Watching mixed martial artist Georges St. Pierre hammer out a one-sided win over wrestler Josh Koscheck the other night reminded me just how much I love the sport of boxing. I grew up during what I call The Golden Age of Boxing- the Ali Era(s)- and he was a hero of mine; still is, for reasons that have nothing to do with boxing- but it was his unrivaled ring career that captivated me as a kid. He was poetry in perpetual motion- passive aggression personified, if you will- and he singlehandedly cleaned out the heavyweight division during his career (during two of his three tenures as champ), and this documentary points up that fact: the men who talk about him here were all top-ten contenders, and he faced and beat them all. Their leather-worn faces are a road map of Ali's career and if George Foreman was the Einstein of Punching, then certainly Ali was the Einstein of BOXING. If I have one gripe about this documentary, it's the sparsity of the fight footage: to this day, it's nigh impossible to lay hands on copies of the fights mentioned. One can find almost ANY mixed martial arts bout on DVD; not so most of the greatest fistfights of all time.
Review of Facing Ali
