As one of popular culture’s most popular arenas, sports are often the subject of cinematic storytelling. But boxing films are special. There are more movies about boxing, than any other sport,The Boxing Film explores why boxing has so consistently fascinated cinema, and popular media, by tracing how boxing films inform the sport’s meanings and uses from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century.

TRAVIS VOGAN is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Department of American Studies at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. His most recent book is ABC Sports: The Rise and Fall of Network Sports Television.

Introduction: The Boxing Film Over Time and Across Media
1. The Boxing Film through the Golden Age of Sports Media
2. St. Joe Louis, Surrounded by Films
3. TV Fighting and Fighting TV in the 1950s
4. Muhammad Ali, The Super Fight, and Closed-Circuit Exhibition
5. The 1970s, Rocky, and the Shadow of Ali
6. HBO Sports: Docu-Branding Boxing
7. Protecting Boxing with the Boxing Film
Conclusion: Handling the Rules
Acknowledgements
Index