Which boxer's life story would make the best movie?

Matthew Franklin. Abandoned as a kid and brough up by nuns. They can call it Black Narcissus II. :yep

 

Treat Williams played Dempsey,passable effort.

 

"The Great John L ",starring Greg Mclure,reasonable.

 

Mills has been done ,can't remeber the star.

 

Benny Lynch
Harry Greb
Mickey Walker
SRR
Lew Jenkins ,War hero and drunken banger.
Max Schmeling ,interesting story.
Peter Jackson
Sam Langford
Charley Burley

 

Great question. The real answer is all of them, whether it is immediately apparent or not, everybody, fighters included, has their story. But the two that jump out at me are Charley Burley and Mike Tyson. Burley's, at first blush may seem best told as a tragedy, but it is not, and was not. Boxing gave him a lot that he probably never would have found elsewhere. Cult fame for one thing; we're talking about him again. I can almost see how his movie would have wound down into a quiet family life, the last scene shows him out on his garbage route on some early morning smoky Pittsburgh day, as the rest of the city sleeps, as anonymous as always.

Tyson always struck me as the exact opposite of how he comes off, as I think he wants to come off: the unrepentant Brownsville thug. Sorry Mike, under your defensive charades that I'm sure you were not even conscious of, many of us could always see the soft and sensitive, the unwanted and hurt young man with the little girl's voice. If Tyson was portrayed as the vulnerable soul with a naive then angry broken heart it could be powerful.

 

Has to be Duran.

Booze, sex and fighting - makes a perfect film :good

 

Edison Miranda had a tough life.

Roberto Duran, from the streets of Panama, dominant lightweight champion and upsetting a prime Sugar Ray Leonard, giving money to the kids of Panama and partying, the No Mas episode and fall down, fighting until he's 50 years old.

 

harry smith would be awesome...if some people don't know who he was...

he was one the most feared fighters of his time for a short time

 

The more obscure and remote the boxer, the better -for me anyway. If it's someone I'm very familiar with on color film -Tyson for instance, I'd be too critical. The previews for "Ali" with Will Smith were enough to convince me not to see it -No can fight like Ali. And "Foreman"'s flab and wig just pissed me off.

...and if they get some Hollywood clown like Tom Cruise to play the lead in a movie about Roberto Duran, I'll wretch outside of the theatre.

Miske is a good, no a great, one. He's all but forgotten and his story is 90 years old -but timeless. It could be ten times better than Cinderella Man.

Gypsy Joe Harris would be a melancholic movie, or a morality lesson.

Barney Ross has been effectively done, but could be updated. But I think that movie I'd enjoy the most would be one about Lew Jenkins. He was the ultimate knuckle-head. Bad attitude, bad habits, a monster right hand. Hilarity, hell-raising, and heroism (during the Korean conflict). A poor Texan gets lucky, makes good, sabotages himself, falls hard, and rises again as a decorated veteran who's heroism rivals Barney Ross's. They should get Billy Bob Thornton to narrate the story as Lew Jenkins, with actual quotes. It gets no better.

 

maby it should be called "The Great White Hope" James Earl Jones would be a good choice for the lead role.
a good documentary could be called "Unforgivable Blackness"

 

Benny Leonard

 

Movies about great fighters tend to be...well...****.

As Russell said a movie on Miske and the alleged circumstances of his last fight would be an entertaining movie.

Stay away from Mainstream fighters and I'd be interested in watching it, especially if i dont know the background story.


Have they done a film on Ali yet?

 

Matthew Saad Muhammad and Bobby Chacon. I would also think a movie on the Quarry familly would be great also.

 

apart from " Ali " you mean ?