The Super Fight was a fictional 1970 boxing match between Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali. At the time, Ali and Marciano were the only undefeated heavyweight champions in history and fans often debated who would win had they met in their primes. Ali and Marciano were filmed acting out every possible scenario in a fight and the result was then determined using probability formulas entered into a computer. The final fight was only shown once in selected cinemas around the world and later released as a DVD.
Concept[]
In 1967, the radio producer Murray Woroner had the idea of determining the all-time great heavyweight champion of the world in a series of fantasy fights between boxing champions of different eras. Woroner sent out a survey to 250 boxing experts and writers to help determine which boxers would be used in the imaginary fights. Woroner picked the first round of fantasy matches to be:
- Jack Dempsey vs. Gentleman Jim Corbett
- John L. Sullivan vs. Jim Braddock
- Bob Fitzsimmons vs. Jack Sharkey
- Jim Jeffries vs. Jersey Joe Walcott
- Joe Louis vs. Jess Willard
- Max Baer vs. Jack Johnson
- Rocky Marciano vs. Gene Tunney
- Muhammad Ali vs. Max Schmeling
...In Rocky Balboa (2006)[]
The Super Fight was featured in and inspired a major plot point in the 2006 film Rocky Balboa, in which a computer simulation that pits an in-his-prime Rocky against the current world champion, Mason "The Line" Dixon, inspires both men to agree to a real match.
External links[]
- Official site for the DVD
- The Super Fight at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
- January 20, 1971 UPI newspaper article
- January 21, 1970 AP newspaper article
- January 19, 1970 Time Magazine article
- January 4, 1970 El Paso Times newspaper article
- The Core Memory Project: Boxing Simulation All-Time Heavyweight Championship of the World