Not only are there seemingly countless boxing movies out there, some of them truly great, seminal pieces of work – ‘Rocky,’ ‘Raging Bull,’ ‘Body and Soul,’ ‘The Fighter,’ ‘The Harder They Fall,’……to name a few. There are also many, many boxing documentaries to be found; again, some of them are truly special – ‘Thrilla in Manila,’ ‘Unforgivable Blackness,’ ‘When We Were Kings,’ Ring of Fire,’…… and some more.
Indeed, when it comes to moving a filmmaker and inspiring him or her to go to work, the sport of boxing does the trick in style. And, in terms of being capable of sending a viewer in all manner of emotional directions and of being inspired themselves, even left in tears, a great boxing movie or documentary really can do things no other art form seems capable of.
This brings us to the 15th-anniversary release of the simply incredible ‘Assault in the Ring’ documentary. Fans who have seen this special piece of work will know the subject matter: how it sheds so much of the darkness that shrouded one of the most infamous fights in modern-day boxing history; this is the fight between Billy Collins and Luis Resto from June of 1983.
In one of the most shocking events in all of boxing, underdog Resto fought the unbeaten, seemingly set for greatness Collins with the padding removed from his gloves. Essentially, Collins faced a bare-knuckle fighter while he himself fought with legal gloves. He never had a chance. Yet Collins, unimaginably tough, went the distance that night in New York, his eyes hammered shut at the end of the kind of gruesome violence no fan in attendance had any idea they were witnessing.
Collins never fought again, and he was dead not too long after the fight. It was as tragic as it was disgusting. Filmmaker Eric Drath brings everything out in his 2008 masterwork. Featuring interviews with the now deceased Panama Lewis (very much the bad guy of the story, and deservedly so), with Resto, and with members of Billy Collins’ family, the documentary won a 2010 Emmy. Now, the documentary will get a new airing on Apple TV this Friday, September 13th.
If you haven’t yet seen this stunning piece of work, you must do so this time around.
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