Black history meets pure pomp in Peaco*ck’s latest limited series, “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist,” inspired by a podcast and based on a true story.
Peaco*ck is owned by NBCUniversal, TODAY’s parent company.
The eight-episode series unfolds at an afterparty following Muhammad Ali’s return to the boxing ring in 1970, where Atlanta’s elite mingled with members of the criminal underworld. The star-studded cast includes Don Cheadle, Kevin Hart, Taraji P. Henson, Samuel L. Jackson, Halle Bailey, Lori Harvey and more.
Speaking to TODAY.com, creator Shaye Ogbonna calls the series a love letter to Atlanta, where he’s from.
“It was paramount because I’m a product of it,” Ogbonna says. “When you take on something that’s that’s personal, and it’s about where you’re from, and especially if you’re trying to say, ‘This is the origin story,’ it’s a huge responsibility. But for me, it was a responsibility that I absolutely embraced.”
Read on for the true story.
What is ‘Fight Night’ about?
The scene opens on Atlanta’s best-known bookie, Gordon “Chicken Man” Williams (Kevin Hart), who aspires to make his way up the ranks of the Black Mafia and be part of the Black crime syndicate nationwide.
He believes that Muhammad Ali’s highly-touted comeback fight would make the perfect opportunity to do so.
Enlisting the help of part-time partner, part-time lover, Vivian Thomas (Taraji P. Henson), and fellow crime partner Silky Brown (Atkins Estimond), he converts his basem*nt into a makeshift Vegas casino in preparation for the biggest house party to ever hit A-Town.
Then, the party is the target of a robbery — one Williams didn't plan, even if he, too, is a criminal. The robbers cordon party guests in the basem*nt and keep the night going up top, luring more people in.
Who's behind the robbery? What comes next? The series answers all those questions as Don Cheadle's detective J.D. Hudson assembles an investigation.
How much of 'Fight Night' is based on a true story?
“The plot and the events — a lot of that’s true,” creator Ogbonna says. Where the series took liberties was from “a character perspective.”
“I wanted to create a world. What helped me focus was on four tentpoles: The fight, the robbery, the Atlanta of it and the two main characters, Chicken Man and J.D. Hudson, forced to come together and figure things out,” he says.
Ali’s fight against Jerry Quarry unfolded on Oct. 26, 1970, drawing crowds and celebrities. The fight was heavily anticipated — not only was it Ali’s first in three years, the heavyweight division Ali was returning to was the “best it’s ever been,” boxing historian Bert Sugar told Atlanta Magazine.
Ali, meanwhile, had been marred in controversy surrounding his resistance to U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He had been named eligible for the draft in 1966 but refused to report to duty on religious grounds. He was stripped of his boxing title, convicted to draft evasion and sentenced to five years in prison, NBC News reported.
The Supreme Court eventually reversed the conviction in 1971, but not before Ali spent years lecturing and campaigning on his own behalf, becoming a symbol of the anti-Vietnam movement in the process.
The state of Georgia, meanwhile, granted him license to box, and the fight took placed in a charged moment in the state’s history.
“This is an inflection point in Atlanta’s history, right after the civil rights movement, where a lot of southern cities were trying to figure out who they were, and Atlanta had a specific plan,” Ogbonna says.
The robbery, however, occurred after the fight, during a party at Gordon “Chicken Man” Williams’ house. The party was a “big deal,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, with “engraved invitations” for people as far away as New York.
The guests were met with an unwelcome surprise.
“The police said that the party goers were met by the robbers as they arrived, herded into a basem*nt and forced to disrobe and surrender their money and jewelry,” New York Times reporting said at the time.
J.D. Hudson, Atlanta’s first Black detective lieutenant, was assigned to the case, and while Williams was initially his prime suspect, he wasn’t ultimately wasn't convicted.
Jeff Keating, the producer of the “Fight Night”podcast, said there are still unanswered questions.
“There’s still so much mystery surrounding the heist that we’ll probably never know the real story,” he told Atlanta Magazine.
Who was behind the robbery?
A Georgia grand jury indicted three men in November 1970 on charges of six counts of armed robbery each: McKinley Rogers, James Henry Hall and Houston J. Hammond. Only Hammond was in police custody.
Six months later, Rogers and Hall were killed in the Bronx, the New York Times reported at the time.
Irvin J. Goldsmith, assistant district attorney in the Bronx, told the paper it appeared the two had been "dealt their own justice."
Hudson was quoted by the New York Times as saying, “We said last fall it was just a question of who caught up with them first — the police or the victims. It appears the victims got there first.”
Ogbonna tells TODAY.com the series makes the robbers more three-dimensional characters than the headlines ever did.
“It was important to me that we go into their storylines and get some information about who they are, effectively humanizing them. That was definitely an area where we took some creative liberties,” he says.
What happened to Williams and Hudson?
Williams and Hudson were profiled by the Atlanta-based magazine Creative Loafing to talk about the events of 1970 and their lives since.
Despite rumors that he had died, Williams was alive and well. He left organized crime after a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence in the '70s and became a pastor at an Atlanta church. He also went on to have six children. Williams died in 2014, per an online obituary.
Hudson retired from the police force in 1990 and died in 2009, per an online obituary.
Maya Alexander
Maya Alexander is a current Page with the TODAY platforms team. Her interests lie in everything movies, TV and Springsteen.
