27.05.06 – Reviewed by B.L. Morgan: The question of who would have won if the greatest fighters of different eras had fought has been debated endlessly. In the late 1960’s a Miami boxing promoter, Murry Woroner, attempted to answer the question, through a series of radio telecasted computer fights, of who the Greatest Heavyweight Champion of All Time was.
Rocky Marciano won the tournament. Muhammad Ali lost in one of the early rounds and sued for defamation of character. The lawsuit was settled when Woroner arranged a computer fight to take place between Ali and the All Time Computer Tournament Champion Rocky Marciano.
Ali was in the middle of his exile for refusing induction into the military. Marciano was forty five years old and was far into his retirement.
Marciano went into training and got himself into what looked like was fighting shape. Then the two Undefeated Heavyweight Champions got into the ring and sparred seventy, one-minute segments that were spliced together according to what the computer reported would have happened if they had fought at the prime of each man’s career..
The punches were supposed to have been pulled but I have to tell you I did stop the DVD and use the slow motion on my player several times to take a real close look at the punches exchanged. No Hollywood director ever made a boxing match look any more real than this fight between Ali and Marciano.
Who won?
I’m not going to tell you. I would recommend seeing this match. The fight itself is very interesting with a lot of changes in momentum. Blood does flow in this match and that looked real too. Both Marciano and Ali got in quite a few good licks in this fight. The result will cause as many arguments as it solves and besides if you don’t like the result that was played in theatres, on the DVD is an alternate version with the other man winning.
So there’s no way to be entirely dissatisfied with the result.
The extras on the DVD are fight interviews with Angelo Dundee, James J. Braddock: the real Cinderella Man, Joe Louis and Jersey Joe Walcott. There’s also a documentary on the making of The SuperFight and a discussion with boxing’s leading computer expert.
My favorite extra on this DVD is the fifteen hours of the original audio fights from the Radio Fantasy Fights show. I haven’t listened to them all but I can tell you that the fight between John L. Sullivan and James J. Braddock was a barnburner.
If you are a boxing junkie like me then The SuperFight: Marciano vs Ali is a DVD you will have to have in your collection. If you’re a casual boxing fan then check it out from a video rental store. The Marciano/Ali fight itself is interesting viewing and more than worth your time.
B. L. Morgan has published short stories and articles at such websites as, The House Of Pain, Writer’s Hood, The Murder Hole, The Fear In Silence, Short Scary Tales, SplatterPunk, and several others. He was published in the anthologies Atrocitas Aqua: Horrors of The Deep, Scary Holidays To Make You Scream, Demons and Shadows, Fantasies: An Anthology of The Worlds Great Short Stories. He was a staff writer for the ezine SavageNight and the print magazine Sinesteria. As John Dark he was the author of the novels Blood And Rain, Blood For The Masses, Blood On Celluloid and Night Knuckles which have been pulled from circulation and are seeking a new publisher. He can be contacted at johndark1985@comcast.net