The closing credits indicate that the screenplay for Chuck , the new movie about the life of rough-around-the-edges brawler Chuck Wepner, who got a dream shot at Muhammad Ali's heavyweight championship and became a sort of folk hero for knocking "The Greatest" down in the ninth round, was written by collaborators Jeff Feuerzeig, Jerry Stahl, Michael Cristofer and star Liev Schreiber. That might be technically correct, but the most vivid depiction of the real Wepner, not the reel one, was word-painted by the late, great Sports Illustrated writer Mark Kram, boxing's poet laureate.
