Over the past fifty years, five boxers have become crossover superstars in the United States. In chronological, order, they are - drumroll, please!

Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson, George Foreman, and Oscar De La Hoya.

There have been other great fighters.

Evander Holyfield, Roy Jones, Marvin Hagler, Roberto Duran, and Larry Holmes (to name a few) made huge amounts of money. In some instances, they lay legitimate claim to boxing's pound-for-pound throne. But they weren't besieged by non-sports fans or surrounded by hordes of people when they walked down the street.

Ring prowess, in and of itself, isn't enough for a fighter to "cross over." Being a crossover superstar means that non-sports fans are drawn to you and all heads turn when you enter a room.

Or phrased differently, my mother knows your name and face.

Muhammad Ali won a gold medal as Cassius Clay at the 1960 Rome Olympics and upset Sonny Liston to claim the heavyweight championship of the world. Then everything changed. Once upon a time, he'd been regarded as telegenic, charismatic, and charming. Now, suddenly, he was telegenic, charismatic, and exceedingly threatening to the American establishment.

Clay adopted the teachings of a black separatist religion known as the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Then he refused induction into the United States Army at the height of the war in Vietnam. That put him on the front page of every newspaper in America. He was exiled from boxing; written off as road kill after comeback losses at the hands of Joe Frazier and Ken Norton; and ultimately defeated George Foreman in Zaire to reclaim the heavyweight throne.

By virtue of his conduct in and out of the ring and the sheer force of his personality, Ali became a crossover superstar.

Like Ali, Ray Leonard won an Olympic gold medal (in Montreal in 1976). Like Ali, he beat the best as a pro. But equally important, Leonard understood that he had to create his own identity to achieve crossover superstar status. He did that as boxing's "All-American Boy."

Leonard had star power; a face and persona that the American public could embrace. There were gaps between his public image and the reality of his life. But Ray played his onstage role well. The public liked Sugar Ray Leonard.

Mike Tyson made his mark in boxing as an exciting and talented fighter. He "crossed over" when he became a train wreck.

It was a perfect storm that touched down in the area where sports and America's tabloid culture coincide: "My intentions were not to fascinate the world with my personality," Tyson said as his career drew to a close. "I just wanted the boxing world to bear witness to my existence. I didn't know that I was going to be some big worldwide motherfucker; when I walk the streets of Paris, the whole block shuts down."

George Foreman was unpopular in his first incarnation as heavyweight champion. Despite winning a gold medal at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, he turned people off with a rude surly persona. He was Sonny Liston redux at a time when "bad boys" weren't commercially viable.

In 1987, after a ten-year self-imposed exile, Foreman returned to boxing. He was 38 years old and weighed 267 pounds (fifty more than he'd weighed when he knocked out Joe Frazier to win the heavyweight crown).

The "new" George Foreman was good-natured, even jolly.

He joked about eating hamburgers.

"All I know about boxing is that it hurts," he said.

Appearing on The Tonight Show in 1990, Foreman was quizzed about his next opponent.

"Is Adilson Rodrigues a good fighter?" Johnny Carson asked.

"I hope not," George answered.

Foreman was the anti-Tyson and one of the great public relations experts in sports history. On November 5, 1994, seven years into his comeback, he knocked out Michael Moorer to regain the heavyweight championship of the world.

Score one for aging fat people everywhere. Soon, Foreman was boxing's king of endorsements- from Meineke Mufflers to his own Lean Mean Grilling Machine.

As Foreman's star reached its zenith, Oscar De La Hoya was beginning his own climb up the ladder.

De La Hoya followed the Sugar Ray Leonard blueprint (Olympic gold medal and All-American Boy image) with a Hispanic-American twist.

Like Ali, Leonard, Tyson, and Foreman, "Oscar" benefited from free broadcast television exposure early in his career. But he received his biggest boost from HBO's marketing machine when the network made him the face of HBO Pay-Per-View. That put him on the edge of the new media.

All of which brings us to the question: ""Who will be boxing's next crossover superstar in the American market?"

Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. are the leading contenders. Each is a marvelously gifted fighter. Pacquiao has a winning personality and engenders good will wherever he goes. Mayweather has a flair for self-promotion and enjoys the spotlight, whether he's playing good guy or bad.

But each currently falls short of crossover superstar status. Pacquiao has crossed over (and then some) in his native Philippines. But many people in America don't know his name and many more don't know his face.

Mayweather talks a lot about how famous he is. But the truth is that he could walk through Times Square tomorrow with little recognition and less fuss.

I've got an idea. Why don't Pacquiao and Mayweather fight each other? With all the publicity that Mayweather-Pacquiao would engender, the winner would stand a good chance of becoming boxing's next crossover superstar.
 

Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauser@rcn.com. His most recent book, Waiting For Carver Boyd, was published by JR Books.

"All I know about boxing is that it hurts," Foreman said.