In the late 1960?s, a Miami boxing promoter, who had a successful radio series of fantasy boxing bouts between champs of years past, fed their statistics into a computer, which predicted a "winner." Based on the popularit... more »y of these fights, he convinced a retired Rocky Marciano and a suspended Muhammad Ali to meet in the ring for filmed fight based on the computer results. On January 20, 1970, The "Fight of the Century ? Ali vs. Marciano" was show one time in 1500 theatres across the United States and Europe and once in the early 70?s on ABC?s Wide World of Sports. All prints of the fight were destroyed, except for one given to the US Copyright office. The SuperFight has not been seen since. Marciano retired as the only undefeated Heavyweight champion. Ali, was 27 and undefeated. Both champs were motivated to find out who was the greatest heavyweight champion of all time.« less
"I saw the 1970 'fight' on the way home from a trip to the UK, and thought it was truly exciting; indeed, many of the Boeing-767 passengers around me seemed engrossed by it. It seemed like a real fight, but with the benefit of knowing it was not real, and no one was really getting hurt. It was originally even shown in theaters on closed-ciruit TV. It brought back memories of when heavy weight championship fights were world-wide events.
Though I have great admiration for boxers, particularly for these two, I think that the sport itself is cruel. But that was not a problem here since they spliced together footage of the two fighters sparing with each other (and subtly pulling punches), according to computer projections. I'm not sure that anybody could have beaten Ali, the greatest athlete these eyes have ever seen, in his prime; but, who knows what a war-horse like Marciano could have done at his peak. The result created a furor, with law suits flying back and forth with the makers of the film. The 'event' was enhanced by leading boxing experts who differed on how the fight should have turned out. It was taken seriously by folks at the time, and maybe even now; but for someone like me, years later, it was great fun."
Ali vs Marciano
ron rossi 22 | colorado | 03/04/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"They got it right. Very cool DVD for boxing fans. I owned the original version and I love what they've done with the DVD. Lots of extras and cool graphics. Great idea to include a radio tournament from around 1968, it was not related to the Superfight. They were two separate ideas. Ali lost in the semis of the radio tourney and ironically Marciano won it by beating Jack Dempsey in the final.
Im a big Marciano fan and loved the dvd quality footage of the Rock training. As for history they got it right. I think Marciano and Ali were the two greatest champions in history with Joe Louis a close third. As for the the outcome I completely agree. Muhammad Ali was truly great (and made sure to constantly tell everybody) but he was not invincible. Joe Frazier fought him 3 times and gave Ali everything he wanted in every fight, winning once. Ken Norton matched up even better than Frazier, Ali never could figure him out. In their 3 fights Norton dominated the first one (even breaking Ali's jaw), lost a close decision in the second, then got robbed in the third encounter by one of the worst judges decisions in boxing history (please watch this and judge for yourself). My point is that Ali was not invincible, and I think Marciano, the best conditioned champ in history, would have caught up with anyone in rounds 10-15. He just never stopped throwing punches.
And so all in all, a great DVD."
Every Boxing Fan Should Have This DVD!
Digital | Bowie, MD | 01/13/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I read about the computer tournament years ago and now to have this on DVD to experience, it is fantastic! Watching the "bout" was just incredible. As a huge boxing fan as well as an internet boxing writer, I learned a lot about both Marciano and Ali. The highlight of the package for me were the radio calls of all the bouts in the tournament that led up to the Marciano-Ali contest. The descriptions are so vivid, you sometimes forget you are not listening to real bouts. This is a boxing fan's dream DVD!!
"
Great Fight of a Hypothetical Century
R. LoScalzo | Blackwood, NJ United States | 01/03/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I'm sorry to read all reviews that consider this a racist view of two of the greatest heavy weights that ever lived. I thing that it is something that we will always wonder about that if both of these boxers whould have ever fought when they were in there prime what the outcome would have been. The fight did demonstrate very well both styles of Marciano and Ali to the tee. In my opinion the only way Ali could have won this bout would be if he would had ran from Marciano most of the fight."
Rocky lives again
A. P. Read | 02/23/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)
"as a avid marciano fan, this is a film i've been waiting a long time to see. i convinced myself to suspend disbelief, before settling down to watch the fight. i did'nt need to bother. it seems only the head punches were pulled. The action was classic ali/marciano. whether you agree with the result or not, is not important. this is the last and only time you will see two of the greatest heavyweights of all time sharing the same ring. I thought they could have put some of rocky's less well known fights or even a mini biography, but there was'nt, so therefore, i give this dvd 4 stars."