This movie, the last film of actor Warren Oates was actually filmed before Oates' penultimate picture, Relámpago azul (1983), but was first released stateside about a week after that movie.
Dennis Quaid broke his nose during the making of this film, as he had done three years previously on Cabalgata infernal (1980).
The real life "Toughman Contest" was, according to Wikipedia, "founded in 1979 in Bay City, Michigan by boxing promoter Art Dore, [which] is a chance for the novice amateur fighters (those with no more than 5 sanctioned wins in the past 5 years) to test themselves in the ring".
Star Dennis Quaid once said of this film: "The movie is about courage. Not the kind of courage it takes to get in the ring with some gorilla, but the kind that stems from a belief in yourself".