The Great White Hope

“He could beat any white man in the world. He just couldn't beat all of them.”

Jack Jefferson (James Earl Jones) is the heavyweight champion of the world and wants to live as he pleases, which includes keeping Eleanor (Jane Alexander), a white woman, at his side. The boxing establishment wants him beaten, and it turns to the law and the press when no fighter can do it. Martin Ritt, adapting Howard Sackler's play, puts the whole of what Jack stands to lose on the line: his title, his freedom, and the woman he refuses to give up.