Loyola Marymount University is a top-ranked national university by U.S. News and World Report, which places LMU among the top six Jesuit universities in the country and in the top six private universities in California. Founded in 1911, LMU is a Catholic, Jesuit, and Marymount university with more than 7,100 undergraduate students and more than 3,000 graduate and law students. LMU offers 56 undergraduate majors and 56 minor programs, along with 46 master’s degree programs, three doctorate programs and 12 credential/authorization programs. LMU’s intercollegiate athletics teams compete in the West Coast Conference with 14 Division I varsity sports.

LMU news and events are found at: www.lmu.edu/news.

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SoCal Journalism Award Finalist (Sports Commentary) – “Boxers Know the Power of an Entrance”

UCLA Chancellor's Award for Postdoctoral Research

UCLA Latino Applied Policy Research Award

UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles

Pitzer College Research and Teaching Funding Award

International Conference on Sport and Society Emerging Scholar Award

American Studies Association Sport Studies Caucus Graduate Student Paper Award

"It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way, There Is Another Way of Doing It": An Interview with Jacob "Stitch" Duran

Sporting Representations of El Salvador’s First World Champion: El Famoso and his Boxing Robe as Material Culture

Down But Not Out: Labor Struggles for Professional Boxers in California’s Ring

Boxing Ring Entrances as Insubordinate Spaces: A Disruptive Oral Herstory

Serving Undocumented Students: Current Law and Policy

Dr. Rudy Mondragón is an interdisciplinary scholar who bridges ethnic studies with the sociology of race and sport to illuminate often dismissed sporting sites of resistance and the political economy of boxing. Mondragón has published in Kalfou: A Journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies, Journal of Sports History, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, and UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute. He is currently working on "On The Ropes: Performances of Dignity and Resistance within The Brutal Economy of Boxing," a book manuscript that examines the political economy of boxing and the ways Black and Brown boxers deploy expressive culture to perform resistance via the ring entrance. Dr. Mondragón is also working on "Rings of Dissent: Boxing and the Performance of Rebellion" (University of Illinois Press, 2025), co-edited with Gaye Theresa Johnson and David J. Leonard. As an authoritative voice in boxing, he has been featured in ESPN, Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, Boxing Scene, CNN, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Times and has written for Zocalo Public Square, LA Taco, Remezcla, and We Are Mitu. In 2021, actress, producer, and director Eva Longoria interviewed him for the Sundance-debuted DAZN documentary “La Guerra Civil,” a film that delved into Mexican and Mexican American identities and the iconic clashes between Oscar De La Hoya and Julio César Chávez. He also brought his expertise on boxing to Vice TV’s “Dark Side of the 90s” docuseries, where he was interviewed for the episode on Mike Tyson. Currently, Dr. Mondragón is directing the documentary "From the Fields to the Garden," which highlights the life and career of iconic Chicano cutman, Jacob "Stitch" Duran.

Political Economy

Sport and Society

Chicana and Chicano Studies

Sport and Labor

Ethnography

Boxing

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Personal Website

Is Boxing a Viable Workplace?

Episode 14: Rudy Mondragón

‘Los boxeadores ganan menos que el salario mínimo’: Abel Sánchez y pugilistas locales reaccionan a estudio

Life at the Bottom: Most Boxers Earn Less than Minimum Wage

La Guerra Civil

In The Company of Kings

Teófimo López win excites Honduran Americans amid pain

Historic Andy Ruiz Win Jolts Elation Among Mexican Americans

Assistant Professor of Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies

An interview clip from La Guerra Civil, a documentary about the epic rivalry between iconic boxers Oscar De La Hoya and Julio César Chávez in the 1990s sparked a cultural divide between Mexican nationals and Mexican-Americans.

Live from the ASU California Center:  California State Athletic Commission executive director Andy Foster, former middleweight champ Sergio “the Latin Snake” Mora, and Kali “KO” Mequinonoag Reis, professional boxer and actress, visit Zócalo for a panel discussion, moderated by sport and ethnic studies scholar Rudy Mondragón, to reflect on boxing’s future—as an athletic endeavor, as a business, and as a cultural force—in California and beyond. This event is presented in partnership with ASU Global Sport Institute and UCLA College, Division of Social Sciences and moderated by sport and ethnic studies scholar Rudy Mondragón.

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What Does Boxing Owe Its Champions?

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