As the film “The Featherweight,” about the life of boxing great Willie Pep, enters wide release, each day this week – Tuesday through Saturday – a different BoxingScene contributor will reflect on a boxing biopic that resonates with them.
As far as critical pedigree is concerned, not many boxing biopics match the double-Oscar-winning film documenting the life and times of Micky Ward and his brother Dicky Eklund, “The Fighter.”
It was nominated for best picture in 2011, and Christian Bale, as Dicky, and Melissa Leo, playing the family matriarch, Alice, earned the top awards for Best Supporting Actors.
It is hard to argue with the critics.
Mark Wahlberg plays Micky Ward, and the movie was his brainchild. The actor had, reportedly, always wanted to be in a boxing film, and he and Ward had known one another for years.
“The Fighter” charts a section of Ward’s life and the ups and downs of his relationship with his trainer and brother, as well as his life in and out of the ring.
Bale was the man who stole the show of the nearly two-hour long film, and those who looked for faults from a boxing perspective had a field day.
It was Hollywood – not a documentary, after all. Which seemed senseless as the story of Micky and Dicky was dramatic enough.
The period of time the film captured also drew criticism. For instance, it stopped after Ward won the lesser-known WBU title with a victory over Shea Neary in London.
It didn’t cover the period when Ward hit the height of his fame towards the end of his career for, notably, the trilogy with Arturo Gatti that is burned into the fabric of boxing history as one of the great rivalries. There is some archived fight footage from those wild bouts in the end credits, but that’s it.
And the fact that the storytelling missed out on that time frame always left a grain of hope that a sequel would be made – something Ward was keen for and that Wahlberg teased on occasion.
Alas, it was never to be.
But what remains is a superb biopic, one that falls under the umbrella of “based on true events”, documenting Eklund’s battle with addiction and Ward’s career as a hard-luck contender all being played out in front of a chaotic family backdrop.
Eklund is conveyed as a likeable if infuriating rascal, which might pass as fair comment.
The brothers’ relationship was one in which they would help one another as best as they could in their own ways. It was as if Micky’s routine and discipline helped give Dicky structure, while Dicky, who had learned some of life’s harshest lessons, was able to impart the lessons of some of his many mistakes on to his younger brother, with a “do as I say, not as I do” feel to the shared wisdom.
Wahlberg posts an underrated and understated performance as Ward. He is flawless, and arguably his job in the film was the hardest. How does one go about portraying an everyday guy who still paves roads for a living? How do you make it believable without making him jump off the screen? That is a challenge in itself, because for all of Micky’s celebrity and his Fights of the Year with the likes of Emanuel Augustus, Gatti and Neary, and despite the movie and having been played by an A-lister, Ward has never changed.
I met Micky in 2001, a couple of weeks after the first Gatti fight, visiting him at his home in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Over the next 20 or so years, I’ve created many great memories with Micky. I’ve been back to his house in Lowell a few times. Despite everything – the accolades; the movies; the success – he never moved. He never changed his number. He remains everything you would hope the blue-collar idol would be – self-deprecating, modest and honest.
If anyone has watched “The Fighter” and felt inspired, Ward is not in the never-meet-your-heroes category.
In fact, after I left Micky’s house one day – and with my long journey ahead – he insisted on taking me out for food and a coffee.
On another trip to Boston, I visited Micky to record my “Boxing Life Stories” podcast with him, and what we recorded is a fair reflection of our friendship over the years, with some laughs and somber moments along the way. While in the area, Dicky and I went for lunch, and he and I recorded another episode of the podcast. I thought Dicky would go on about his wild life and misspent youth, but he was actually tough to prise open. I do remember him telling me that he wasn’t that bad back in the day, and he argued: “In the newspapers, they made me out to be Al Capone.”
We often meet at the International Boxing Hall of Fame. One year, I took my wife there on vacation and we met Micky and Dicky in the since-bulldozed Graziano’s.
Micky and I went and sat in a booth to talk, while Dicky was left to woo my wife.
You should have seen the look on her face when Micky and I returned to them in the bar 30 minutes later!
Micky’s path also crossed with mine when I wrote “Damage”, and I had read in his excellent biography, “A Warrior’s Heart”, that he had pledged his brain for research when he passes as part of a vital brain study for athletes and fighters in Boston.
As he always quips: “It’s not like I used it much!”
Of course, Ward is selling himself short, but brains are one thing, and heart is another thing entirely, and it is the latter he is best known for.
And it is that that “The Fighter” best demonstrates of Ward, in and out of the ring. Micky Ward always has been all heart.
It is why the title has been so poignant, too. There are no heirs and graces about Micky. Never have been. He was and always will be The Fighter.
