Many boxers have gotten movies made about them. Jake LaMotta, Micky Ward and now George Foreman are examples of that. Which other boxers do you think deserve to get a movie about themselves? What about their life story demands a movie?
It’s hard when you’re close to a sport and then even closer to a particular individual in that sport to stand back objectively and say their life story demands telling or if other followers of the sport would be necessarily interested - but I for one think that a movie on the life and career of Australian Legend, Les Darcy, would be very cool.
Pete Rademacher The opening scene would be Rademacher being mobbed in the ring by the Hungarian boxing team after he stopped the heavily favored Russian to win the 1956 Olympic heavyweight title just two weeks after the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to quell the revolution there. The main theme would be Rademacher's dream to fight Patterson for the pro heavyweight title in his first professional fight and how he raised $350,000 to secure the match. The movie would show how everybody at first laughed at his idea (especially Jack Hurley, the man who Rademacher handpicked to manage the details of the promotion) until he came up with the money. Then how boxing people criticized the match and tried to have boxing commissions ban the fight. How he persevered and came within a veritable whisker of knocking Patterson out. Had the punch that knocked Floyd down been about 2 inches lower, Pete would literally have beaten Johansson to the punch and become the heavyweight champ two years earlier than Ingo did. There's lots of room for intrigue, including a hostile press and allegations of racial prejudice as a possible motive on the part of the well-to-do investors who put up the money to finance the bout.
Emile Griffiths. If I pitched a film idea, where a boxer who was a secret homosexual during a time that was illegal, when an opponent he was engaged in an epic trilogy with, publically humiliated him by using a homophobic slur against him, causing such rage that in their 3rd and final fight he landed a dozen unanswered uppercuts on that "out on his feet" defenseless opponent, killing him, causing tremendous guilt, the idea may get reject on the grounds it was too far fetched. Sometimes reality can be more unbelievable than fiction. Some pretty sensitive and emotional subjects could be explored in a hard hitting film.
Any of the old timers . I'd love to see a movie about the San Francisco fight scene in early 1900s, not even about any one fight in particular, it doesn't even have to be a full on boxing movie, may be could be about the 1906 earthquake or something, but one that would at least dive into how big of a fight town SF was and some of legends and lesser known fighters that either hailed from, or traveled to and fought in SF. I'd also love to see some movie at least portray the choyinski Jack Johnson fight, their subsequent arrest, jailhouse friendship, and future rivalry when Choyinski trained Jeffries to dethrone Johnson. Like, that script literally writes itself. Someone call Quinton tarrantino
Rappers acting has never been that good of an idea, they'd be better off getting an actual actor to play Griffith.
I always enjoyed watching Gatti but dont consider myself a true fan of his..with that said a Movie about him would make a good murder- mystery.
Barry McGuigan - with the backdrop of the troubles in Northern Ireland, how two waring factions united to watch his fights and how Barry himself had to walk a political tightrope which put a target on his back. Even when he took up boxing he trained in a protestant district despite being a catholic - and yet was accepted because he was so good. And he married a protestant woman too. Then there's the iconic moment of his father singing 'Danny Boy' in the ring before fighting Pedrosa for the world title. An interesting sub-plot would be his relationship with Barney Eastwood and their bitter parting of ways... EDIT: There's also the death of Young Ali in his fight with McGuigan.
