Can you name the most popular fighters in boxing? Mike Tyson, George Foreman, and Oscar De La Hoya don't count. They're retired. When was the last time you watched boxing on television? Unless you splurged on Pay Per View, chances are the Olympics were involved. How about listing some famous boxing movies? Now that's a little easier.
Boxing may lack the screen time and cultural saturation of basketball, baseball and football, but the sport and its fighters have been the subject of a disproportionally high number of films. The popularity of boxing on-screen goes all the way back to the end of the 19th century. The first full-length feature in cinema history was a fight between James J. Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons. Simply titled "The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight," it toured the country in 1897.
'The Milky Way' (1936)
'Gentleman Jim' (1942)
'Requiem for a Heavyweight' (1956)
'The Great White Hope' (1970)
'Hard Times' (1975)
'Rocky' (1976)
'Raging Bull' (1980)
'When We Were Kings' (1996)
'Beautiful Boxer' (2003)
'The Hurricane' (1999)
'Play It to the Bone' (1999)
'Against the Ropes' (2004)
