The Twilight Zone: Steel 

(This post is part of the 10^th Annual Favorite TV Show Episodes Blogathon hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts)

In real life and otherwise, happy endings are rare in boxing. 

It’s 1974 and professional boxing between humans has been banned, with androids now taking their place in the ring. Steel (Lee Marvin) is an ex-prizefighter and manager of Battling Maxo, a robot boxer whose best days are behind it. Steel, his partner and Maxo have traveled by bus from Philadelphia to Kansas for a fight, lured by the promise of a $500 payday – money that be used for new parts and patches for Maxo. 

While running Maxo through its paces before the bout, an internal spring breaks, leaving the android useless. His back against the wall and desperately in need of the cash, Steel disguises himself as Maxo, darkening his hair and taking on the blank look and stiff posture of an automaton, to climb into the ring against a far superior boxing robot. 

Steel takes a pounding from his android opponent and since the fight barely lasts a round, the promoter will only fork over half the prize money. Afterwards, a battered and exhausted Steel begins to recalculate how to make it back to Philadelphia and repair Maxo with less money. 

Steel first aired in October 1963 amidst an air of unease about boxing. On a nationally televised fight in March 1962, Emile Griffith backed Bernie Paret into a corner and pounded him with 29 unanswered punches. Paret collapsed, fell into a coma and died ten days later from massive brain hemorrhaging. In a 1963 televised bout, Sugar Ramos staggered opponent Davey Moore, who fell into a rope, injuring his brain stem. Moore died 75 hours later. 

Moore’s death immediately became a cause célèbre. Editorials cried out for boxing to be outlawed. Pope John XXIII called the sport “barbaric” and “contrary to natural principles.” Bob Dylan wrote “Who Killed Davey Moore,” taking the voice of Ramos: “I hit him, I hit him, yes, it’s true/But that’s what I’m paid to do/Don’t say ‘murder,’ don’t say kill/It was destiny, it was God’s will.” 

It also led toy designers Marvin Glass and Associates to abandon development of a toy featuring two metal boxers facing off in a ring, their actions activated by control buttons. But when it was suggested using boxer robots that fall apart rather than human figures that fall over when hit, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots was born, hitting toy store shelves in 1964. We’ll likely never know if the airing of Steel somehow influenced it.

Steel is probably the best known of several Twilight Zone episodes that revolved around boxing. Rod Serling had a lifelong passion for the sport, as participant (17 Golden Gloves matches) and author (Requiem for a Heavyweight). 

While the episode’s underlying theme of man vs. machine resonates in these days of AI, Serling’s elegy at the end of Steel is a positive and hopeful statement about the human spirit that transcends boxing: “No matter what the future brings, man's capacity to rise to the occasion will remain unaltered. His potential for tenacity and optimism continues, as always, to outfight, outpoint and outlive any and all changes made by his society.” 

Given that, maybe Steel is a boxing story with a happy ending.