More specifically, however, “On The Ropes” is the story of a young black fighter, Percival Jones, whose bid for the ’68 Olympic Gold is side tracked by the successive deaths of Dr. Martin L. King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, six weeks apart. Here his life spins off course, he loses his purpose, becomes misdirected and drifts into the ranks of The Black Panther Party, where every ideal for which the Panthers stood turns into betrayals, suicide, fratricide, insanity, etc. He is eventually cast out of the Party for not submitting to a scopolamine test, thus facilitating his return to the ring where he claws his way up the ranks and surmounts the difficulties which accompany such a climb along with other unforeseen hazards until, at long last, a title shot is within reach. Where-upon his complicity in the death of his brother is unearthed, jeopardizing his freedom and prospects for a title bout. On The Ropes is a modern rendering of the mythic hero overcoming in-superable obstacles while on way to unraveling the mystery of his assigned destiny.

Yet and still, it is a story of the ’60’s as lived not romanticized. Nevertheless, romance was much a part of the zeitgeist, the fabric of the day; otherwise, the most hopeful period in recent American memory —the ’60’s— was overcast by disappointment after disappointment: The assassin’s bullet killing by night the promises of every hope sown by day.