THE CHALLENGER

A highly dramatized look at boxing is taken through a successful but short-lived challenge to the heavyweight title. Max Lussi is the apelike champion whose personality fits his physique; Joe Scott the blond Adonis who gets a job as his sparring partner and then persuades the retired Cortinas, whose former champ Floyd had been brutally beaten by Lussi, to manage him in the hope of retaking Floyd's due. They do, in an eventual bout that necessitates a knockout on Scott's part and breaks his hands- enforcing a satisfactory retirement. All squared, if not by the ring.