I think Jack Johnson deserves more than some cheap tv-movie where they couldn't even use his actual name for the character. Unfortunately, with the current climate and general ineptitude of modern Hollywood adaptations, it would just be a character assassination piece for every other boxer featured in it. His trials and tribulations by themselves are great enough, but you know they would go overboard and have Stanley Ketchell climb into the ring in a Klan outfit or something stupid. On an unrelated note, whatever happened to that Jem Belcher biopic that was in production a few years back?
A James Scott movie could be a great example of how one really bad mistake can completely nullify one's potential. A Tony Ayala movie could be about what happens when a real bad person is constantly protected until they make a mistake that they cannot be protected for. A warning about giving certain individuals to many chances.
Ken Norton has some potential (I know, funny coming from a Norton fanboy). Good boxing career winning a belt and also beating one of the greatest of all time, post-career you get in a major car accident off a 50 foot bridge, leaving you having to relearn how to walk, and surviving though it all. According to Nortons biography, he reported he saw a girl in front of the car while flipped upside down (I forgot if the story went she alerted the police or she was just there). When the police came, she was no where to be seen, and was never seen again. Norton theorized it was his own angel, could be some nice movie plot.
I agree as I also oppose the idea of giving celebrity to the family of a convicted ****** (Tony Ayala)
I kinda agree with Ant. Bhop has the personality of a puddle what made Raging Bull as a movie was how much of a monster LaMotta was outside the ring his burning insecurities, brutish tendencies and the morbid curiosity to see this charismatic sociopath interact with people was what made it so damn enthralling.