The Kings

Excellent four-part documentary on four great boxers (which were also quite interesting characters) whose careers crossed and clashed to each others throw the 80, with a seriously explored social and political background which they are also products and representatives. While all four fighters have been poor and became victorious and skilled sportsmen, half of them were media superstars, while the other half were black heavy punchers who attracted attention only after beating one of the other two. "Sugar" Ray Leonard was the smiling golden boy on TV (a rare black man in that position in those years) who was the perfect neo-liberal propaganda self-made man of Reagan (but was also the addicted unfaithful frenzied husband seriously eroded by low self-esteem). Opposed to the United States imperialism was Roberto Durán, the former street boy who fought as if his family would have no food if he lost, who represented the proud of Panama with his "Manos de Piedra" blowing down rich gringoes, befriended nationalist dictator Omar Torrijos and was also the macho womanizer with no discipline that was guided by his desires (a lusty drunk glutton). Inside USA, Thomas Hearns, "The Hitman", was the son of impoverished Detroit city where the black poor guys - just like he used to be - suffered deeply from reactionary anti-welfare and law-and-order repressive policies by Reagan. The last but not least, Marvin Hagler bypassed politics (as happens with most of sportsmen), was a compromised father and husband and a hard-training focused boxer who did everything alright, but was considerably ignored by the media and was obsessed by being called by the nickname he have himself, "Marvelous". The stories of these punching "kings" present great magic or tragic moments of boxing. As usual in perhaps the most "political" among all sports (it is a "sport of poor boys", as documentary correctly states), boxing brings here a fascinating portrait of a social and political background, which specific changes impact the world until nowadays. (Unfortunately I could not watched the first segment; I have also no watched the last one yet, but I will edit it here after watching).

Great portrait of some of my new heroes (': champions never quit. Also the tell us that to be a champion you have to do something that the rest don't. Hard work comes with pain and effort and boxing is one of the sports that many think is violent but you have to see through it.

Now we have another boxing era coming and great matches ahead.

Great story and interviews with the boxers. For the documentary on boxing it's worth a much higher rating.

But unknown voices( none of the fighters) weight in on the politics of the time. None of the fighters themselves speak of this.

As usual the political views are heavily bias.

This is a great telling of the greatest era of boxing. Would be hard to choose the best of these four or rank them. Was nice to learn of their backgrounds and struggles and see the highlights of these great matches. I was born in 1976 and became a boxing fan at a young age but I was only able to catch the tail end of these great careers. I learned a lot and enjoyed most of this mini-series. If the obviously one sided politics were kept out of this I would score it a 10+

An in depth look at four great champions (Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Roberto "Hands of Stone" Duran, Thomas "The Hitman" Hearns and Surgar Ray Leonard). This documentary delves in detail into the backgrounds of each fighter and each of their personal backgrounds and struggles. I would have rated this higher but the partisan political commentary from some of the social narrators took away from the story. Narration by the fighters, those involved in the fight game and those that actually knew the fighters was well done but the others clearly had their own personal perspective they were unfortunately pushing.