It started around 1918 in the bordellos of Tampico and other port cities along the Gulf of Mexico. Sailors and fishermen would set up improvised rings, where men would fight for drinking money, wrapping napkins around their hands for protection and passing the hat afterward.
These unsupervised brawls were not only popular, they were dangerous, which led to the formation of Mexico's first boxing commission, in Tampico in 1921. From this crude beginning, boxing quickly spread throughout the country and flourished, fertilized by a macho culture not long removed from revolution.
The latest manifestation of Mexico's enduring love affair with "boxeo" takes place this Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, when native sons Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.