The defeated hero: Images of Luis Ángel Firpo in the construction of the Argentinean/Latin sporting identity (1923–1955)

Abstract

The image of boxer Luis Ángel Firpo played a key role in shaping national identity in Argentina, offring a transnational perspective on Argentina and Latin America. His 1923 fight against Jack Dempsey – famous for the moment when Dempsey was knocked out of the ring – became known as the ‘Fight of the Century’. More than a spectacle, it marked the onset of sport’s spectacularisation in Argentina. Firpo, ‘The Wild Bull of the Pampas’, came to embody a cultural icon, whose presence permeated literature, visual arts, and popular media. As Argentina’s first world-title contender and Latin America’s first sports celebrity, Firpo embodied ideals of virility and Latin identity. His symbolic defeat was later appropriated by the Peronist government to construct a heroic national narrative. Contrasting contemporary representations from 1923 with Argentine newsreels from 1954 – a time when such media served as propaganda – unveils the manner in which sporting images served as cultural artefacts, as proposed by Mike O'Mahony, and the development of a socially constructed sporting gaze, as highlighted by Mike Huggins.