Concept
In 1967, the radio producer Murray Woroner had the idea of determining the all-time great heavyweight champion of the world in a series of fantasy fights between boxing champions of different eras. Woroner sent out a survey to 250 boxing experts and writers to help determine which boxers would be used in the imaginary fights. Woroner picked the first round of fantasy matches to be:
- Jack Dempsey vs. Gentleman Jim Corbett
- John L. Sullivan vs. Jim Braddock
- Bob Fitzsimmons vs. Jack Sharkey
- Jim Jeffries vs. Jersey Joe Walcott
- Joe Louis vs. Jess Willard
- Max Baer vs. Jack Johnson
- Rocky Marciano vs. Gene Tunney
- Muhammad Ali vs. Max Schmeling
Punch-by-punch details of the boxer's records during their prime were entered into an NCR 315 computer. Also their strengths, weaknesses, fighting styles and patterns and other factors and scenarios that the boxers could go through were converted into formulas. The NCR-315 with 20K of memory was supplied by SPS (Systems Programming Services), an independent service bureau in Miami Fla. The algorithms were supplied by an NCR mathematician, and programming was done in Fortran by an employee of SPS. Hank Meyer, President and salesman with a one other partner in SPS, was instrumental in setting this competition up, and contended at the time that it was his idea. The actual running of the software was done the night before each broadcast round of the 'computer championship' and took approximately 45 minutes to run, the output was a formatted report containing a series of codes describing each punch. This was then written to magnetic tape, the tape was then manually transferred to a Univac 1005 and printed. This early form of "foot-powered" networking was referred to as sneakernet, the reason for doing this was cost, it was cheaper to print on a 1005 than the 315. This took place in early 1968; the NCR 315 was a state-of-the-art computer at the time.
The outcomes were then staged as radio plays with Woroner and radio announcer Guy LeBow as the commentators. The fantasy fights were broadcast worldwide. Even the boxers who were still alive at the time listened to the programs and some of them participated as commentators. After the series of elimination rounds, the final fight was between Dempsey and Marciano. Marciano defeated Dempsey and was considered to be the all-time greatest heavyweight champion by the computer. Woroner awarded the real Marciano a gold and diamond championship belt worth $10,000.
Read more about this topic: The Super Fight
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