Just recently, casting news was announced regarding HBO’s award-nominated crime series True Detective. Leading the season four cast of this entry titled True Detective: Night Country is Oscar-winning actress Jodie Foster who is teaming up with pro boxing champion Kali Reis. They will play two detectives who are on the case in Alaska.
This is actually the second time that Reis, the current WBA and WBO junior welterweight champion, will be taking an acting role. She made her on-screen debut in Catch the Fair One, a 2021 independent film that she co-wrote and developed. At the Tribeca Film Festival that year, Catch the Fair One won the Audience Award and Reis was also nominated for Best Female Lead at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Reis is certainly not the only prizefighter that’s worked outside of the ring and starred in moves and TV. Who else has tried their hands at the bright lights of Hollywood instead of the sport of boxing?
Mike Tyson
Someone as popular as former two-time heavyweight champ Mike Tyson would surely have appeared in at least one movie or television show, but Tyson’s on-screen resume is longer than you might think. During the rise of his popularity in the late eighties into the nineties, Tyson only showed up as himself in sitcoms like Webster and Roseanne, or in music videos for DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince and Whitney Houston.
Tyson continued taking cameo roles through the turn of the century, making his most famous appearance in 2019 when he provided a musical interlude while searching for his pet tiger in the first Hangover movie. He did a few more cameos, including The Hangover Parts II and Part III, naturally, and even as past political figure Herman Cain in a few short comedy films. Tyson’s first serious dramatic role came during season 14 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2013.
Tyson would again, make more cameos before more fictional roles in Ip Man 3, Meet the Blacks, Kickboxer: Retaliation, and A Madea Family Funeral, to name a few. That’s obviously not counting his cult-popular Mike Tyson Mysteries animated comedy. Tyson then appeared in a couple of episodes of the TBS comedy The Last O.G.. Tyson has three new projects, Liger, Black Flies, and Soul Business, currently in production.
Randall “Tex” Cobb
Randall “Tex” Cobb couldn’t be missed with his six-foot, three-inch stature, but it was his mean mug that was more noticeable, at least to casting directors during the eighties and nineties. Cobb made appearances as a villain or henchman in numerous movies and shows like The Golden Child, Police Academy 4, Miami Vice, MacGyver, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and Walker, Texas Ranger, and so on. Cobb’s his most famous role might be as the imposing and unforgiving motorcycle-riding bounty hunter Leonard Smalls in the 1987 Coen Brothers comedy Raising Arizona, opposite Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter.
Before getting into showbiz, Cobb was active as a competitive fighter in martial arts and boxing. He started out hot as a kickboxer, winning several fights before transitioning into pure boxing, where he got going a little slower. Before long Cobb was the winner of 13 straight bouts winning each fight by knockout. By 1980, Cobb fought his first notable name in Earnie Shavers, followed by a title shot in 1982 against Larry Holmes, and then a win over Leon Spinks in 1988. By then, Cobb already had his talent resume going. He finished his boxing career in 1993 with a respectable 42–7–1 record.
Michael Bentt
Former fighter Michael Bentt was born in England but grew up in the United States, Queens, New York.. Bentt spent his younger years in amateur boxing to become one of the most decorated fighters of that caliber, winning five U.S. Amateur Boxing Championships, four New York City Golden Gloves titles, and three gold medals in New York’s Empire State Games during the early eighties. He had his first pro fight in 1989, losing but then quickly turning it around for 11-straight wins, including an upset title victory over Tommy Morrison for the WBO heavyweight belt in 1993. He lost the belt in the very next fight and subsequently retired from boxing after that with a record of 11-2.
No one would remember, but he appeared briefly on Saturday Night Live in 1985 as naturally, a boxer. He wouldn’t take another role until the turn of the century, quickly landing his most notable role as Sonny Liston in the critically-acclaimed 2001 film Ali, opposite Will Smithe. Bentt’s physical stature would help him secure other roles either as boxers or in Bentt’s case, security guards and bouncers. He would go on to appear in Medium, JAG, and Sons of Anarchy on TV, and in movies such as Hollywood Homicide, Million Dollar Baby, and Public Enemies.
Tony Danza
Tony Danza had strong aspirations very early on to be a successful fighter, long before acting was on his radar. Actually starting out as a wrestler in college, he transitioned to competitive boxer in the New York City Golden Gloves. He didn’t quite win it all in his rank, but did knock out six opponents. Danza finished his career in the ring with nine wins, all by knockout, and three losses.
Danza was discovered by a producer at a boxing gym in New York City. He soon had a role in the legendary sitcom Taxi, followed by his most famous role as Tony Micelli on the popular ABC sitcom Who’s the Boss? for eight seasons. From there, Danza would go on to appear in a number of moderately-successful TV shows and movies like Angels in the Outfield, Hudson Street, a sitcom and talk show aptly named The Tony Danza Show, Crash, and Don Jon.
Roy Jones Jr.
With over 29 years in the ring, Roy Jones Jr. has won multiple title belts in four separate weight classes, and is the only fighter in history to start his professional career at light middleweight and go on to win a heavyweight belt. He was named The Ring magazine’s Fighter of the Year in 1994, Fighter of the Decade for the 1990s by The Boxing Writers Association of America, and was an International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee in 2022. Jones Jr. finished his career with 66 wins, 47 of them coming by way of knockout, and only nine losses.
Jones Jr. made a number of appearances as himself in various movies and television shows such as Married… with Children, Arli$$, The Fighter, Southpaw, and Creed II. He also has the acting chops to play fictional characters in projects like The Sentinel, The Matrix Reloaded, and Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning.
Antonio Tarver
Former champion Antonio Tarver fought professionally from 1997 to 2015, mainly in the light heavyweight division. He also won titles in both the heavyweight and cruiserweight divisions. At the time of his retirement, Tarver had a boxing record of 31-6-1.
Before his pro career in 1995, he won gold at the Pan American Games, the U.S. National Championships, and the World Amateur Boxing Championships, still the only boxer all-time to win golds at those three events in the same year. For all of his real-life talents, it made things easy for Sylvester Stallone to cast him as heavyweight champion Mason “The Line” Dixon, Tarver’s only acting role, in the 2006 Rocky sequel Rocky Balboa.
Jack Dempsey
Jack Dempsey was heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926. He finished his career with 64 wins, 53 of them coming by way of knockout, and only six losses. Dempsey was eventually inducted posthumously into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.
In 1920, Dempsey made his first appearance on film in an action-adventure named Daredevil Jack. Toward the end of his career, he spent much of 1924 acting in the role of Tiger Jack O’Day in 11 short films. He then spent the next 27 years starring in a total of 10 more films, most of them in appearances as himself.
In 1933’s The Prizefighter and the Lady, Dempsey portrayed a version of himself as a boxing promoter. His last credited film appearance was in 1952 for an army comedy starring Bob Hope and Mickey Rooney called Off Limits.
Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson is a Jack-of-all-trades, having spent time serving in the United States Army as a helicopter pilot, a multi-faceted athlete during his youth, a popular country music singer, and also an actor. Kristofferson was also a certified Golden Gloves Boxer and was also given a Blue (a high-ranking sporting award for athletes in England) during his time at Oxford University in 1958.
With an extensive film and TV career that spans over 60 years, Kristofferson is most known for his movie roles in A Star is Born (1976), Lone Star, and the Blade trilogy alongside Wesley Snipes. On television, he made appearances in Freedom Road (a dramatic tv miniseries also starring legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, Stagecoach), and Texas Rising.
Roberto Durán
Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán had a legendary 33-year career in the ring. During that time, he held title belts in four separate weight classes. He fought in a whopping 119 fights, winning 103 of them, with 70 of those victories being knockouts, and also suffered 16 losses during his career. Durán was inducted into the International Hall of Fame in 2007.
Durán’s first acting role was in a 1971 Argentinian television series production called Dejame que te cuente, translated as Let Me Tell You. Then in 1979, he appeared as Rocky Balboa’s sparring partner in Rocky II. In the eighties, he had a small role in an episode of the pop culture hit crime drama Miami Vice, and appeared alongside Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor in the 1989 gangster comedy Harlem Nights. Durán would only make a few more appearances over the next few decades for cameos or appearances in documentaries. In 2016 a biopic of Druan titled Hands of Stone, starring Edgar Ramirez and Robert De Niro, was released.
Muhammad Ali
Yes, even Muhammad Ali, the man many proclaim to be the best boxer of all time and could easily rhyme on a dime, was also good at delivering lines during his lifetime.
In 1962, Ali appeared as himself in Requiem for a Heavyweight. In 1977, he portrayed an adult version of himself in his own biopic, The Greatest. After that, Ali continued to make cameo appearances as himself in Body and Soul, the TV mystery drama Vega$, Diff’rent Strokes, and Touched by an Angel. In 1979, Ali also played a part that was the furthest from anything in a boxing ring in Freedom Road, where he portrayal a former slave in Reconstruction-era Virginia who becomes a United States Senator.