Uppercut Joe

Uppercut Joe is a 1980 American comedy grindhouse film starring heavy-weight boxer Mike Tyson and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. Set in an alternate universe version of New York city, the story follows Uppercut Joe, a young working-class man with the power to punch someone's head off once per day, courtesy of his training with the Ancient Order Of Uppercuts, and his struggles with the nefarious Smash-Face Continuum, a villain whose visions of future events allow him to plot actions to pursue his ultimate goal, that of destroying the American coffee industry and replacing it once again with good British tea.

## Plot

In an alternate universe version of New York City, Uppercut Joe attempts to balance his armature boxing career with his secret life of vigilantism. After years of training with the Ancient Order Of Uppercuts, Joe has gained the ability to punch someone's head clean off with an upper cut once a day. With that, and his trusty piece, Joe started cleaning up the streets of New York, using his ring name Uppercut Joe as a pseudonym.

At first, Joe had much success, as his blows killed bodies, and his trusty 45 killed the souls. Things however took a turn for the worst when he ran into Smash-Face Continuum, a psychic who can see the future. Using his clairvoyance, Smash-Face Continuum time and time again out maneuvers Joe, evading his demise. Frustrated, Joe considered giving up his vigilante life altogether.

For awhile Joe was content with leaving his vigilante life behind, as his amateur boxing career flourished. However, Smash-Face Continuum's evil plans rears its ugly head as one of Joe's favorite diners stopped serving coffee and started to only serve tea. Joe, realizing there is no one else standing between Smash-Face Continuum and his goal, decided to take up arms once again.

After much consideration, Joe decided to confront Smash-Face Continuum after making himself punch drunk (by punching himself in the face a dozen times). Due to the fact that Joe was in a dazed state, Smash-Face Continuum's clairvoyance was rendered useless, as the possible course of action Joe could take the next second was almost infinite. In a rather messy showdown, Joe was finally able to put Smash-Face Continuum down with two shots to the head.

## Cast

New up-and-coming boxer Mike Tyson was cast in the lead role of Uppercut Joe. There was much controversy regarding this casting, as Tyson was only 15 at the time, and had an extensive criminal record. Due to the low budget however, Beeple Studios had no other choice.

Opposite him as the villain was the famous astrophysicist Professor Stephen Hawking, playing the role of Smash-Face Continuum, a British mastermind with the power of precognition, seeing events before they occurred. What is peculiar is the fact that this little cameo was never mentioned by either Stephen Hawking nor either of his wives in public. It is also missing from the memoir *Music to Move the Stars,* written by his first wife Jane Hawking.

## Development

Beeple Studios ran into quite a lot of monetary issues after blowing most of the budget on casting Steven Hawking as the main villain. Fortunately the producer was able to cut a deal with Colt, and was granted a generous amount of funds for the product placements in the film. The most obvious one was perhaps Uppercut Joe's trusty sidearm, a Colt 1911.

## Filming

Much of the film was actually recordings of Mike Tyson's amateur boxing matches. The original scrip of the movie only had a few scenes of Joe boxing to explain why he is proficient in upper cuts. However, to pad the runtime a lot more stock footage was used. This was also one of the main reasons that Mike Tyson and his coach Cus D'Amato agreed to this deal. As Cus faded into obscurity in the 80s, it was difficult for him monetarily to record film of Tyson's matches and review them with him afterwards. The bpl studio agreed to share the films with Tyson and D'Amato, and thus barely paid anything in cash to Tyson.