Latest / Ridiculous History / The Super Fight: When Muhammad Ali and Rocky Marciano Had A Fight That Never Happened

Transcript

The Super Fight: When Muhammad Ali and Rocky Marciano Had A Fight That Never Happened · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello
0:27
Speaker 1: and welcome to Ridiculous History. It's weird. I'm not been bowling.
0:31
Speaker 1: I'm Noel Brown. Ben usually says a pithy thing at
0:33
Speaker 1: the top of the show, but I'm just not that clever.
0:36
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what I have here is someone
0:38
Speaker 1: who is that clever. And its name is Christopher Haciota,
0:40
Speaker 1: so you know and love and we always say we
0:42
Speaker 1: have a Christopher shaped hole in the studio at the
0:44
Speaker 1: end of each episode. And now that hole is filled.
0:46
Speaker 1: Does that mean I'm supposed to say something pithy and clever?
0:49
Speaker 1: Now you just did. Just just your presence alone is
0:52
Speaker 1: all the pithiness and cleverness anyone here means. But give
0:55
Speaker 1: it some time, it'll just come naturally flowing forth. I
0:58
Speaker 1: think I should. So what do I say? I say?
1:00
Speaker 1: I say, you're no, I'm Ben. And that's a different show.
1:04
Speaker 1: Already different show man, you're talking about I am we
1:06
Speaker 1: are you? Are you? This is? This is a different show.
1:09
Speaker 1: Who are we? We are Ridiculous History. Oh great, didn't
1:12
Speaker 1: already say that. I'm in the right place. I'm glad
1:14
Speaker 1: that you're here because Ben is as he would say
1:17
Speaker 1: on Adventures Abroad, kicked into and out of whatever whatever
1:21
Speaker 1: tends to and out of. And I don't know. I
1:22
Speaker 1: don't want to. I don't want to spill the tea
1:24
Speaker 1: as the kids say about what bends up to too much.
1:27
Speaker 1: I will say, he is in Japan, um, but he's
1:30
Speaker 1: got some pretty cool stories to tell when he gets back,
1:32
Speaker 1: So I don't want to scoop him on any of that.
1:33
Speaker 1: I think you just spilled the t No, I spilled
1:35
Speaker 1: the tea about his location. So you guys can use
1:38
Speaker 1: Theater of the Mind two invent some scenarios as to
1:43
Speaker 1: what Ben may or may not be up to. And
1:45
Speaker 1: that was my segue intaid today's episode, which is a
1:48
Speaker 1: lot about creating scenarios that may or may not have
1:51
Speaker 1: actually happened, uh in Theater of the Mind. So that's
1:54
Speaker 1: sort of like, um, well let me ask you this.
1:56
Speaker 1: Sure you like fights, right, Um, I like you like
2:00
Speaker 1: battles and stuff like battles. I like debates, I do,
2:06
Speaker 1: I do. Yeah. I know you did this when you
2:08
Speaker 1: were a kid, right, you're a comic book fan, right, Yeah,
2:10
Speaker 1: it kind of care to that later in life. But
2:12
Speaker 1: I think I see where you're going So, you know,
2:14
Speaker 1: one one sort of schoolyard thing a lot of people
2:16
Speaker 1: dive into is who would win in a fight Spiderman
2:19
Speaker 1: versus Superman, the Invisible Woman versus Galactus. Invisible Man not
2:25
Speaker 1: a superhero. It depends. I mean, are we talking League
2:28
Speaker 1: of Extraordinary Gentleman Fantastic four? I mean League of Extraordinary Gentleman?
2:33
Speaker 1: They superhero if I the Invisible Man, don't they? It
2:36
Speaker 1: is sort of a fantasy mashup of of of powerful people.
2:40
Speaker 1: I would argue that Invisible Man versus Invisible Woman very
2:43
Speaker 1: dull fight. Well, unless you're the Predator's right, you're the predator.
2:49
Speaker 1: And then it's just like watching two hot bodies, Hot bodies?
2:53
Speaker 1: Where are you going with this? Christopher? Where you going
2:55
Speaker 1: with this? What do we? What do we got going
2:57
Speaker 1: on today? So I wanted to talk to you about
2:58
Speaker 1: another fantasy and this is the sort of thing you know,
3:01
Speaker 1: I mean, fantasy fighting is Uh, people probably went all
3:05
Speaker 1: the way back and we're like, I bet Galahad could
3:07
Speaker 1: beat Guenevere in the Battle Galahad versus Guenevere. Indeed, who knows, Uh,
3:13
Speaker 1: we don't have historical records that go back that far.
3:16
Speaker 1: At least I don't have any here in this drawer,
3:19
Speaker 1: But we do have a really strange instance in recent
3:23
Speaker 1: history of a fantasy battle that was a sort of
3:25
Speaker 1: thing that people would argue about in barbershops, in bars,
3:29
Speaker 1: over a sandwich, over a beer, Muhammad Ali versus Rocky Marciano,
3:35
Speaker 1: exactly who would reign supreme right? And this is a
3:38
Speaker 1: fight that never took place. It did not take place
3:40
Speaker 1: because these two men, these two boxing champions, we're not
3:44
Speaker 1: the same age, they were not of the same era.
3:46
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be like arguing who would put on a
3:49
Speaker 1: better show the Beatles or the Stones. It would be
3:51
Speaker 1: like saying, who would put on a better show the
3:54
Speaker 1: Beatles or Matchbox? We know the answered that obviously Matchbox
3:58
Speaker 1: to the Beatles were notorious, not very good live band.
4:01
Speaker 1: Matchbox twenty wasn't a very good anything. You're crazy? What
4:04
Speaker 1: do you tell? It's three am? I must be lonely.
4:06
Speaker 1: Have I brought enough tangents for this? Have we met
4:08
Speaker 1: the tangent quota yet? Oh? No, no, no, that that
4:10
Speaker 1: that we have not yet to begin to scratch the
4:12
Speaker 1: surface of tangents that we will scratch in this episode.
4:15
Speaker 1: But let's talk about some superlative, shall we the Fight
4:18
Speaker 1: of the Century, The Thriller in Manila, The Rumble in
4:21
Speaker 1: the Jungle, All of these names from Mohammed Ali's Big
4:25
Speaker 1: Fight the Big Guys. Have you heard of the super
4:28
Speaker 1: Fight like Superman? Yeah, exactly, exactly like Mohammad Al Superman
4:33
Speaker 1: in a comic book. Yeah, I haven't seen that one.
4:36
Speaker 1: But no, The super Fight a fictional fight that took
4:40
Speaker 1: place in nineteen seventy where the aged um Rocky Marciana
4:45
Speaker 1: was pitted against the fresh out of the clink um
4:49
Speaker 1: Mohammad Ali. Because Mohammad Ali, you see, protested the draft
4:54
Speaker 1: and said that he didn't have any problem with the
4:56
Speaker 1: viet Cong. What he did have a problem with was
4:58
Speaker 1: all these white folks in America. We're you know, booing
5:01
Speaker 1: and hissing at him and like treating him like persona
5:03
Speaker 1: non grata. So he's like, I think I'm just gonna
5:05
Speaker 1: stay here, uh, And he did. He got stripped of
5:08
Speaker 1: his title temporarily and thrown in jail, and he got
5:12
Speaker 1: out and needed to make a little extra oney. He
5:14
Speaker 1: actually so I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Um,
5:17
Speaker 1: let's get to the mastermind behind this fake fight. It
5:21
Speaker 1: was a guy named Murray Warrener, who was an AD
5:25
Speaker 1: executive from Miami. AD executives always have the bit the
5:28
Speaker 1: big ideas, right, They're all about the creative here. So
5:31
Speaker 1: he got really creative and decided that he could use
5:35
Speaker 1: some of this emerging computer technology UM to initially create
5:41
Speaker 1: fantasy fights in the form of radio plays. Exciting, it
5:45
Speaker 1: sounds exciting. It's that theater of the mind, right, because
5:48
Speaker 1: we know, UM, that was the way people consume sports.
5:51
Speaker 1: That's the reason sports commentary exists, baseball announcers and all
5:56
Speaker 1: of that. They paint a picture in your mind. Why
5:59
Speaker 1: couldn't you do that and just make it all up
6:01
Speaker 1: or generate the results from computer algorithms from something called
6:05
Speaker 1: an NCR three computer that had five K, yes, five
6:11
Speaker 1: K kilobytes of core memory and it was handmade, UM,
6:17
Speaker 1: and it was able to take these stats and create
6:22
Speaker 1: play by plays of different sporting events. So you're telling
6:26
Speaker 1: me that in nine there was a technology by which
6:30
Speaker 1: we could use digital production methods to create an audio
6:33
Speaker 1: drama of really compelling storytelling. Yeah, but the digital part
6:38
Speaker 1: was really just to create the data, right. It was
6:40
Speaker 1: crunching numbers at this point. It was saying based on
6:43
Speaker 1: these stats feeded into this machine, it'll generate you a winner,
6:48
Speaker 1: and it will generate you like these different scenarios. Right. NCR,
6:51
Speaker 1: by the way, you know it stands for I don't
6:54
Speaker 1: National Cash Register because you may be aware of the
6:57
Speaker 1: NCR company as manufacturers today of a t M machines UM,
7:01
Speaker 1: But back in these days they were on the cutting
7:04
Speaker 1: edge of of essentially I guess home computing. This wouldn't
7:07
Speaker 1: have this wouldn't have been attainable to the average person.
7:09
Speaker 1: But I think you found some pretty cool ads from
7:12
Speaker 1: not exactly the three fifteen, but something around the same time.
7:15
Speaker 1: Let's let's hear what they were promising with these devices.
7:19
Speaker 1: Consider the outstanding features of the Century three hundred. First,
7:23
Speaker 1: the hardware Century three hundred is an amalgamation of innovative
7:28
Speaker 1: technology in the most advanced systems architecture. Century three hundred
7:33
Speaker 1: is composed of four independently functioning units, the memory processor,
7:39
Speaker 1: IO controller, and the operator's communication center. Yeah, those are
7:43
Speaker 1: the NCR machines. And they do make a t M
7:46
Speaker 1: s UM or a t M machines As you say, no,
7:49
Speaker 1: it's very redundant, as like saying in cheese casada. Yeah,
7:53
Speaker 1: It's just it's not right. It's like saying Muhammad Ali
7:57
Speaker 1: the greatest boxer, Like you just know if you do
7:59
Speaker 1: know it, you don't need to say it. His autobiography
8:02
Speaker 1: is called the Greatest my own story. Well you know why,
8:05
Speaker 1: because he's the greatest, the greatest he gets he gets
8:08
Speaker 1: that title. Um. Now, these were not home computers. I mean,
8:11
Speaker 1: we got to remember this is still back in the
8:12
Speaker 1: day of like punch card computing. So what Warrener did
8:17
Speaker 1: was he basically reduced uh, some of the greatest boxers
8:21
Speaker 1: in the history of of the sports, sixteen different fighters,
8:25
Speaker 1: um too little cutouts on these punch cards, just basically
8:29
Speaker 1: listing out their statistics. This one has ex agility, this
8:33
Speaker 1: one has power, almost like like a little more advanced
8:36
Speaker 1: version of D and D. You know where you're rolling
8:38
Speaker 1: the however, many nerds sided dies we're talking about here, yeah,
8:41
Speaker 1: or on the back of those you know. Since we
8:43
Speaker 1: started talking about comic books earlier on, they were in
8:45
Speaker 1: the nineties, they were really popular with that sort of
8:48
Speaker 1: like baseball cards, but for superheroes exactly. Okay, well, Spider
8:52
Speaker 1: Man can jump this high, but Superman can leap tall building.
8:55
Speaker 1: That's right, you know, so plus or minus, different stats,
8:58
Speaker 1: different characters, stats, so very I mean, I don't know.
9:00
Speaker 1: I hopefully hopefully I'm not oversimplifying this too much. But
9:02
Speaker 1: that was the idea. And you're talking about a computer
9:05
Speaker 1: with with five kilobytes of memory. Simplification is I think
9:10
Speaker 1: you're right. It's the name, it's the name of the
9:12
Speaker 1: game here. So with this data, Warner was able to
9:16
Speaker 1: generate fifteen matches and have them voiced essentially as though
9:22
Speaker 1: they were real. It makes sense. It's theater of the mind.
9:25
Speaker 1: There's no there's nothing stopping you. If I had the
9:28
Speaker 1: voice of a radio announcer and I knew how to
9:31
Speaker 1: talk about a baseball game, I could fake a baseball
9:35
Speaker 1: game with you right now? Did we? I think we
9:38
Speaker 1: just invented a new podcast. Yeah, yeah, we should just
9:40
Speaker 1: pitch this to our bosses. We just recreate classic sports matchups,
9:46
Speaker 1: of which I am at a loss to name because
9:49
Speaker 1: but it's it's an alternative history version of these sports matches. Well,
9:53
Speaker 1: it's interesting that you mentioned alternative history because Warner also
9:57
Speaker 1: he saw a much bigger potential for this process. It
10:01
Speaker 1: was about sports. Yes, now, what's there's a quote from
10:04
Speaker 1: him that his mind boggling lye uh, brazen and just
10:08
Speaker 1: full of hubris, as though he had figured out the
10:11
Speaker 1: most amazing thing in the history of entertainment. Yet Warner
10:14
Speaker 1: had really, really high thoughts. There was a piece from
10:17
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated where he's quoted as saying, we could do
10:20
Speaker 1: more than sports, much more wars, Hitler's Germany against the
10:24
Speaker 1: Roman Empire, Napoleon versus Alexander the Great. How about election campaigns,
10:29
Speaker 1: George Washington versus Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln against George Wallace,
10:33
Speaker 1: and debates Socrates takes on Carl Mark's thorough against John
10:37
Speaker 1: Paul Sart. Why not? Why not? Why not? Indeed, I'll
10:41
Speaker 1: tell you why not? Because this is so reductive, right,
10:44
Speaker 1: because like, at least with a thing like box saying
10:46
Speaker 1: you kind of can match up stats and that sort
10:49
Speaker 1: of makes sense. But like with a debate or like
10:51
Speaker 1: a poetry slam or something like that, that all comes
10:54
Speaker 1: down to individual creativity and like coming up with the
10:57
Speaker 1: right words that are actually better as opposed to like,
11:00
Speaker 1: you know, boxing and someone being able to I'm not
11:02
Speaker 1: saying that like sports aren't don't have an art form
11:04
Speaker 1: to themselves, but it's a lot easier to crunch some
11:07
Speaker 1: numbers and say who's gonna win in a boxing match
11:10
Speaker 1: than it is a debate or like some kind of
11:12
Speaker 1: philosophical arguments. Well, it's interesting because I think, and I've
11:15
Speaker 1: heard you know, we work in a creative industry, and
11:17
Speaker 1: I've heard this from a lot of people, both in
11:18
Speaker 1: in podcasts, but also people we know who work in
11:21
Speaker 1: in film and radio and television. And you know, they'll
11:25
Speaker 1: come up with a really creative, compelling idea for a
11:28
Speaker 1: for a new show, a movie, and they'll pitch it
11:30
Speaker 1: to the studios, and the studios will say, no, we're
11:33
Speaker 1: in the digital age, that everything's Internet. We have statistics
11:36
Speaker 1: and analysis for everything. So we'll run the numbers, and
11:40
Speaker 1: this movie will not appeal to the right people in
11:43
Speaker 1: the right amount of time for the right season, and
11:45
Speaker 1: so it won't make money and it's not worth doing.
11:47
Speaker 1: And I think there's this idea that hanging things on
11:50
Speaker 1: numbers and analysis and and that sort of data driven
11:54
Speaker 1: model is a new thing, and it's it's a woe
11:56
Speaker 1: of our current age. But go back to the seventies
11:59
Speaker 1: and we're all already doing it. This is not even
12:01
Speaker 1: the seventies yet, this is like sixty eight. This is
12:04
Speaker 1: the turn. It's crazy, and you're right, I mean not
12:07
Speaker 1: to get too off the off the rail here, but
12:09
Speaker 1: like Netflix, I mean they live and die by the algorithm, dude.
12:12
Speaker 1: Like they all of that that data that we're feeding Netflix,
12:15
Speaker 1: they use that to choose what kind of thing they're
12:17
Speaker 1: going to make. Neix. I think everything all do usually
12:21
Speaker 1: it's falling asleep on the couch by the Netflix algorithm.
12:24
Speaker 1: But I I don't know how to pick anything on
12:25
Speaker 1: Netflix anymore because it's trying to cater to me so
12:28
Speaker 1: hard that it's literally giving me like nothing that I
12:31
Speaker 1: want to see. I don't know how that that makes
12:32
Speaker 1: any sense at all, But like I just scroll through
12:35
Speaker 1: Netflix thumbnails infinitely and never actually pick something and send
12:39
Speaker 1: rewatching the office. That's because I know it's you know,
12:41
Speaker 1: but that's not even gonna be on there for very
12:44
Speaker 1: It is the tragedy of choice. But we digress. It's
12:51
Speaker 1: just to get back to the stats and what those
12:53
Speaker 1: factors would have looked like. They had fifty eight different factors.
12:56
Speaker 1: That's not even that many considering um, but it was
12:58
Speaker 1: things like we're talking about like bead uh, you know,
13:01
Speaker 1: probability of injury, um, how strong the left you can throw, etcetera,
13:06
Speaker 1: and even things like I love this Guardian article again
13:10
Speaker 1: characterizes as the sublime hardness of punch, killer instinct and courage.
13:17
Speaker 1: I wonder how many people had to contribute to say, like,
13:19
Speaker 1: you know, I think this guy's got a seven killer instinct,
13:22
Speaker 1: and people like no, no, no, no, that's an eight.
13:24
Speaker 1: That's much more like you look at that instinct for sure,
13:26
Speaker 1: it's absolutely it's absolutely killer. So this is a thing
13:30
Speaker 1: that starts happening, and he uh assigns, um, these sixteen fighters,
13:34
Speaker 1: you know, number values. So Rocky Marciano is number zero
13:38
Speaker 1: zero four and Jack Dempsey another classic boxer, zero zero two.
13:44
Speaker 1: And in the thirteen round of these uh these matches
13:47
Speaker 1: that we're talking about, um, it has Rocky Marciano knocking
13:51
Speaker 1: out Jack Dempsey. So Muhammad Ali was also part of
13:54
Speaker 1: this group of fighters that that Warner had put together,
13:57
Speaker 1: right for sure? And what what how and with him,
14:00
Speaker 1: so he was pitted against a guy named Jim Jeffries,
14:04
Speaker 1: who Ali had openly be because we know Ali was
14:07
Speaker 1: known for his uh, his quick wit and trash mouth,
14:11
Speaker 1: right yeah, and and this was no exception. He very
14:14
Speaker 1: openly trashed. Uh Jefferies as quote history is clumsiest, most
14:19
Speaker 1: slow footed heavyweight. Um. So he was none too pleased
14:24
Speaker 1: when the old NCR three fifteen uh said that Ali
14:28
Speaker 1: would have lost in a quarterfinal round two. Uh. This um,
14:34
Speaker 1: this man he characterized as being a pretty slow, bad boxer,
14:38
Speaker 1: because you know, Ali was known as being super quick
14:40
Speaker 1: on his feet and you know, the greatest, like we said,
14:43
Speaker 1: So he actually takes a step further. He's not doing
14:47
Speaker 1: particularly great money wise, because he got stripped of all
14:49
Speaker 1: his stuff and he was in jail, and he definitely
14:52
Speaker 1: like was not at his peak at this point. So
14:55
Speaker 1: he probably made I mean, I don't know, I'm speculating here,
14:57
Speaker 1: but saw out this as an opportunity to to make
15:00
Speaker 1: a little cash and get back on his feet. So
15:02
Speaker 1: he actually sues Warner. Yeah, I think it. I mean,
15:04
Speaker 1: I obviously cannot put myself in the mind of Muhammad Ali.
15:07
Speaker 1: But you know, in addition to the cash issue, like
15:10
Speaker 1: this is this is a man who, rightfully so had
15:12
Speaker 1: serious pride, you know, like he was the computation every
15:16
Speaker 1: greatest for sure, you know so, and he had just
15:19
Speaker 1: been dinged by the government. You know, he had been
15:22
Speaker 1: had all these issues regarding his um, his stance on
15:25
Speaker 1: the war. And then the next thing he knows, this
15:28
Speaker 1: computer is saying that he would lose to Jim Jeffreys.
15:31
Speaker 1: Like it's an outrage, so I think probably you know
15:35
Speaker 1: he so he approaches Warner with a one million dollar
15:37
Speaker 1: lawsuit saying that he was the famed and yeah, that
15:40
Speaker 1: gets to the heart. It's it's defamation. It's misrepresentation of
15:43
Speaker 1: himself and this character and his his abilities. First of all,
15:46
Speaker 1: not to mention, like, again, a lot of these stats
15:49
Speaker 1: that we're talking about Kilie speculative, right, I mean, fifty
15:53
Speaker 1: eight individual components, these simulations utter fiction, wouldn't you agree?
15:59
Speaker 1: I mean? And again it's it's late sixties. This is
16:02
Speaker 1: very very primitive computer, very primitive. But Warner not primitive.
16:06
Speaker 1: He's a pretty adept businessman, that guy. Know what's up.
16:09
Speaker 1: He figures out a way out of this lawsuits. So
16:13
Speaker 1: he says, all right, Mohammad Ali, you're suiting me for
16:16
Speaker 1: a million dollars, but what about this instead? And and
16:20
Speaker 1: that's always the fun part, you know, when you're like,
16:22
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna propose an alternate route. And this alternate
16:26
Speaker 1: route was for Warner to pay Mohammad Ali nine thousand
16:31
Speaker 1: dollar less than ten k to film this fantasy fight.
16:35
Speaker 1: And and the thing about this is what a great
16:37
Speaker 1: opportunity to take this computer radio simulation and put it
16:42
Speaker 1: on film. That was kind of taken into the next level.
16:44
Speaker 1: They hadn't done any of these yet. Yeah, And and
16:46
Speaker 1: he said, Muhammad Ali, how would you like to fight
16:49
Speaker 1: Rocky Marciano? At the time, it's Mohammad Ali is in
16:53
Speaker 1: his early thirties, which you know, it's not too old,
16:56
Speaker 1: but at a boxer that's like long in the tooth, right,
16:59
Speaker 1: and Marciano certainly was not ready for for fighting. He
17:03
Speaker 1: was fifty years older time, that's right. He had made
17:06
Speaker 1: a career as a sausage and Italian food impresario. Right. Um,
17:11
Speaker 1: I think he had been out of the game for
17:14
Speaker 1: about thirteen years. Um, had not been exercising, had gotten
17:18
Speaker 1: quite paunchy, was balding, did not have a very good
17:22
Speaker 1: back from years of you know, abuse in the ring,
17:24
Speaker 1: I'm sure. But he had made quite a living as
17:27
Speaker 1: a TV presenter. He had all these product endorsements, had
17:30
Speaker 1: a chain of restaurants, a sausage factory. Um. He had
17:33
Speaker 1: even like tried his hand at being a referee and
17:36
Speaker 1: he he wasn't against doing this, and there was a
17:40
Speaker 1: great there's a great story about how in the same
17:43
Speaker 1: Guardian article about how he was was a notorious cheap skate.
17:48
Speaker 1: He like would do that trick that I never thought
17:50
Speaker 1: was really real, where you'd take a wire and attach
17:53
Speaker 1: it to a coin and put on a pay phone
17:54
Speaker 1: and then fish it back out, you know. And he apparently,
17:57
Speaker 1: like his business manager characterized him as being just like
18:01
Speaker 1: addicted to cash, whereas he would write checks for fifty
18:05
Speaker 1: k like it was nothing, but if he had twenty
18:08
Speaker 1: bucks in his pocket, he would do everything he could
18:10
Speaker 1: to hold onto that twenty bucks because he grew up
18:12
Speaker 1: in a different era where cash was kimping. I mean,
18:14
Speaker 1: I think about Marciana, right, he was born in the
18:17
Speaker 1: early twenties, Um, so he grew up in the height
18:19
Speaker 1: of the depression, you know, working probably black markets to
18:24
Speaker 1: to find things for his family as a kid. And
18:26
Speaker 1: that stays with you when you're that young. Um. But yeah,
18:29
Speaker 1: he he really branched out after his boxing career kind
18:33
Speaker 1: of wrapped up. It's it's really interesting. This has a
18:36
Speaker 1: lot of parallels both both Marciana's story and then kind
18:40
Speaker 1: of what we're going to get into with Rocky Balboa,
18:43
Speaker 1: who is a fake hero but a hero nonetheless. Um,
18:47
Speaker 1: but we can we can get back to that. Yeah. Absolutely,
18:49
Speaker 1: let's talk about this video because it's it's really really creative. Yeah,
18:54
Speaker 1: I mean it reminds me. I was talking to super
18:56
Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegraham, who I did not shout out at
18:59
Speaker 1: the beginning the show. I think my presence here ruined.
19:02
Speaker 1: It really threw off the vibe. We're also in a
19:06
Speaker 1: different studio. I want to be very clear, there are
19:08
Speaker 1: multiple reasons why I forgot to do that, But yes,
19:11
Speaker 1: I was talking to our super producer, Casey pegram Um
19:13
Speaker 1: about how the way this was filmed kind of reminds
19:17
Speaker 1: me of some of those um early fighting games like
19:20
Speaker 1: Mortal Kombat, where they actually have actors in costumes playing
19:25
Speaker 1: out all of the different moves scenarios and then they
19:28
Speaker 1: map it to video or I don't know exactly how
19:30
Speaker 1: they do it. Casey could probably like explain it. I
19:31
Speaker 1: don't think he's recording his mic. I'm on recording, sweet,
19:35
Speaker 1: So how do they do that, Casey? Like in Mortal
19:36
Speaker 1: Koma where they're shooting profiles of fighters, you know, addressed
19:40
Speaker 1: like Scorpion and sub zero and they I think they
19:43
Speaker 1: used to call it motion capture and yeah, I mean
19:45
Speaker 1: it's literally like point of camera at of surface that
19:48
Speaker 1: is like a green screen or a black screen or whatever,
19:51
Speaker 1: and just yeah, do all the do all the moves,
19:52
Speaker 1: and then that turns into like a limited number of
19:55
Speaker 1: frames because they didn't have enough memory in early video
19:57
Speaker 1: games to like ingest all that stuff. Casey on the
19:59
Speaker 1: K and similar to them, I mean, you've also got
20:03
Speaker 1: video games like dragons Layer, which was sort of a
20:07
Speaker 1: choose year in advention exactly, and I think this Rocky
20:10
Speaker 1: Marciano Muhammad Ali fight is sort of a halfway in
20:13
Speaker 1: between those two. Because so what Warner does is he
20:16
Speaker 1: gets Marciano and Ali into the studio, which is a
20:20
Speaker 1: boxing ring, and films him going through all the different
20:24
Speaker 1: possible punches, uh, dodges, ducks that you could come across
20:28
Speaker 1: in a boxing match, and then match it up to
20:32
Speaker 1: the audio track that was generated from the stats that
20:35
Speaker 1: the computer made for that matchup or whatever, based on
20:39
Speaker 1: both men I believe in their prime, right. Yeah, So
20:41
Speaker 1: this is the sort of thing where they shot this
20:44
Speaker 1: on film. The boxing ring was set against a totally
20:48
Speaker 1: black background, so there are not too many details that
20:51
Speaker 1: would distract, so you could really cut from one punch
20:53
Speaker 1: to the other to make it look as relatively seamless
20:57
Speaker 1: as you can. I mean, you can see it now,
20:59
Speaker 1: and it's all over the internet. Yeah, we'll will share
21:02
Speaker 1: a link to this on the Ridiculous Historians facebook page.
21:05
Speaker 1: Um so, if you're not part of that group, head
21:07
Speaker 1: on over that way and to check out this fight.
21:09
Speaker 1: It looks a little rudimentary to us now, but at
21:11
Speaker 1: the time it was it was somewhat groundbreaking. It absolutely was.
21:14
Speaker 1: I mean you can see the cuts. The continuity isn't great,
21:18
Speaker 1: but like you said, because of the fact that they
21:21
Speaker 1: made the background so simple, it isn't as distracting as
21:25
Speaker 1: one might think. And they're literally recreating with these series
21:29
Speaker 1: of kind of pre planned scenarios of them going through
21:33
Speaker 1: the motions of what would happen, what could happen in
21:36
Speaker 1: a fight. They recreate that algorithmically, I guess, for lack
21:40
Speaker 1: of a better term, generated uh fight. Yeah, and no,
21:43
Speaker 1: you've talked a lot about the theater of the mind,
21:45
Speaker 1: but I mean this was just actual theater, just pure
21:48
Speaker 1: theodrics on film. They wanted to make themselves look good.
21:52
Speaker 1: Uh so all Muhammad Ali who had at the time
21:55
Speaker 1: it took on a little bit of a paunch. He
21:57
Speaker 1: lost about forty five pounds getting ready for this, but
22:01
Speaker 1: at the same time he was still a little flabby.
22:03
Speaker 1: Rocky Marciano, on the other hand, you know, he's he's
22:04
Speaker 1: pushing fifty years old. He had on a two pay
22:08
Speaker 1: to try to recapture that that younger look. But it
22:12
Speaker 1: wasn't quite real. No it wasn't. But again it was
22:14
Speaker 1: you gotta give him an a for effort because it
22:16
Speaker 1: really I mean, I'm not a huge boxing guy. I know,
22:20
Speaker 1: I'm not any kind of boxing guy, so I don't
22:22
Speaker 1: even know what these dudes really looked like in their prime.
22:24
Speaker 1: And I was looking at him like they didn't look
22:25
Speaker 1: like two over the hill has been to me, it
22:28
Speaker 1: looked like it looked like two pretty strong dudes that were,
22:30
Speaker 1: you know, cut out to to be matched up against
22:32
Speaker 1: each other. So we've got this, We've got this, uh
22:40
Speaker 1: filmic event and it was actually shown in movie theaters
22:44
Speaker 1: and apparently some of the edits are the segments that
22:48
Speaker 1: they that they created. Um because I would imagine too
22:50
Speaker 1: they knew in advance what the outcome was going to be.
22:52
Speaker 1: They knew in advance what the play by plays were
22:54
Speaker 1: going to be. They must have done some work of
22:59
Speaker 1: actually recreate eating some of those things, you know, to
23:02
Speaker 1: match with what was in the audio. And apparently some
23:05
Speaker 1: of them they did such a good job that they
23:07
Speaker 1: don't even have any edits, so there's no cuts. They
23:09
Speaker 1: go along perfectly. It looks, it looks great. So January
23:13
Speaker 1: is when the Super Fight aired in cinemas. There were
23:16
Speaker 1: a thousand cinemas in the US and five hundred more
23:19
Speaker 1: across the world Canada, Europe, Mexico, a couple other places,
23:22
Speaker 1: and people could go sit in the theater and really
23:25
Speaker 1: just witness to what at that point had just been
23:29
Speaker 1: pure fantasy, pure speculation. And you know, I mean, it's
23:33
Speaker 1: kind of like what we get into now with all
23:35
Speaker 1: these superhero crossover movies, where in the in the New
23:39
Speaker 1: Avengers movies, you get to see characters from Black Panther
23:42
Speaker 1: show up against the folks from Thor and Iron Man
23:46
Speaker 1: and just the sort of mishmash of fans service. And
23:50
Speaker 1: I want to point out to I made a mistake.
23:53
Speaker 1: They didn't know the outcome that they didn't know, the
23:56
Speaker 1: outcome until it came it was on live. So that's
23:59
Speaker 1: why they filmed in such a way. They could piece
24:01
Speaker 1: together those scenarios so that the men were not told
24:04
Speaker 1: who was going to be there, right, Yeah, exactly, because
24:07
Speaker 1: it was up to the computer. It was up to
24:08
Speaker 1: the computer to to figure it out. And they had
24:10
Speaker 1: to just like you know, get as much source material
24:12
Speaker 1: as they could so they could edit it together. Um,
24:14
Speaker 1: and what was the verdict. Well, what happened is on January,
24:20
Speaker 1: in front of crowds of thousands of people in movie theaters,
24:24
Speaker 1: Rocky Marciano chaos, Muhammad Ali round thirteen. So Ali puts
24:30
Speaker 1: up a good fight, but according to the statistics, according
24:32
Speaker 1: to the computer, it's Marciano. Yeah. And um, you know,
24:38
Speaker 1: Ali he got himself into this because he felt like
24:42
Speaker 1: he was being defamed from all of this. So this
24:45
Speaker 1: is kind of almost as tragic outcome for him in
24:48
Speaker 1: terms of a blow to his ego, right that he
24:51
Speaker 1: lost yet again. The computer, Um, you know saw him
24:54
Speaker 1: being defeated again, and he was actually quoted as saying, uh,
24:57
Speaker 1: that computer must have come from Alabama, Uh, you know,
25:01
Speaker 1: implying it that choosing the white the white man as
25:04
Speaker 1: the winner. Well, I think the thing about Ali is
25:06
Speaker 1: there's so many sides to this really compelling man. You know,
25:10
Speaker 1: he he had his public bluster and he had to
25:13
Speaker 1: put up his front. But the truth of the matter is,
25:15
Speaker 1: you know, as much as he said that, oh, this
25:16
Speaker 1: whole thing was a hoax, it was a sham, I
25:18
Speaker 1: never would have lost blah blah blah, um kind of
25:21
Speaker 1: keeping that that facade up. He and Marciano had actually
25:24
Speaker 1: become good friends during the creation of this thing, like buddies,
25:27
Speaker 1: you know, they I think had that mutual professional respect
25:30
Speaker 1: and then hit it off while making this thing and
25:33
Speaker 1: and had a blast. You know. One of the ways
25:36
Speaker 1: Muhammad Ali, though, was able to keep up this bluster
25:38
Speaker 1: and say, oh, I should have won and the computer
25:40
Speaker 1: did me wrong, is uh is Marciano wasn't able to
25:43
Speaker 1: say the same thing because Marciano actually died about four
25:47
Speaker 1: or five months before this. Um. This fight aired in theaters.
25:52
Speaker 1: Marciano died August thirty one, nine, which is the day
25:56
Speaker 1: before his birthday. Actually, um, he would have been in
25:59
Speaker 1: his forties, and he was a passenger on a small
26:01
Speaker 1: plane and somewhere in Iowa, bad weather just sent the
26:05
Speaker 1: plane down so he passed away, never got to see
26:07
Speaker 1: his victory over Ali, which is kind of a shame.
26:09
Speaker 1: Even though it wasn't a real victory, still might have
26:12
Speaker 1: you know, it's still a little bit of pride in
26:13
Speaker 1: this guy passed his prime. Well again, the SINCR three
26:16
Speaker 1: fifteen um that was being lauded by Warrener had so
26:20
Speaker 1: much faith in Uh. People in the public is a
26:24
Speaker 1: big part of this when I say people began losing
26:26
Speaker 1: faith in this computer because you know, it's easy to
26:28
Speaker 1: get fascinated by the new thing, the hottest new tech
26:31
Speaker 1: or whatever. Even back in those days, this seemed like
26:33
Speaker 1: magic as far as people were concerned. But it started
26:36
Speaker 1: making some pretty bunk calls. Right so um. Ali was
26:40
Speaker 1: pretty outspoken as he was wont to be um and
26:44
Speaker 1: he referred to the outcome of the super Fi you
26:46
Speaker 1: may have said this earlier, Christopher as a sham and
26:48
Speaker 1: a Hollywood fake. He said all this on the Dick
26:50
Speaker 1: Cabot show. Uh, And Warrener was not happy about that
26:53
Speaker 1: because he had paid Ali the money he he was due,
26:56
Speaker 1: and so Warrener uh sued Ali for two million bucks,
27:00
Speaker 1: claiming that another one of these fights fell through because
27:03
Speaker 1: Ali was out there spewing all this hatred and lies
27:05
Speaker 1: and you know, how dare you defame my, my, my
27:07
Speaker 1: dear sweet n c R three fifteen, And this one
27:09
Speaker 1: would have been between Sugar Ray Robinson and Marcel Uh
27:14
Speaker 1: Casey Casey on the case, yeah, because Sugar Ray Um
27:21
Speaker 1: wasn't feeling it because you know, I mean obviously everyone
27:24
Speaker 1: in the boxing community would have had massive, massive respect
27:27
Speaker 1: for Um, for Ali and would have you know, taken
27:31
Speaker 1: heed Um if he was talking trash Uh, And soon
27:35
Speaker 1: everyone kind of lost faith in the machine. In nineteen
27:37
Speaker 1: seventy September nineteen seventy, the n c R three UM
27:41
Speaker 1: This is the Next Model predicted that Joe Frazier would
27:45
Speaker 1: lose to Bob Foster in a real fight, and no
27:49
Speaker 1: one else was feeling that because Fraser Uh was outweighed
27:54
Speaker 1: Foster by twenty one pounds UM and he was like
27:58
Speaker 1: totally in his prime. It was a wee aired wonky
28:01
Speaker 1: kind of match up. And Uh, it was just a
28:04
Speaker 1: total you know, ship show, as we like to say
28:08
Speaker 1: this history. That's the thing about sports that's so exciting,
28:10
Speaker 1: right is um It's not just a numbers game. If
28:13
Speaker 1: you could predict the outcome of any matchup by just
28:16
Speaker 1: looking at the statistics beforehand, that would remove any magic
28:20
Speaker 1: from the scenario. Right, That's not why you watch a game.
28:22
Speaker 1: You watch a game because you're rooting for one of
28:23
Speaker 1: the teams. But it's those come from behind, underdog victories,
28:27
Speaker 1: the unexpected wins that make sports so exciting. And I
28:30
Speaker 1: think Warner, you know, in all of his machinations and
28:33
Speaker 1: his imaginings of using data to really drive this, he
28:38
Speaker 1: forgot the human element and that pride is sort of
28:40
Speaker 1: also what Ali carred with himself for so long, you know.
28:43
Speaker 1: He in his he mentioned his autobiography before. One of
28:46
Speaker 1: the things he wrote was about this fight. He said,
28:48
Speaker 1: I saw myself on the ropes being destroyed by Marciano
28:51
Speaker 1: in one of the quote artistic endings few actors could equal.
28:55
Speaker 1: But some people thought it was real. Some sat stone still,
28:58
Speaker 1: some boot and yelled, some cry. I felt like I
29:01
Speaker 1: had disappointed millions all over the world. It left me
29:03
Speaker 1: ashamed of what I've been doing. I've gone over the
29:06
Speaker 1: country promoting the series as fair and accurate, especially the
29:09
Speaker 1: Marciano Vie Ali show man that's heavy that also could
29:13
Speaker 1: be him, you know, trying to paint the picture of
29:16
Speaker 1: his situation so that his lawsuit had a absolutely no,
29:20
Speaker 1: you're totally right. But well, I will say back to Warrener,
29:23
Speaker 1: his sort of blindness to the thing, the magic, the
29:27
Speaker 1: spark that actually makes these events special is so apparent
29:31
Speaker 1: in that quote that we read earlier about how let's
29:34
Speaker 1: like you know, Pitt Nietzsche versus Schopenhauer or whoever, like
29:37
Speaker 1: all of these like human, you know, fallible individuals making cases,
29:41
Speaker 1: you know, for their philosophies like from the heart, like
29:43
Speaker 1: you can't assign a numeric value to that, or of
29:47
Speaker 1: a loss or a win. And the fact that he
29:49
Speaker 1: thought that showed that he was definitely high on his
29:52
Speaker 1: own supply in terms of thinking that this was like
29:55
Speaker 1: much more of a clever idea than it actually was.
29:58
Speaker 1: But you know, this the super fight for as sort
30:01
Speaker 1: of strange and tangential and not really um you know,
30:04
Speaker 1: it wasn't the future of sports at the time, but
30:08
Speaker 1: you still see this today. And like football matchups, anytime
30:11
Speaker 1: you're watching a game, the two announcers need something to
30:13
Speaker 1: talk about because football is super boring and take so
30:17
Speaker 1: long side note that they just end up talking about
30:21
Speaker 1: stats of this player versus that player of this quarterback
30:24
Speaker 1: versus that quarterback, of what they're expected to do versus
30:26
Speaker 1: what they actually do. And uh, I feel like that's
30:29
Speaker 1: half of sports commentary is just talking about the data
30:31
Speaker 1: and it bores me to tears totally. And again, we're
30:35
Speaker 1: in fantasy football season, are about to be We've got
30:37
Speaker 1: a couple of new fantasy football shows launching here on
30:40
Speaker 1: the network. Um, that is not a world that I
30:42
Speaker 1: am familiar with, but at least that that does rely
30:45
Speaker 1: on chance, and it does rely on kind of the
30:47
Speaker 1: ability to like pick winners because you can interpret the stats. Uh,
30:51
Speaker 1: and and then kind of roll the dice and see
30:53
Speaker 1: what happens. Yeah, I mean those are podcasts I would listen. Yeah,
30:56
Speaker 1: because the stats are fallible. I mean that's the point.
30:58
Speaker 1: There is that human element and that ability to kind
31:00
Speaker 1: of rise above you know, what the numbers say and
31:03
Speaker 1: kind of give that final push into greatness or whatever.
31:06
Speaker 1: And I think that's really interesting. Yeah. So if you're
31:08
Speaker 1: listening and you're interested in this fight, you can seek
31:10
Speaker 1: it out. You can find a lot of it online.
31:11
Speaker 1: But there was also in two thousand five, a DVD
31:13
Speaker 1: of the fight came out, and it also included a
31:16
Speaker 1: documentary about the radio fights. In the history behind this,
31:19
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting, but the legacy lived on in strange ways.
31:23
Speaker 1: I mentioned this earlier in the two thousand three film
31:26
Speaker 1: Rocky Balboa, which, uh, I don't know. Are you a
31:28
Speaker 1: Rocky fan? How do you feel about right? I think
31:30
Speaker 1: it's a classically good film, um, and I think even
31:34
Speaker 1: like the newer ones from recent years are are pretty great. Yeah.
31:37
Speaker 1: So I mean that's what I'm that's the one I'm
31:38
Speaker 1: talking about. Rocky is I think one of the finest
31:40
Speaker 1: American films of all time, and everyone should see it,
31:42
Speaker 1: and everyone should see it many many times, and I
31:45
Speaker 1: cry anytime I watch it, and I'm not ashamed to
31:47
Speaker 1: admit that. But Rocky Balboa, which came out in the
31:50
Speaker 1: two thousands, was the sixth film in that series, and
31:52
Speaker 1: it's sort of book ended the career of this boxer,
31:56
Speaker 1: semi fictionalized boxer that Sylvester Stallone created. So it's sent
32:01
Speaker 1: thirty years after the initial fights in Rocky and Rocky
32:04
Speaker 1: is working in a meat plant, you know, he has
32:06
Speaker 1: his own kind of side gig. It kind of mirrors
32:09
Speaker 1: what Rocky Marciana was going through at the time. So
32:12
Speaker 1: in this two thousand six film Rocky Balboa. The impetus
32:15
Speaker 1: for Rocky coming back into the ring for the Stallion
32:18
Speaker 1: trying to reclaim his title, mixing some nicknames. There is
32:22
Speaker 1: espn pits this aging boxer in his prime against Mason
32:28
Speaker 1: the Line Dixon, a boxer who was unpopular, you know,
32:32
Speaker 1: according to the film, but um you know, claimed that
32:35
Speaker 1: he could have beaten Rocky Balboa. And so the super
32:38
Speaker 1: fight actually inspired the two thousand six film Rocky Balboa.
32:42
Speaker 1: Uh in sort of this really weird meditextual way in
32:46
Speaker 1: which Rocky kind of relates to Rocky Marciano. There's obviously
32:49
Speaker 1: parallels in the names and in the story about them
32:51
Speaker 1: packing meat and kind of working in that industry on
32:54
Speaker 1: the side, which I will also say, uh weird. Ari
32:57
Speaker 1: Yankovic presaged in his in his terrific album in three
33:03
Speaker 1: D from the eighties. You know what, I recently rewatched
33:06
Speaker 1: that that totally held up. Uh UHF. I have dreams
33:10
Speaker 1: of having a chat one day with our with our
33:13
Speaker 1: colleague Chuck Bryant on Movie Crush about that show. Okay, great,
33:16
Speaker 1: you totally should you know that we could make that
33:18
Speaker 1: dream of reality. Dude, I'm on that show we got
33:21
Speaker 1: to do that I would love. I would say for
33:23
Speaker 1: UHF is probably the film I've seen more times than
33:26
Speaker 1: any other except maybe Star Wars. Yeah, right on that.
33:29
Speaker 1: That explains so much about your personality, Christopher. Uh. And
33:32
Speaker 1: speaking of your personality, thank you so much for lending
33:35
Speaker 1: it to us on this episode. This is a lot
33:37
Speaker 1: of fun and it is always available for you. I
33:38
Speaker 1: appreciate it. We love filling that Christopher Hasiota shaped hole
33:42
Speaker 1: in the studio. Big thanks to super producer Casey Pegraham.
33:45
Speaker 1: As always, thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme.
33:47
Speaker 1: Thanks to Ben Bolland, co host and absentia away on Adventures.
33:52
Speaker 1: Can't wait to have you back, buddies so we can
33:53
Speaker 1: hear about your your exploits and whether or not you
33:56
Speaker 1: made it out of Japan without getting kicked out against
33:59
Speaker 1: your will. Big thanks to our research associates Gabe lues
34:03
Speaker 1: Here and Ryan Barrish uh. And thanks to you folks
34:06
Speaker 1: out there in podcast land. Uh. We'll see you next time. No,
34:09
Speaker 1: I think this episode was a knockout. I think so too, Boom.
34:20
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
34:22
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to
34:25
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,