John L. Gardner had been heavyweight champion of Britain and Europe. He had beaten Paul Sykes, and gone toe to toe with Ali in an exhibition. In November 1992, two months into a new life as a pub landlord in Gateshead, he found himself in a narrow passageway facing a man in a ski mask with a butcher's knife. It was, the film says, the deadliest fight of his life.
The man was Peter Foster, from Gateshead. The film calls him one of the most dangerous and unpredictable men to come out of the North East, and sets out, case by case, how he came to be standing in that passage.
The Hackney Rock
Gardner was a Londoner, born and bred in Hackney. The film describes a hard East End childhood, with a brutal father and a devoted mother. As a fighter he was known as the Hackney Rock and the Mini Marciano, and at his peak, the film says, he was close to unbeatable.
He retired in 1981 and took his family to Tenerife. A brief comeback in 1983 brought two wins and a loss, and then he stopped for good.
In September 1992 Newcastle Breweries offered the family the running of one of its pubs, the Three Tuns in Gateshead, and they accepted. Gardner knew it was a rough pub that needed a firm landlord. He could not have known what was coming.
Gateshead
In the 1990s Gateshead was a working-class industrial town on the south bank of the Tyne, with a strong pub culture and a tough reputation in areas like Bensham and Dunston.
Foster, a former youth worker, was different from the region's well-known fist fighters. In 1986 he broke into the home of a woman he knew, waited for her, and attacked her, punching her and threatening her with a knife. Partway through his trial he changed his plea to guilty, and the judge, giving him full credit for the plea, sentenced him to six years.
Birtley, 1991
In 1991, after a night out at Liberty's nightclub, a man named Graham Watson and his friends got into a taxi that had been booked for someone else. An argument broke out with another clubber, and Watson went for the man with punches and kicks. Russell Baldwin, a six-foot-three boxer with a name as a hard man in Birtley, tried to break it up. One of the men with Watson, the film says, stabbed Baldwin in the stomach with a butcher's knife, severing an artery. He died.
The film places Foster, recently released, among Watson's group as they took over a taxi, held a knife to the driver's throat and made him drive away. "I saw everything," the driver said later. The group reached Brighton and were free for a week before they were caught. Foster's name did not appear in the early reports.
The Three Tuns, November 1992
On the night itself the pub was full. The darts team was playing and Gardner's wife was looking after the darts players while he checked the rest of the pub and made sure the entrance was closed.
Foster had already been barred from the Three Tuns for attacking a previous relief manager who had refused to serve him. Gardner knew his reputation, and when he saw him he told him to leave. According to the film, Foster pulled a ski mask over his face, drew a knife of eight to twelve inches and stabbed Gardner deep in the stomach.
The two men struggled in the hallway. Gardner punched Foster in the head and forced him against the wall, then went weak and collapsed. He later said he saw what looked like cauliflower coming out of his stomach. The film says he was stabbed fourteen times.
His wife ran into the hallway, found Foster standing over her husband and threw herself at him. She was stabbed several times. The couple got back to their feet, and Gardner, seeing his wife hurt, punched Foster again and again while she fought him with everything she had, until he fled. A five-hour operation saved Gardner's life. His wife's wounds were serious but not life-threatening. Foster was caught soon afterwards and remanded in custody.
In court
In 1993, while Foster was on trial for the attempted murder of Gardner, it emerged that he was also a co-accused with Watson over Baldwin's death. Both cases, the film notes, involved a stab wound to the stomach from a butcher's knife. During that trial, the film says, Foster smuggled a penknife into the courtroom and attacked Watson and a female prison officer, causing injuries that were not life-threatening.
Foster had confessed to being involved in the Birtley killing. He later withdrew the confession, and the judge cleared him. Watson, who said he acted in self-defence, was jailed for manslaughter, not murder. The charge against Foster over the attack on Gardner was reduced from attempted murder to wounding with intent.
In all three serious cases, the film concludes, Foster was either cleared or saw his charges significantly reduced. The narrator, who came to the case through Gardner's own book, says he does not understand why. He ends with respect for Gardner and his wife, who came through that night, and with thoughts for Russell Baldwin, who after hanging up his gloves had carried on helping his local club.