| Director | Walter Hill |
|---|---|
| Budget | $20 million |
| Box office | $14.9 million |
Heavyweight boxing champion George 'The Iceman' Chambers is convicted of rape and sentenced to six to eight years at Sweetwater, a new prison in the Mojave desert. The high-security facility is populated by hardened criminals. Unaware of the prison's ways and its unique hierarchy, the pompous and bratty Chambers tries to impress upon the inmates his status as a champion boxer.
The prison camp holds boxing matches involving inmates, around which a betting syndicate operates. The matches have few rules and provide a lucrative venture for the syndicate. The most popular boxer in the prison is the soft-spoken, humble and undefeated Monroe "Undisputed" Hutchen, who is placed in solitary confinement after Chambers picks a fight with him in the mess hall. Flashbacks to Hutchen's brief boxing career reveal that he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for beating to death a man who was sleeping with his girlfriend.
Sensing the brewing hatred for the heavyweight champion, an incarcerated mob boss named Mendy Ripstein senses potential in a match between Hutchen and Chambers. Ripstein, a lifelong boxing fan, proposes a match and Warden Lipscomb is persuaded to look the other way.
As all the arrangements are finally organized, an eagerly awaited fight night arrives. Chambers knocks down Hutchen twice (and with the London Prize Ring Rules, each knockdown counts as the end of a round, as the boxer is given only 60 seconds to get up). In the third round, Hutchen charges back and knocks Chambers down for the first time in his career, sending the crowd of prisoners into a frenzy. Finally, in the fourth round Hutchen officially KO's Chambers and stays the undisputed champion.
Ripstein's Mexican assistant reveals; in a narrator voice, that Ripstein died three weeks after the fight, but in his will, he left him $2 million. Chambers was released on parole, and Hutchen received the money for his sister, who was experiencing hardship.
It is also revealed that Chambers and his manager denied that the fight with Hutchen ever occurred, and that it was all a rumor. Months later, Chambers wins back the Heavyweight Championship of the World. The whole cell block watches the televised fight, and laugh and cheer Monroe's name after hearing Chambers being crowned the "undisputed" heavyweight champion of the world.