We’ve seen many boxing movies that pack a punch, and now Hulu is bringing another into the cinematic ring: They Fight, streaming on the service on Friday, July 17. And like Raging Bull, The Fighter, and Million Dollar Baby, the new film’s emotional wallop is based on a true story.
As Hulu explains in a press release, They Fight follows an ex-con named Walt Manigan (André Holland), who seeks redemption by mentoring three young fighters named Quincey, Peanut, and Twin. “As Walt is pulled back into a world he tried to escape, he realizes his toughest fight was never in the ring,” Hulu adds. Walt’s three trainees, meanwhile, “battle their loss of innocence and coming of age with nothing but grit and gloves.”
Here’s They Fight’s backstory…
By training young boxers after his prison sentence, Walt Manigan turned his life around.
Manigan’s story came to light in a 2016 Washington Post article by Michael Minahan, then a Georgetown University senior. As Minahan reported, Manigan learned boxing and became a coach after taking his stepson to HeadBangers Gym in Washington, D.C.
But Manigan also had a hard life, Minahan reported. Manigan’s parents struggled with drug addiction, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother, who died at an early age. “It was tough for me coming up. I ain’t have nobody to teach me, nobody to take the time,” he told the reporter.
Manigan also said his oldest son was killed on his 18th birthday in 2002. HeadBangers donated money that the gym had saved for tournaments to help Manigan bury his son.
A turning point came, however, when Manigan was sentenced to prison for two years for distributing cocaine. When he was released, Manigan felt he couldn’t return to HeadBangers. “My pride wouldn’t let me go back because I knew I let those kids down.”
At another gym, however, Manigan spotted Ragahleak “Peanut” Bartee, then 9 years old, and started training the young boxer, recognizing the boy’s potential. Peanut met and befriended Quincey Williams, then 8, who also became Manigan’s student. In 2015, a then 14-year-old Peanut won the 75-pound intermediate division Junior Olympic national championship. The following year, Quincey, then 12, won the 90-pound championship at junior nationals.
“These are good kids, man. There’s just some things they missing in their lives that they can’t control,” Manigan said. “So that’s where I come in, being a role model, teaching them about life, about being respectful. It ain’t all about boxing. I want to raise them from boys to men.”
Peanut, Quincey, and Rashad — Manigan’s son — became the three founding members of the Lyfe Style boxing team, training out of D.C.’s Ferebee-Hope Recreation Center. The Lyfe Style coaches — some of whom, like Manigan, had been to prison — started supporting the young boxers they mentor by buying them gear, paying for their travel, and buying them meals and haircuts.
Manigan said it was like a high when one of the students won. “When Peanut first won the nationals, I cried. I cried for the simple fact that I’d seen how hard these kids work and what they give up,” he said. “If I do anything to mess up, I kill their dreams. That keeps me on a straight path.”
He added, “A lot of things that I experienced in life prepared me for this moment. Now I know where I’m at, and I know where I’m trying to go, and I know I ain’t trying to go backwards. [The kids] keep me alive. They keep me striving ’cause I know they’re depending on me. This feels so good, what I’m doing. Oh man, it feels good.”
Manigan’s story inspired a 2018 documentary, also called They Fight.
In 2018, Fox aired the documentary They Fight as part of Fox Sports Films’ “MAGNIFY” series. The documentary followed Peanut and Quincey’s work with Manigan and Lyfe Style in the run-up to the 2017 Junior Olympics, as Manigan searched for a permanent home for the boxing program.
Andrew Renzi (aka Charlie Sheen) directed the film, and rapper Common served as a producer, as did Minahan. In fact, Minahan spent his first year out of Georgetown trying to get the documentary. Eventually, he met producer Andrew Corkin, who introduced him to Renzi.
“Part of me just wants everyone who sees [They Fight] to fall in love with those kids as much as I did and see how good of kids they are, how solid they are,” Minahin told The Hoya in 2019. “The personal, sappy side of me wants you to fall in love with these kids, but I also think a lot of people just aren’t paying attention, and it’s right there. … These coaches stepping up to these kids, that’s happening right there, and no one is paying attention to that, but also the harder stuff, the stuff that’s making life so hard for these kids even though they’re living in one of the richest cities in the country.”
The drama film version of They Fight is designed to make kids’ dreams feel “colossal.”
Now They Fight is also the title of a new drama film about Minahan’s story. Holland’s costars in the production include Wendell Pierce, Samira Wiley, Mykelti Williamson, Amanda Warren, and J. Alphonse Nicholson. Renzi co-wrote the screenplay with Sheldon Candis (Luv), who directed the film.
“When I watched the documentary, I asked, ‘How can I go into the boxing genre and make it uniquely my own?’” Candis said in an Andscape interview. “What interested me was making a Black John Hughes movie — a coming-of-age movie about brotherhood, best friends, and kids learning the beginnings of their dreams, while intersecting with boxing.”
He added: “The most important thing was honoring the lives of the boys — Walt [Manigan], Ketta [Walt’s partner] — and the people who live in this world. I thought about how Creed does a great job showing our lives and our cities, and making them huge. I wanted to open the stratosphere for these kids’ lives and make their dreams feel colossal because it is cinema.”
They Fight, Friday, July 17, Hulu