Peacock’s new crime thriller Action Night: The Million Dollar Heist Tells a shocking but true-to-life story of the 1970 heist that took place in Atlanta on the heels of Muhammad Ali’s comeback fight against Jerry Quarry. The series was inspired by iHeart Radio’s similarly titled true-crime podcast and dramatized to portray the half-century-old criminal case of which series creator Shaye Ogbanna calls “A Character Perspective,” According to Today. Ogbana unites Action night Star-studded cast with a well-crafted script to bring the show’s characters to life – and so far, its conceptualization of the catastrophe has proven to be a hit with viewers.
The series released its first three episodes on September 5 to a very positive critical reception, as indicated by Action night Current Rotten Tomatoes score. Giving the series an impressive 93% approval rating, tops Rt Critics generally agree that Action night Has the right combination of talent and history to entertain. However, how captivating the vision of Ogbonna came to be, under the creative freedom taken to craft Action night In a successful limited series is A plot and a fascinating series of events rooted in real-life American history.
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Fight Night is based on an actual heist that took place during Muhammad Ali’s return to boxing in 1970
The heist took advantage of Ali’s comeback fight against Jerry Quarry
The events behind Action night History takes place between Muhammad Ali’s historic return to boxing in 1970. As a result of refusing to be drafted into the US it. Army during the Vietnam War in 1966, Ali was stripped of the boxing title he earned earlier and effectively banned from the sport. Per Forbes22 states refused to grant Ali a boxing license, forcing him into a hiatus spanning three years. It wasn’t until 1970, when Georgia State Senator Leroy Johnson issued Eli a boxing license and hosted his comeback, that the legendary fighter returned to the ring.
The professional and social stakes of the Ali/Quarry match-up naturally attracted significant media attention, compelling crowds from all walks of life to listen or attend the October 26 affair.
Torn by controversy and wounded by the racist ideals of the era, Ali fought Jerry Quarry, who at the time was called the “Great White Hope” and one of the best heavyweights in the world. The professional and social stakes of the Ali/Quarry match-up naturally attracted significant media attention, compelling crowds from all walks of life to listen or attend the October 26 affair. for a group of robbers, The spectacle provided the perfect opportunity to create and execute a heist on an unsuspecting party gathered in the aftermath of the landmark event..
The million dollar heist happened during Chicken Man’s afterparty
The guests of Chicken Man are met with an unwelcome surprise
Ali won the match against Quarry by technical knockout, prompting his supporters to continue the momentous night with celebration. hours after the fight, Nearly 200 partygoers, including high-profile personalities and notorious gangsters like Frank Moten (via People)Flock to Gordon “Chicken Man” Williams’ private residence in Atlanta For what was intended to be a “Crazy, Vegas-esque, blowout bash.” Instead, the celebration turned out to be a hot spot for suspected robbers, who crashed the party wearing a mask and armed with shotguns. The masked men had cornered the place days before, making their attack quick and their victims particularly vulnerable.
with the upper hand, The suspects trapped the party-goers in Williams’ basement, forced them to undress and robbed them of their money and possessions.. As it was, the Heist “went on for hours” As guests continued to press throughout the night. At the end of it all, the cellar was crowded with “Half-naked victims.” [that] were stacked like cordwood on top of each other,” And the masked men made off with what was later determined to be at least $1 million in stolen valuables. Despite the high pressure, no shots were fired during the robbery.
Who was responsible for Action Night’s 1970 heist
A Georgia grand jury indicted three people
Initially, Williams (Kevin Hart), an established hustler with a long criminal record, was suspected of masterminding the heist. Police believed that Williams had orchestrated the theft as a performance To raise money to settle his outstanding debts. The fact that his property housed the scene of the crime made him seem all the more guilty. However, two days after the robbery, officials announced that Williams was allegedly murdered at the hands of a mob in a contract killing, leaving them and the world with nothing but speculation about his involvement in the heist.
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Complicating the case even more, most of the defenders did not want to come before the police, and only five victims of the almost two hundred who participated in Chicken Man’s party filed official charges. Finally, police officials found guilty in three men, who were therefore charged with the crime. On November 18, 1970, McKinley Rogers Jr. (cinque walls)James Henry Hall, and Houston J. Hammond are each charged with six counts of armed robbery by a Fulton County Grand Jury.
JD Hudson’s role in the fight night is explained
Detective Lieutenant JD Hudson was assigned to the case
As shown in the US Action night series, JD Hudson, portrayed by the MCU’s Don Cheadle, was a very important person in Atlanta on October 26 and the days that followed. Creative loafing Confirmed that Hudson helped guard Ali the night he fought Quarry. Atlanta’s alternative newspaper also confirmed that after the heist went down, Police Chief Herbert Jenkins (Jason Warner Smith) assigned Hudson to the case. Allegedly, Jenkins accepted the victims of the heist remained tight-lipped because “The initial investigators were white.” As a result, Jenkins let Hudson take punts.
Thus began Hudson’s hunt for the person or people involved In constructing the heist. Unlike the popular consensus, however, Hudson formed doubts about Chicken Man’s involvement in the robbery, and he would later go on record to admit:
I knew he wasn’t dumb enough to pull such a trick. This was a man who ran a million dollar operation from a pay phone on a street corner. He was smart. He could have run IBM or Coke. There is no way he would have risked all this to pay someone off. This was pulled from a bunch of young thugs trying to crash a party, and when they got there and saw how big it was, they improvised.
Hudson admitted this sentiment to Jeff Keating, the creator of the Action night podcast on which the series is based, in 2004. At the time, Keating arranged a meeting with Hudson and the notorious Chicken Man himself, who shockingly survived the whole ordeal despite the widespread assumption that he had been murdered.
What happened to chicken man and the fight night robbers
Chicken Man survived the ordeal, but the robbers faced a different fate
Hudson and Keating initially met to discuss the case in 2002, when the former unexpectedly revealed that Williams was alive. and a Reverend of Salem Baptist Church. Two years later, the duo invited Williams into the establishment to share his perspective on the robbery. Williams professed his innocence on the stairs, and when asked why the press reported him dead, he replied, “I don’t know where they got this one…but I’ve been here in Atlanta the whole time.” While surviving the crosshairs of the law and the criminal underworld, Williams died in December 2014.
The accused robbers met very different fates. The police took Hammond into custody, while Rogers and Hall were shot in what the New York police believed to be a revenge killing. Their deaths occurred only six months after the heist. Hudson was quoted by the New York Times to have said, “…It was just a question of who caught them first – the police or the victims. It seems that the victims came there first. ” As for the detective in the center of Action Night: The Million Dollar HeistHudson died in 2009 at the age of 82.
Source: Today, Forbes, People, Creative loafing