Kevin Hart is set to star in a Peacock limited series that details what happened during an armed robbery during Muhammad Ali's 1970 comeback fight in Atlanta, Georgia, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show, Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, is based on an iHeart podcast written by Jeff Keating and hosted by Jim Roberts and Keating himself.
The idea for the podcast started more than 20 years ago. Keating was a struggling screenwriter in search of a story. Then his father told him about the heist that happened before his honeymoon. More than that, this heist changed the face of Atlanta.
Muhammad Ali's Comeback Fight
The year was 1970, Muhammad Ali, “The Greatest”, had been out of boxing for more than three years. He was a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. As such, he was convicted for violating the Selective Service Act in 1967. He was appealing the court's decision when he was stripped of his titles as well as his license to fight in 1967.
The Greatest couldn't fight anywhere in the U.S. — except a Southern city that now had become known as the “cradle of civil rights movement”: Atlanta. The Georgia city was the only major area that was willing to host Ali's comeback, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Georgia's state senator, Leroy Johnson, at the time the most powerful Black elected official in the south, was able to get Ali to fight in the city against Jerry Quarry, known as “The Great White Hope.”
October 26, 1970 was definitely a day to remember in Atlanta. Fans converged at the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium to watch the bout. Boxing writer Bert Sugar described it as “the greatest collection of black power and black money ever assembled up to that time.” Celebrities like Sidney Poitier, Arthur Ashe and Diana Ross watched the fight and attended the party afterwards.
The Fight Night Heist
However, there was another party celebrating Muhammad Ali's win that night. This party didn't have celebrities, but rather bootlegger, number runners and pimps. They had nicknames not seen on TV or theater marquees like Chicken Man, Short Papa, Buttermilk and Fireball. The party also had gambling tables, which is why the attendees had so much cash on them.
This is where we get to the heist part: the party also had uninvited guests who robbed the attendees, many who were out-of-town drug dealers, gamblers and gun runners. However, even though it was an armed robbery, no shots were fired.
The detective who investigated the incident, J.D. Hudson, was one of Atlanta's first Black detectives. He told Keating when the host interviewed him for the podcast that the police and the New York City gangsters raced on who would end up catching the suspected thieves first. The gangsters got their blood.
When Keating interviewed the people involved in the incidents, he imagined creating a documentary and then a scripted film. He'd thought of Don Cheadle and Jamie Foxx playing lead roles.
The story stayed in development hell for years, until it finally came to light in a podcast for iHeartRadio produced by Will Packer, who will also produce the series with Hart. Series Creator Shaye Ogbonna will also serve as the showrunner with Jason Horwitch.
Mark Twain Prize winner Hart will most likely play Hudson.
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