Champions Forever: World Heavyweight Champs!

Rating:
Summary: Great documentary
Review: I don't know if this film had a theatrical release or not but if it did and it wasn't at least nominated by the Academy for Best Documentary of the Year as far as I'm concerned the makers of this film were robbed.

Rating:
Summary: Vintage Ali
Review: A special dinner with Ali and his greatest opponents is aclassic. It was great to see the Ali and Kosell interviews. Therewere all the great fight clips and backgrounds of Ali and his challengers but the events,interviews, and fight scenes were great. Any boxing fan would love this DVD especially with all the enhancements from music, clips, slow motion, biography's and selective punches make this a collectors item. Right from the start with the two purple cows fighting sets the stage for this unique film.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Uncomfortable Dinner But Great Fights
Review: A Very Uncomfortable Dinner But Great Fights

Great DVD - 4.25 Stars

This is difficult to review - some of the greatest scenes I've ever seen and some of the hardest scenes I've ever seen.

Here's what's hard- watching what's happened to Muhammad. It's just difficult and sad. He's still the Greatest and still likes to clown, but you just can't help but wonder why or what if...

What's also painful is watching the dinner with these great champions. It's good and bad, but mostly just really uncomfortable.

On to the good.

I've never seen so much great fight footage on one DVD.

You don't get entire fights, but get the highlights. It's absolutely amazing and worth getting the DVD (or VHS) for this only - everything else is gravy.

An absolute must have for any boxing fan.
A great item for any Ali fan - there's actually one moment where Ali talks about coming back and taking on Tyson - and I found myself excited and actually thinking how great that would be...and then waking up to the reality and silently laughing at myself.

If you're a George Foreman fan I think you'll want this as well. George comes across as not only a great champion, but a humble and incredible man as well.

Rating:
Summary: A very good documentary of 5 great heavyweight boxers
Review: I enjoyed watching these fighters reminisce about their fights against each other. And I enjoyed watching the old fight clips, too. The only complaint one might have is that the video spends more time discussing Ali than the other four fighters. But I still enjoyed the tape very much. And I recommend it highly. And you can usually find it on the cheap!

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Decent Tribute to 5 Great Heavyweights
Review: I recently purchased the "Champions Forever" DVD and was disappointed. I was hoping for more fight footage. I remember watching the video when I was a kid and thinking there was much more boxing, perhaps even complete bouts. Imagine my excitement when I saw the list of fights (even amateur ones) and my disappointment when I realized how chopped up they were. Somebody needs to make a DVD of classic fights. Hey, anybody listening?

But as a "time capsule" tribute, this is definitely worth owning whether you're a boxing devotee, a casual fan or don't care much for it at all. Listening to these old-timers candidly recount their greatest triumphs and smoldering defeats is worth buying this DVD. And you will be blinking back tears when you hear Ali (still relatively coherent at this point because his affliction is still in its early stages) talk about having Parkinsons syndrome. "Usually, people with Parkinsons, hands shake", he says as he demonstrates. "But look" he says, holding up his fists. "You don't see me shaking."

I was also surprised at how bitter and resentful Joe Frazier still is towards Ali. There are some uncomfortable moments in both the sitdown interview and the dinner special.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Decent Tribute to 5 Great Heavyweights
Review: I recently purchased the "Champions Forever" DVD and was disappointed. I was hoping for more fight footage. I remember watching the video when I was a kid and thinking there was much more boxing, perhaps even complete bouts. Imagine my excitement when I saw the list of fights (even amateur ones) and my disappointment when I realized how chopped up they were. Somebody needs to make a DVD of classic fights. Hey, anybody listening?

But as a "time capsule" tribute, this is definitely worth owning whether you're a boxing devotee, a casual fan or don't care much for it at all. Listening to these old-timers candidly recount their greatest triumphs and smoldering defeats is worth buying this DVD. And you will be blinking back tears when you hear Ali (still relatively coherent at this point because his affliction is still in its early stages) talk about having Parkinsons syndrome. "Usually, people with Parkinsons, hands shake", he says as he demonstrates. "But look" he says, holding up his fists. "You don't see me shaking."

I was also surprised at how bitter and resentful Joe Frazier still is towards Ali. There are some uncomfortable moments in both the sitdown interview and the dinner special.

Rating:
Summary: Help's put thing's into perspective
Review: I thought this was a great documentary. They do show Ali alot, but it's not really because their being unfair, it's just that he was the best of the 5 and was so much more of a figure then the rest. However, it was unfair that they cut off Holmes' reign. They start off in the early 60s with Cassius Clay pummeling Sonny Liston, ignoring the fact that the Ali-Frazier-Foreman-Norton-Holmes fights didn't begin until the 70's, yet when the Ali-Frazier-Foreman-Norton-Holmes fights end with Holmes beating Norton, the documentary ends rather then going into Larry's achievements. Yes Ali was the best, yes Ali would have beaten Holmes, yes Ali's career in the 60's was very profound because of the Vietnam controversy, but give Larry some justice.

As mentioned, this documentary revolves around Ali. It shows clips of his domination of boxing in the 60's, then make's some statements about the Vietnam controversy, and give's the other 4 guys opinions on Ali's decision not to enter the service. Smokin' Joe Frazier is the only one who disagrees with Ali not going, and Frazier make's it clear that he feel's that not only is Ali insane, but Frazier feels that during their 3 fights Ali was someone who was not trying to get attention for the fights, not someone who was trying to get big purses and big gates for the fights, but that Ali was simply trying to personaly hurt Frazier. Ali make's an apology to Frazier at the end, but to this day I think these two just are two guy's who just wont get along.

It goes into Frazier and his fights with Quarry and Ellis, then it goes into Ali-Frazier I and Frazier's victory over Ali. Then we go into Big George Foreman, his Olympic Days, and his obliteration of Frazier and Norton. What is interesting is that when you see Ali-Foreman, the Rumble in the Jungle, without seeing the Frazier-Norton Foreman fights, you kind of wonder why everyone thinks Ali is going to lose. The Rumble in the Jungle looks like a blow out, Ali destroying Foreman. But by seeing the way that Foreman hits Frazier and Norton, and the way they just suddenly collapse, then look at the way that Foreman was hitting Ali, you can see how the 70s spectators might have figured "Ali's in trouble."

Before the Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire, we see Ali-Norton I in California. Norton breaks Ali's jaw and wins the fight. Ali won the rematch, but they dont show the rematch in this film. They do however show Ali's victory over Frazier in their rematch.

Then we see Zaire, where Ali add's insult to injury to the Boxing Commissions, Conservatives, and Hard Hats of the Vietnam period by knocking out George Foreman and regaining his title. They took his title, kicked him out, tried to send him to jail, he got back in, didn't go to jail, and got his title back. That, my friends, is revenge.

Then we see the Thrilla in Manila, which along with Hagler-Hearns is thought to be the most savage fight in boxing history.

We then see a bald Joe Frazier once again get creamed by George Foreman, who then retired because of a loss to Jimmy Young and a decision to become a minister. Big George later regained the title by knocking Michael Moorer's head off, but this documentary was made before that.

Then we see the Rubber Match between Ali and Norton. Many people feel that Norton won, but if you look at the fight, you see Norton standing, Ali jabbing, then finally when there's 2 seconds left in the round, Norton charges at Ali, throws some bombs, which Ali blocks. Similar to the recent Roy Jones Jr.-Antonio Tarver fight, Jones keeps hitting Tarver, Tarver stands still, then with 2 seconds left in the round Tarver gets Jones on the ropes and throws bombs, but Tarver still loses, as did Norton. Ali also should have retired after Manila, so that, plus the fact that Ali never had an easy time with Norton, explains Ali's lackluster performance, though he still won.

Then we see the Ali-Spinks fights, Ali becoming three time champion.

It then goes into Larry Holmes beating Ken Norton in their barn burner battle, but we dont see any of Holmes' later title defenses besides his fight with Ali where Ali is simply to old and to sickly to fight anymore. We do see Holmes losing to Tyson in what I consider to be one of the ugliest KO's of the past 20 years, during the begining of the documentary. It's bad enough they didn't show the rest of Holmes' career, his wins over Shavers and Cooney and other Title Defenses, they didn't have to add to it by showing him getting obliterated by Iron Mike. Holmes lost to Tyson the way Ali lost to Holmes, Holmes was getting old and at that point he shouldn't have been in the same ring with Tyson.

I thought this documentary was very good. This was the greatest period in Heavyweight History, and Ali beat all these guys, except Holmes. Doubtless a 25 year old Ali beats a 25 year old Holmes, but when their actual fight took place we have Holmes in his 20s against a 38 year old Parkinsonian Ali. We do see Ali landing some good jabs on Holmes early in the fight, so in my opinion that dispels the myth that Holmes had a better jab. Holmes was great, but he was like a downgraded version of Ali, anything Holmes can do Ali can do better. Ali's prime ended in 1967, Ali fought Holmes in 1980.

The fights that never happened between these guy's were Norton-Frazier, Holmes-Frazier, Holmes-Foreman, which would have all been battles. I think Frazier blows Norton away because Norton cant take a punch, I think Holmes can beat Frazier by decision but it would not be easy, the one I really don't know who wins in is Holmes-Foreman, that's a toughy.

Good documentary, but don't think of this simply as a tribute to Ali and his victims, it does a decent job with all of them and tries to treat them all as Champions, you can't blame Ali for beating everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Why the Dinner?
Review: Of course any reparte among the named fighters is a treasure, but the dinner-table footage makes these behemoths uncomfortable and restless; maybe its reggie's awkward questions that stifle the flow, but there is still the irrepresible spirit of a hindered Ali who, even in his labored expression, gets under Frazier's skin almost drawing Joe out of his chair like in Howard Cosell days... I wish the fight footage was less chopped up, but its archival quality is irreplaceable, including Ali-Liston II, which, for my generation anyway, is a vision limited to one famous frozen image. I was fascinated to see the moments leading up to the anchor punch, and git up and fight sucka!

if you can forgive the schmalzy, over-reverent musical intro and ill-conceived group interviews, its real educational. i was especially moved by the time-capsule quality of the biographical remarks of these aging and dignified fighters, and the contrast in their philosophies and reasons for fighting in the first place.

Rating:
Summary: Don't this DVD too seriously
Review: This DVD is okay, at best. It's a nice overview of a lot of fighters, with a few moments of boxing included. However, if you are expecting significant fight footage (from meaningful fights, rather than snippets of lesser fights.

The dinner scene is interesting for sure, but it's the only thing a boxing fan won't have seen before.

The Muhammad Ali--Greatest Collection is MUCH better.

Rating:
Summary: Champions Forever: World Heavyweight Champs
Review: This is a great DVD of the best boxing champs of all-time. I loved seeing Reggie Jackson host the dinner party and the small talk between he and each of the boxers. The fight footage is classic; I share it with all my friends and neighbors. The DVD features are also great; especially the tale of the tape and the slow-motion knockout punches. Any of the boxers in this DVD put the current fighters to shame!
To any and all boxing fans of the greatest fighters of all-time this is a must-have DVD -- get it before the next heavyweight match, share it with your friends and you'll see some real boxing!