Charlie Malloy (played by Rod Steiger) ? Look kid, how much you weigh? When you weighed one hundred and sixty eight pounds you were beautiful. You coulda been another Billy Conn and that skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast.?
Terry Malloy (played by Marlon Brando) ? It wasn’t him Charlie, it was you. Remember that night at the Garden? You came to my dressing room and said ?Kid this ain’t your night. We’re going for the price on Wilson.? You remember that? ?This ain’t your night! My night! I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charlie, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn’t have to take them dives for the short end money?
Charlie ?Oh I had some bets down for you. You saw some money?.
Terry ? You don’t understand. I coulda had some class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody… instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it was you Charlie?.
What a fantastic scene that was from the 1954 classic, ?On The Waterfront?, which won the Oscar that year for Best Picture. It also won awards for Best Director- Elia Kazan, Best Supporting Actress- Eva Marie Saint, and of course Best Actor went to Marlon Brando who really became a star following this picture.
A very similar circumstance took place at this year?s Academy Awards as ?Million Dollar Baby?, another movie with Boxing as the story line, took Best Picture, Best Actress-Hilary Swank, Best Supporting Actor-Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood won Best Director. Those are not the only 2 occasions where a movie involving the sport of Boxing, or a boxer has made major impact on the big screen.
Let’s go back to 1976 when Sylvester Stallone’s ?Rocky? won Best Picture, and also won for Best Director. Let us not forget the Rocky’s that would follow, Rocky had more lives than any cat I know and he still may come back again to face Mike Tyson. Four years later in 1980 Robert De Niro gave an unbelievable performance playing former World Middleweight Champ, Jake La Motta, in the pugilistic classic ?Raging Bull?. There also have been a plethora of other excellent movies with Boxing as the story line or at least a major part of it. ?Requiem for A Heavyweight? 1962 starring Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, and Mickey Rooney and even Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, actually had a cameo role in that movie. There was the breakthrough role for Kirk Douglas in ?The Champion? in 1949, and, going all the way back to 1942, one of my favorites ?Gentleman Jim?, the story of former heavyweight champ Jim Corbett who was marvelously played by legendary actor Errol Flynn. A few other biographical-style movies were made about Jack Dempsey, and there was James Earl Jones? portrayal of the first black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson in ?The Great White Hope? and The Greatest? a movie made about Muhammad Ali, and starring Muhammad Ali. Interesting thing about that one was it was made before Ali even retired. I nearly forgot about ?The Champ? 1979 starring Jon Voight, Faye Dunaway and little Ricky Shroeder was a real tearjerker.
Yes, Boxing has really made an impact when it comes to major motion pictures, probably even more so than it makes on the sporting community where it should. The reason I think is fairly simple. When we go to a movie we want major emotion. We want the emotional pendulum to swing back and forth, up and down and around. We want laughter, tears, pain, elation, sad endings and happy endings, as long as there is high emotion. No sport and no athletes have more of that emotional pendulum than Professional Boxing and Professional Fighters, the most common and uncommon of all athletes. We gravitate to that. That is why you see such a cross section of the world at a major championship fight. From the poorest of the poor who save up months and do whatever they have to get to the fight or the richest of the rich, major move stars and celebrities who come from all over to sit ringside and get a vicarious thrill watching two finely skilled athletes going at it. It just doesn’t get any better than that.
In fact just the emotion of the two combatants heading into the ring, moving around in the squared circle bodies glistening, eyes glaring, pacing back and forth, loosening up during the introductions, and then those great nose to nose stare downs as the referee gives the combatants their final instructions before the opening bell. The emotion used up in that is usually better than any entire football, baseball, basketball, or any other ball game. Only thing greater is sex. Great sex that is!
This is why Boxing works so well on the big screen. We want to relate to these gladiators. We want to be them for just one night, for just 12 or 15 rounds, or at least we think we do. It’s the public?s way of beating the system, or beating up your boss, or that bully back in grade school, and everybody has their own Rocky story don’t they? I bet you do. I know I have ton of my own! Unfortunately, or fortunately, I climbed inside the squared circle professionally 7 times. 5 of those I came out on top, but the other 2 I learned a great lesson about just how difficult it is to succeed inside the ring. Yes there is no greater drama provided in any sport quite like what Boxing evokes, and really nothing that we see in Hollywood’s Boxing movies is that far out of bounds. Even if Rocky was a little far fetched, let’s not forget February 10, 1990 in Tokyo, Japan when a 40-1 underdog named James Buster Douglas shocked the world when he knocked out seemingly invisible Iron Mike Tyson in round 10. That was not Hollywood that was fact. Hollywood knows the best way to play on our emotions, and Hollywood knows that Boxing is about as good a theater of raw emotion as it gets.
Speaking of Boxing being as good as gets, well that should be the case Saturday night under the lights at the MGM Grand here in Las Vegas, as two of the best little fighters on the planet, Manny Pacquiao and Erik Morales, go at. This one is about as pick-em a match up as you’ll ever get. Morales is the naturally bigger man and has great boxing skills, a dynamite right hand, and that huge Mexican heart to go along with it, as we’ve seen in 3 brilliant matchups against Marco Antonio Barrera. As for the Pac Man, he has taken the boxing world by storm over the last 2 years with a sensational one sided stoppage of Barrera and a controversial draw with Juan Manuel Marquez, a fight that Manny nearly one in the opening round with 3 knockdowns of Marquez. The contrasting styles of these 2 make it a difficult one to dissect.
Morales is the more consummate and complete fighter, but may have a very difficult time dealing with the faster, quicker, powerful lefty who only seems to have one gear and one direction and that?s gung ho and straight ahead. What Morales needs to do is use his superior height and reach and try to box and set up his vaunted right hand against the somewhat one-dimensional Pacquiao. If he can keep Pacquiao at bay with his long left and set up his tremendous right hand and utilize his overall better boxing skills, he will win.
What Manny needs to do is just what we have come to love about him and his attack first style; be that quick and explosive Energizer bunny from the get go and do not let Morales establish any type of rhythm. He needs to back Morales up from start to finish. If he can do that, he’ll win. Manny?s power seemed to have far more affect on Barrera than Morales? did in any of Erik’s 3 epic battles with Marco. That was partially due to the fact that Barrera did not see all the shots coming and those are the ones that can really do damage.
Once again, as I have stated before since, I’m not given to any vacillation, ambivalence, or ambiguity, I will pick Pacquiao to win the fight by a stoppage. When he was on our show, he made me look good during the in-ring segment, so there you go. Wouldn’t that be some kind of perfecta if Manny were able to stop two Mexican legends? Should be a great scrap. Enjoy, I know I will. I’m sure to have some comments on this one in my next week?s Fightnews column.
