Champs

The documentary tells the story of boxing through three lives: Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Bernard Hopkins. All three came out of poverty, all three were in trouble with the law as boys, and all three found the ring as the only way out. The film is less interested in the bright stretch of their careers than in what came before and after: where the money in the contracts went, the managers, the bankruptcies, and what is left to a fighter once he retires. Bert Marcus directs; eighty-six minutes. Spike Lee and 50 Cent are among those commenting. The film is hard not on boxing itself but on the industry around it, arguing that its athletes are stars and disposable at the same time.