Today in 1970, the release of a strange moment in boxing history, where two of the greatest heavyweights of all time faced off, but only in a movie.
It was called “The Super Fight,” but it wasn’t an actual fight, it was a simulation.
And at least one of the participants did NOT think it was super.
“The Super Fight” was the work of a radio producer, Murray Woroner.
He had created some buzz in 1967 with something called the All-Time Heavyweight Tournament and Championship Fight, in which he put sixteen of the most prominent names in heavyweight boxing history, from different eras, into a tournament.
All the outcomes were simulated by a then state-of-the-art NCR 315 computer, and the radio producers dramatized the would-be fights.
The radio tournament’s final had Rocky Marciano knocking out Jack Dempsey in the 13th round.
This show was a big hit with audiences, but one very big name took exception to the simulation.
Muhammad Ali sued Woroner for a million dollars, claiming the simulation had defamed his reputation as a fighter by saying he would lose to Jim Jeffries, who he called “history’s clumsiest, most slow-footed heavyweight.”
Woroner proposed a settlement: he would pay Ali close to $10,000 to take part in a filmed, simulated fight against Marciano, the tournament winner.
Ali’s actual boxing career was in limbo (this is after he had refused to be drafted into the US military), so he agreed.
So did Marciano, and while he’d been retired for more than a decade, it was something close to a dream fight: the only heavyweight champ to ever retire undefeated against a recent champ who’d never lost the title in the ring.
The two boxers filmed dozens of simulated rounds; Marciano even wore a toupee to look more like he did in his prime.
The film producers edited the footage together to make it look like a real fight, one built around the computer’s interpretation of what their actual fight would be like.
This time, there wasn’t one outcome.
American audiences saw Marciano knock Ali out, once again in the 13th round, while the version that played in Europe had Ali winning.
Sadly, Rocky Marciano died in a plane crash just weeks after filming, so he didn’t see the final version.
His purported opponent might have wished he hadn’t seen it.
After seeing the American ending of “The Super Fight,” Ali once again threatened a lawsuit.
He claimed the promotion for the film made it seem like it was a real match and not a simulation.
The producer headed off more legal action by ordering nearly all of the prints of the film destroyed.
At least one survived, and it was reissued later, but for the era of computer-simulated “super fights,” the bell had clearly rung.
Today in 1946, the birthday of David Lynch.
He’s of course best known as the creative force behind films and TV shows like “Blue Velvet” and “Twin Peaks.”
But for years, he also did his own weather forecasts, first for a Los Angeles radio station and then later on his YouTube channel.
These weather forecasts are definitely what you’d call David Lynchian.
How Muhammad Ali regretted his strangest fight ever (The Sporting News via Archive.org)
Watch 950 Weather Reports Presented by David Lynch, Straight from His Los Angeles Home (Open Culture)
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