The Contender

Before you can be a champion, you have to be a contender. Alfred Brooks is scared. He's a high school dropout and his grocery store job is leading nowhere. So he starts hanging out at Donatelli's Gym, a boxing club in Harlem that's trained champions. There he learns it's the effort, not the win, that makes the man, that last desperate struggle to get back on your feet when you thought you were down for the count.