RIGHT TO FIGHT is one of the best films I’ve ever seen on boxing. A look at how women’s boxing came to be in the United States and the world is a great piece of filmmaking and historical recording.
Using the tales of the various women (Marian “Lady Tiger” Trimiar, Cathy “Cat” Davis, and Pat “Liberation” Pineda) who started boxing in the early 1970’s the film charts the lives of the women as they came to find a love in the sport and then had to fight all sorts of prejudices in order to do what they love.
It may sound odd but into the 1970’s there were laws against women boxing. The New York State Athletic Commission forbade women from the squared circle and as such all of the states that copied their rules did so too. No one thought women could box, and many of the women had a struggle to find a place to train. It sounds crazy in todays world where women are draw on some boxing cards and many MMA ones, but it’s the truth and this film shows us how we got from there to here.
What I love is that the film is perfectly drops us into the late 1970s. We get a real sense of time and place. The film tells it like it is with the film using footage of all sorts of men, including many shots of Muhammad Ali saying that women not only aren’t capable of boxing but that they belong in the home cooking dinner (the Ali comments are particularly funny since his daughter was a champion boxer). We get a real sense of what they were fighting against in the ring, and we come to love them deeply because of their F-U attitude toward the authorities who wanted them stopped.
I loved this film so much. I love the story. I love how the film tells us a story that was on the verge of getting lost. I love the craft of the film which feels often like a film from the 1970’s thus enhancing the viewing experience. This is just great filmmaking across the board.
I can’t recommend this film enough.
And it should be noted that this isn’t just a film for fight fans but also for anyone who has ever been told no.
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