Champs: Pursuing The American Dream Through Boxing

By Thomas Gerbasi

Boxing documentaries usually end up in two camps: good or bad. There is no middle ground, and for every Unforgivable Blackness, The Fight of Their Lives or Assault in the Ring, there are countless others that leave you wanting to get back the two hours you just spent watching what could be easily described as drivel.

And I’ll be honest. Filmmaker Bert Marcus had the odds against him when creating the recently released Champs. Sure, he had Mike Tyson as a star and producer, and the former heavyweight champion brought in Evander Holyfield, as well as plenty of cameo-making stars such as Mark Walhberg, 50 Cent, Spike Lee and Mary J. Blige, but everyone has heard the Tyson and Holyfield stories. Even bringing in Bernard Hopkins as the third featured boxer in the film didn’t seem like it would save what appeared at first to be a vanity project.

But upon watching the film it was clear that Marcus (who wrote and directed) wasn’t going for the quick, generic hit. He was going to tell a story through Tyson, Holyfield and Hopkins that didn’t just recap their lives and careers, but brought light to the other side of the sport, one too many shy away from.

“The human story aspect is what captured me the most,” Marcus said. “I think that’s what makes, not just the sport, but these individuals, so relatable. You’re talking about guys who have hit the highest of highs and the lowest of lows – not just professionally, but personally. And I think that’s why anybody, whether you’re a sports fan and boxing fan or not, can hopefully take something away from these guys and relate it to their own lives. I think it was important to capture the reality of it and not just the glory that they were able to capture, but the struggle that they had afterwards in trying to find their identity and purpose in life.”

That means there is no glossing over the struggles the trio of boxing icons went through and in some cases are still going through. Tyson’s rise, fall and rise, Holyfield’s financial issues and insistence on fighting long after his prime, and Hopkins’ years behind bars are all covered individually, with the big story being that while these fighters – some of the best of the best – went through this, there are countless other faceless fighters dealing with the same issues. Some may call that a smaller scale, but it’s major to anyone going through it.

“As far as the fighters, these are some of the most iconic fighters and legends of our time and what’s fascinating about them is that they want to shed light on not just the good, but the bad of the sport that people kind of brush under the rug,” Marcus said. “These are iconic guys and people know about their story, but what about all the guys that we don’t know about and we don’t talk about who are making around $30,000 a fight and then don’t have the proper resources or tools or support systems to thrive and succeed in life whatsoever? So that was what made this such a bigger story, at least to me, to make.”

It’s been said that there is no sport that will make someone more vulnerable than boxing. You’re in shorts, shoes and gloves in front of an audience while someone is trying to take your head off. There are no teammates to help you, nothing to save you but your wits and fists. Doing that is enough; to talk about the times outside the ring when you were even more vulnerable? That could be even tougher, but Tyson, Holyfield and Hopkins did it.

“It’s never easy, initially, to talk about tough times in your life,” Marcus said. “It takes a great deal of trust and a certain kind of relationship, and I was lucky enough to have Mike be a very active producer on the film. He had made the introduction to Evander and Bernard for us, and for me to go down and interview them. And I think once they got the fact that the story was much bigger than just them and much bigger than just the sport, it was something that was really appealing to them. In the second part of their life and career, they’re really looking to make that impact and share their story so that hopefully other people don’t succumb to or aren’t exposed to the things that they were. And hopefully the next generation can see some major improvements from the things they’ve been through.”

Some of the stories you’ve probably heard, a lot you may not have. One in particular that stuck with me had nothing to do with the sociological effects of the sport that are covered in depth in the film. It was just a boxing story, and as footage played of Holyfield’s first title-winning effort against Dwight Muhammad Qawi in 1986, you hear “The Real Deal” talking about the grueling 15-rounder and how after losing 15 pounds during the fight he wasn’t even thinking about the title, but just that he “didn’t want to die.”

But not surprisingly, the star of the show is the always compelling and loquacious Hopkins. It was a brilliant casting move by Marcus, but a seemingly odd piece of the puzzle to go along with Holyfield and Tyson.

“Mike and Evander are very expected,” Marcus said. “They’re linked together in many different ways and they have been since they were teenagers. I found Bernard because he kind of started on the complete opposite end of them. While they were thriving, Bernard was behind bars and trying to find himself and figure out his place. He didn’t really even find boxing again until he was in jail. If it wasn’t for the boxing program that they had in his prison, he wouldn’t even be where he is today. Lord knows where he would be. And I found that interesting that while they were all on top of their game, Bernard was figuring it out behind bars. And the irony is that after these guys hit the top of the top of their life, it began to fall apart for them, while Bernard was able to turn his life around during that time.”

Hopkins’ story could have a film of its own, and the same goes for Tyson and Holyfield, with that being the dilemma for Marcus. What parts of the story do you focus on, what hits the cutting room floor, and how do you bring the three stories together in one cohesive form? Yeah, there are things missing that would have made for compelling viewing, namely Hopkins’ fight against the system when he was middleweight champ and the various battles fought outside the ropes while he was doing so, but Marcus still found a way to make it all work.
 
“These three guys are very similar in age, they’re from the same generation and they came up in very similar situations, but have such different personalities, and I found interweaving those stories was really interesting because you could see how they intersect,” he said.

And what the stories tell when intersecting is one of triumph over adversity, but also tough times in a sport where those who are once cheered and celebrated are often forgotten when the gloves come off, and when those careers are over, what’s next? Usually an ending that isn’t a storybook one. Marcus wants that to change, and Champs can at least get the conversation started.

“The goal for us was to hopefully make a film that would transcend the sport and be something that was a voice for a lot of people who are not being heard,” he said. “Also, we wanted to bring attention to a system that is not just broken but is a reflection of our society and hopefully spearhead change. As a filmmaker, you want to shed light and make socially impactful entertainment. You want to entertain people, you want people to have a lot of fun and at the same time hopefully get awareness out and get conversation out, because that’s really how you make any change.”