid’s ‘Sports Palace’, medium-sized venues were arguably more essential to the boxing scene due to the regularity with which events in such venues were
staged, their sentimental value to boxing fans, and the opportunities they offered to upand-coming local stars to make a name for themselves. Medium-sized venues were thus
critical for the emergence and maintenance of local rituals of spectatorship.
Not all medium-sized venues were closed during the 1970s, and boxing continued to
attract a modest following in certain localities. For example, one of Madrid’s most iconic
venues for boxing, the ‘Campo del Gas’, remained open after the closure of the Price
Circus and continued to host events up through the mid-1980s. This accounts, in part, for
why Madrid’s boxing scene remained active in the early 1980s. However, the Campo del
Gas too was shut down shortly thereafter, in 1987, further deepening Spanish boxing’s
crisis of space. Like the Gran Price, it was demolished and eventually converted into a
nondescript apartment complex.
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El País and the media assault
While the crisis of space disrupted the interaction rituals that helped to sustain the boxing
scene in Barcelona and elsewhere in Spain, Spanish boxing was dealt an additional blow
by disruptions to habitual forms of spectatorship brought about by changes in the media’s
coverage of boxing following Spain’s democratic transition in the late 1970s. As Spain
transitioned to democracy, several newspapers and magazines closely tied to Franco’s
regime were terminated, and a number of new publications were created. El País was one
of the most influential news outlets that emerged during the transition. Founded in May
1976, just months after Franco’s death, El País benefitted significantly from its lack of
historical connection to the dictatorship and quickly became the most ‘emblematic newspaper of the new times’ (Sueiro Seoane, 2009: 153). By 1980, it had achieved the largest
circulation of all Spanish dailies, surpassing major newspapers such as La Vanguardia
and ABC.
Shortly after its creation, the paper’s editorial staff decided to wage a powerful campaign against boxing (Sánchez García, 2009). Those running the newspaper at the time
were so vehemently opposed to boxing that they included the following guideline in El
País’ style manual:
The newspaper does not publish news about boxing competition, unless it brings attention to
the accidents suffered by pugilists or reflects the sordid world of the activity. The editorial
stance of the newspaper is contrary to the promotion of boxing, and thus refuses to gather news
that might contribute to its diffusion. (Translated by authors)10
To this day, this remains the fourth of hundreds of guidelines listed in the manual. The
vast majority of boxing-related issues covered by El País from 1977 onwards had to do
with the health risks and moral turpitude of the sport. The following is a sampling of
headlines for articles on boxing published by El País during the 1970s:
‘A new boxing victim’ (31 August 1976)
‘No more punches’ (28 November 1976)
‘“Professional” boxing should be extinguished’ (22 February 1977)
‘Boxing, a dirty business’ (9 November 1977)
‘Boxers run unnecessary risks’ (10 November 1977)
‘From the ring to the hospital’ (20 December 1977)
‘Against boxing’ (28 February 1977)
‘Dead boxers’ (13 August 1978)
As a leading voice of the transition and the vanguard of Spanish media during the
1970s and 1980s, El País’s journalistic practices were highly influential. Although other
major newspapers continued to publish articles on boxing, they reduced their coverage
significantly. News about boxing increasingly became the exclusive domain of more
specialized publications, such as Marca and El Mundo Deportivo. Reflecting on the
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International Review for the Sociology of Sport 
impact that El País’ editorial stance had on other Spanish media, Antonio Albalat, a former journalist who covered boxing extensively at the time, stated:
It did a lot of damage to boxing. It was a terrible blow against boxing… It was like a fashion
that later influenced other [newspapers]. Afterwards, speaking positively about boxing or
demonstrating affection toward the sport was viewed badly. (Personal interview, 19 November
2015)
Given that El País and other news outlets were not neutral in their coverage of boxing,
the degree of attention that boxing received in the media did not necessarily reflect the
preferences of the broader populace. Rather, the ideological stance of the editorial staff
influenced their decisions about boxing’s ‘newsworthiness’, as well as the tone and content of its coverage. The low level of coverage devoted to boxing, in turn, discredited its
status as a legitimate form of entertainment and leisure in a more modern and democratic
Spain. It also limited access to the narrative context for boxing events, making it increasingly difficult for the sport to maintain the interest and excitement of its fan base.
Sánchez García (2009) has attributed El País’ hostility toward boxing to the ascension of a more educated middle class whose values and sensibilities clashed with the
violence endemic to pugilism. This is plausible, especially considering that El País has
been closely aligned ideologically with the Socialist Party (PSOE), which has historically relied on the urban middle classes as a major base of support. Like El País, the
PSOE has expressed a strong antipathy toward boxing. In 1981, representatives of the
PSOE took steps to enact a national law prohibiting professional boxing and limiting the
sport to amateur competition, though they never actually brought a proposal to parliament. In 1984, Oviedo’s city government, under the leadership of Antonio Masip and the
PSOE, prohibited boxing events from being held in public installations and ordered the
closure of a local boxing academy. More damaging than initiatives explicitly banning
boxing, however, were more subtle practices of blocking boxing clubs from attaining
grants and other forms of public assistance. During the post-transition period, this proved
highly detrimental, as boxing was shunned amid the proliferation of initiatives aimed at
‘expanding’ and ‘democratizing’ sport through broadening the availability of athletic
facilities and training programmes (Abadía i Naudí, 2011).
Spanish boxing in the 21st century: Toward a rebirth?
Although Spanish boxing is a far cry from what it once was, it has undergone a resurgence
over the past several years, especially in Barcelona and Madrid. A 2016 event headlined
by a World Boxing Council (WBC) super featherweight eliminatory bout between the
Catalan Juli Giner and Mexico’s Mickey Roman drew approximately 3000 spectators,
filling Barcelona’s Vall d’Hebron Sporting Complex. According to Javier Gallego, the
main promoter of the fight, such an event would have been unimaginable five years ago.
Gallego attributes the growing popularity of boxing in Barcelona to the rise of several
top-tier local boxers (personal interview, 9 April 2015). In addition to Giner, boxers such
as Isaac Real, Sandor Martin and Abigail Medina have had international success. Similarly,
Madrid’s boxing scene benefited significantly from the decision of the former Argentine
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world champion Sergio Martínez to advance his career while based in the Spanish capital.
He subsequently founded ‘Maravillabox Promotions’, which has supported the development of local boxers and organized several large events in the city. Coupled with the
emergence of world-class boxers such as Kiko Martínez and Gabriel Campillo, this has
given a boost to Madrid’s once decimated boxing scene.
The modest revival that Spanish boxing has undergone in recent years, however, is
not reducible to the international success of a few boxers. Indeed, even as boxing plummeted in popularity during the 1980s and 1990s, Spain continued to produce quality
boxers, as evidenced by the fact that Spaniards won 18 European championship bouts
between 1980 and 2000.11 Javier Castillejo had unprecedented success for a Spanish
boxer during the 1990s and 2000s, winning world titles in two weight classes.
Hence, one must look to other factors to understand the recent revival of Spanish boxing. As in other contexts, boxing has become particularly popular among the growing
numbers of first- and second-generation immigrant youth in Spain. Their lack of access
to more conventional channels for attaining status and social mobility, and the confluence between boxing and hegemonic forms of masculinity that pervade the neighbourhoods where many immigrant youth reside, have contributed to sport’s appeal among
this segment of the population. Moreover, a number of immigrant youth, especially those
of Latin American and Eastern European descent, come from countries with strong boxing traditions, and the interest of many predates their arrival to Spain.
Spanish boxing has also received a boost from the emergence of virtual spaces that
offer new opportunities for the sport to gain visibility among potential fans. Although the
mainstream Spanish media continues to shun boxing, online sites such as Espabox and
BoxeoTotal provide regular coverage of the latest boxing news in Spain and abroad, and
generate hype for coming events. Social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
enable these and other boxing sites to integrate themselves into the daily news feeds of
subscribers, thus providing habitual exposure to videos and articles that bolster interest
in the boxing scene. Javier García Roche, a professional boxer and public icon from
Barcelona, has exploited social media to great effect and played an important role in
generating interest in boxing among certain segments of the local population.12 Hence,
although Spanish boxing remains a shadow of what it once was, recent socio-demographic changes and the availability of new avenues for gaining public exposure have led
to a steady revival of interest in the sport. Yet the vitality of Spanish boxing remains
fragile, as evidenced by the sporadic cancellation of major events, even those that include
some of the best boxers in the country.
Final remarks
Over the course of this article, we have highlighted the importance of ritual to the reproduction of hegemonic sports cultures. The excitement and enthusiasm that fans experience when attending live sporting events, and the intrigue and interest that come from
their regular tracking of the latest storylines, are both key to sustaining the mass following that hegemonic sports enjoy. Major disruptions to either of these ritualistic dimensions of spectatorship may interfere significantly with the reproduction of a given sport’s
fan base.
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International Review for the Sociology of Sport 
In emphasizing the role of ritual disruption in the decline of boxing in Barcelona, and
Spain more generally, we do not wish to minimize other factors that were detrimental to
the sport’s popularity. As in other contexts, growing medical evidence about the longterm health dangers of repeated blows to the head, the death of several boxers in the ring,
and the retirement of charismatic champions such as Mohammed Ali hurt boxing’s general appeal (Donnelly, 1988). With respect to Spain in particular, the democratic transition engendered a more vibrant public sphere, and significant social criticism was
levelled against violence of all sorts due the pervasiveness of violence during the dictatorship (Sánchez García, 2009).
As mentioned above, however, perceptions of violence are always socially mediated.
Bullfighting, which was similarly popular during Franco’s dictatorship and arguably
entails far more blood and gore than boxing, did not suffer a major crisis during the
1970s and 1980s. Although several editorials critical of bullfighting were published in El
País and other news outlets, major newspapers and TV stations never desisted from covering the major storylines and events associated with the popular tradition. This sparked
several irate editorials from boxing fans condemning the Spanish media’s double standards regarding violence and sport.
In our view, it was not so much El Pais’ moral condemnation of boxing that hurt the
sport most, but rather its refusal to provide any coverage whatsoever of ordinary boxing
news. Without the narrative context and emotional build-up for major bouts, it became
difficult for boxing to sustain the interest and engagement of its fan base. A similar argument might be made regarding the continued popularity of the National Football League
(NFL), and American football more generally, among fans from across the socioeconomic spectrum in the US despite rather definitive evidence pointing to long-term brain
damage and other dangers associated with the sport. Although numerous articles have
been published about the dangers of football, the same news outlets that publish such
articles continue to cover the sport’s main storylines and results, contributing to its legitimacy as a cultural form and maintaining the interest of its fan base.
Our analysis also highlights the importance of exercising caution in making presumptions regarding the relation between media coverage and the popular appeal of various
sports, especially those that entail a degree of violence. Scholars have tended to use
media coverage as a barometer for measuring the popularity of different sports (Kaufman
and Patterson, 2005; Markovits and Hellerman, 2001). While the use of media coverage
in this way may not be problematic in the case of non-contact sports, scholars should
generally be cognizant of how the media’s coverage of sports may be influenced by ideological stances. As we have shown in the case of Spain, the media’s reduced coverage of
boxing was not simply a reflection of the public’s decreased interest in the sport, but also
a source of this decreased interest.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Marco Garrido for his insightful comments on an earlier draft of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
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Notes
1. To our knowledge, there are no systematic data that permit precise comparisons of boxing’s
popular appeal across Europe. Like other scholars who have looked comparatively at the
popularity of sport (Kaufman and Patterson, 2005; Markovits and Hellerman, 2001), we base
our claim regarding the relative weakness of Spanish boxing on our observations of boxing’s
coverage in the media, the fame enjoyed by national boxing icons, and boxing’s general
presence in popular culture. We elaborate our methodological approach in more detail in a
subsequent section of this article.
2. During the course of our research, two major boxing events in Barcelona and Madrid were cancelled for lack of advanced ticket sales. Given the relative weakness of Spain’s boxing scene, the
country’s top fighters nearly always travel abroad for major title bouts due to the inability of Spanish
promoters to garner enough public interest to make such bouts profitable. Over the past decade, top
boxers such as Kiko Martinez, Gabriel Campillo, Isaac Real and Juli Giner have fought in world
or European title bouts in the US, Great Britain, France, Germany, Ireland and Japan. Very few
European title bouts have been organized in Spain. Those that have, moreover, have generally been
between second-tier boxers that lack sufficient notoriety to demand a large purse.
3. It should be noted that bullfighting has become increasingly contested in recent years. In
2010, for instance, it was banned in Catalonia, though this resulted largely from the growing
influence of the Catalan separationist movement and its rejection of core symbols of Spanish
culture, and not simply from a general rejection of violence against bulls. Bullfighting has
also come under attack in several municipalities in other Spanish regions, typically those
governed by Podemos and other Leftist parties. Nevertheless, the successes of movements
opposing bullfighting in Spain are, by and large, very recent, and major bullfights continue to
garner significant media coverage and spectatorship.
4. Social scientists are in broad consensus that entrenched cultural tastes, routines and schemas
are highly resistant to change and generally more determinative of social behaviour than
abstract social values (Bourdieu, 1990; Swidler, 1986; Vaisey, 2009).
5. Given that boxing became subject to increasing criticism during the 1970s, its omission in the
survey may have been driven by ideological motives.
6. Boxing was termed ‘boxe’ in a number of Spanish newspaper articles at the beginning of the
20th century.
7. The Gran Price was Barcelona’s most iconic boxing venue following the Spanish Civil War
and up until its closure in 1972.
8. The concept of ‘equafinality’ is sometimes used in reference to the idea that multiple causal
pathways may lead to the same social outcome (George and Bennett, 2005).
9. The number of boxing events organized at the Gran Price varied by period of the year. During
most of the year, events were organized at least once per week, and oftentimes more than once
per week (Lorente, 1996b).
10. El País’ style manual was originally printed in 1977, and although it has changed over the
years, its militant opposition to boxing has remained a constant.
11. For a complete list of Spanish boxers who have won European titles, see: http://www.feboxeo.
com/campeones-de-europa/ (accessed 22 July 2016).
12. García Roche’s popularity derives less from his boxing prowess than from his anti-establishment
rhetoric, and his activism in promoting animal rights and opportunities for disadvantaged youth.
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Appendix
Total number of articles on boxing events every tenth year in the Spanish sports newspaper El
Mundo Deportivo (1920–2010).
Source: Compiled by authors based on a review of the digital archives of each newspaper.
Note: The fact that fewer articles were published in El Mundo Deportivo on boxing in 1930 than in 1970 and
1980 likely reflects the general expansion in the newspaper’s coverage of all sports, as opposed to boxing’s
greater popularity during the latter years.
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