Is cinema ready to embrace British boxing’s… | Little White Lies

Is cin­e­ma ready to embrace British boxing’s gold­en age?

15 Mar 2016

Words by Joel Philpott

Two male boxers fighting in a boxing ring, one delivering a punch to the other's face.
Two male boxers fighting in a boxing ring, one delivering a punch to the other's face.
A new dra­ma about a home­grown fight­er looks set to cap­i­talise on the sport’s recent surge in popularity.

As the final bell sound­ed across the Esprit Are­na in Düs­sel­dorf, you could vir­tu­al­ly hear a pin drop among the par­ti­san crowd as 246-pound Tyson Fury parad­ed around the can­vas – a silence bro­ken moments lat­er as Fury ser­e­nad­ed his wife with a sur­pris­ing­ly tune­ful ren­di­tion of Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’. Wladimir Klitschko’s nine-year reign was over and British fans could final­ly toast a new home­grown cham­pi­on. But while Fury made sure all eyes were on him, his unan­i­mous deci­sion vic­to­ry was already turn­ing heads in the direc­tion of British boxing’s grow­ing glob­al stature.

We are liv­ing in a gold­en age for British box­ing. At the time of writ­ing British fight­ers hold 13 inter­im and world cham­pi­on titles across the four major sanc­tion­ing bod­ies and 17 weight divi­sions.
At Lon­don 2012, Nico­la Adams became the first woman to win an Olympic box­ing title, and Antho­ny Joshua, who won gold that same sum­mer, is being tipped as a future world champ. Togeth­er, this makes up the country’s best ever record in mod­ern box­ing. But could this suc­cess lead to British box­ing mak­ing its mark on the big screen? Will we soon see British box­ers being immor­talised in the same way that so many great Amer­i­can fight­ers have?

Last year’s Creed, the lat­est instal­ment in the Rocky fran­chise, homed in on this suc­cess while cast­ing British box­ing cul­ture in a new light. Ado­nis Creed (Michael B Jor­dan) earns his world title shot the hard way, but must stop the unde­feat­ed and soon-to-be incar­cer­at­ed Pret­ty” Ricky Con­lan, played by real-life cruis­er­weight and light heavy­weight cham­pi­on Tony Bellew.
On screen, Con­lan super­fi­cial­ly lives out an Amer­i­can Dream through box­ing, his rags-to-rich­es tra­jec­to­ry echo­ing Bellew’s own expe­ri­ence – the Liv­er­pudlian con­test­ed the WBC world title back in 2013, although he has not spent time behind bars.

Just as fold­ing British boxing’s work­ing-class roots into the sto­ry lends an air of authen­tic­i­ty, it’s telling that Creed’s final bout takes place on a typ­i­cal­ly British stage, Everton’s Good­i­son Park. Foot­ball sta­di­ums have played a piv­otal role in boxing’s recent rise in pop­u­lar­i­ty, with London’s Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um host­ing an under­card knock­out vic­to­ry for James DeGale, the cur­rent IBF super-mid­dleweight champ, against Amer­i­can Bran­don Gon­za­les in 2014. That Creed’s cli­mac­tic scene plays out away from the all-too famil­iar Las Vegas venue is a clear sig­ni­fi­er of British boxing’s renewed promi­nence with­in the sport.

Fol­low­ing in Creed’s foot­steps is the upcom­ing bluecol­lar box­ing dra­ma Jaw­bone, direct­ed by Thomas Nap­per, star­ring Ray Win­stone, Michael Smi­ley and John­ny Har­ris, and with an orig­i­nal score by Paul Weller. For­mer WBO feath­er­weight champ Bar­ry McGuigan and his 26-year-old son, Shane, are serv­ing as pro­duc­tion con­sul­tants, which will pre­sum­ably enhance the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the fic­tion­al sto­ry of Jim­my McCade. Like­wise, British pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny Mon­ey­glass Films, who made last year’s Being AP, are in the ear­ly stages of devel­op­ing a fea­ture doc­u­men­tary pro­fil­ing
25-year-old British box­er Josh The Leeds War­rior” War­ring­ton. These two new films are a sign of the times and, along with Creed, stand to bring British box­ing to a wider audi­ence while unshack­ling British box­ing cul­ture from its crime-ori­ent­ed cin­e­mat­ic past.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, British-pro­duced films fea­tur­ing box­ers have tend­ed to grav­i­tate towards the sport’s noto­ri­ety as a hotbed of crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. John Irvin’s Shin­er and Alex De Rakoff’s The Cal­ci­um Kid both high­light this crim­i­nal under­bel­ly while incor­po­rat­ing a spe­cif­ic type of screen vio­lence that is intrin­si­cal­ly linked to the sport. These films emerged in an era that saw Aud­ley Har­ri­son take the heavy­weight crown at the Syd­ney Olympics and Naseem Hamed suc­cess­ful­ly retain his WBO title for the fif­teenth and final time, and yet British cin­e­ma has been strange­ly reluc­tant to acknowl­edge – let alone cham­pi­on – its proud box­ing her­itage with authen­tic ring-based sto­ries. Even Lennox Lewis had to set­tle for a walk-on cameo in the Hol­ly­wood remake of Ocean’s Eleven, three years pri­or to retir­ing as the reign­ing undis­put­ed heavy­weight champ.

British cin­e­ma has long favoured grit­ty real­ism over Amer­i­can Dream’ style nar­ra­tives, in par­tic­u­lar show­ing a keen inter­est in Romany prize­fight­ing, a prim­i­tive form of the sport that remains huge­ly pop­u­lar among British trav­eller com­mu­ni­ties. Released in 2011, Knuck­le, a decid­ed­ly unglam­orous 12-years-in-the-mak­ing doc­u­men­tary, offers a fas­ci­nat­ing insight into the world of bare-knuck­le prize­fight­ing – a sub­cul­ture from which both self-styled Gyp­sy King’ Tyson Fury and cur­rent WBO mid­dleweight cham­pi­on Bil­ly Joe Saun­ders arose.

Set­ting aside the stig­ma attached to trav­eller com­mu­ni­ties by the British media, prize­fight­ing con­tin­ues to pro­duce world-class box­ers. Its cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance has been recog­nised by British film­mak­ers in the past, most famous­ly Guy Ritchie in 2001’s Snatch, which sees Brad Pitt play bare-knuck­le brawler Mick­ey O’Neill. Irish Trav­eller her­itage extends to the Unit­ed States, of course, as evi­denced in David O Russell’s 2010 biog­ra­phy The Fight­er, about real-life Mass­a­chu­setts light wel­ter­weight Irish” Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his old­er half-broth­er Dicky Eklund (Chris­t­ian Bale). With Eklund in his cor­ner, Ward com­petes for the world title in London’s Kens­ing­ton Olympia against Liverpool’s Shea Neary in a dra­mat­ic bout which took place in March 2000.

You have to look as far back as Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 film The Ring to find a gen­uine attempt to chart Britain boxing’s cul­ture impact, the only oth­er notable exam­ple being 1953’s The Square Ring. For gen­er­a­tions, then, pio­neer­ing mod­ern fight­ers like Jack Kid” Berg and Hen­ry Coop­er have been over­looked on the big screen. Giv­en that the cur­rent gold­en age of British box­ing looks set to rum­ble on for many years, that could all be about to change. As if Tyson Fury need­ed the extra encouragement.

You might like