LIGHTWEIGHT, based on the book The Longest Fight by Washington Post sportswriter William Gildea, chronicles the rise and fall... and ultimate triumph of Joe Gans, America's first black boxing champion.
A poor kid from Baltimore who topped out at just 5'7", Joe would notch 145 wins in his boxing career -- more than Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis combined -- before being brought down by a cheating scandal, financial ruin, and a crippling fight with tuberculosis.
And yet Gans would rise again in 1906 to fight in the longest professional bout of the 20th century, an epic "fight to the finish" in the hot Nevada desert against outspoken racist Battling Nelson. Before it was over, the fight would go 42 rounds and forever change the way black athletes were perceived in America.
