Boxer's Riveting Story a Must-See for Local Sports and Film Festival Fans

The only time he came to Central Arkansas, Kassim Ouma came across as one little cocky son of a gun. The boxer previously considered the best in the world pound for pound up to that point, Bernard Hopkins, could not handle Jermain Taylor in the eyes of the ringside judges in Las Vegas on two occasions during the previous 18 months. But this little Ouma, who was a junior middleweight champ, was going to take care of business against current world middleweight titlist Taylor, he told us here in the lead-up to their fight in Alltel Arena in December 2006.

Ouma, of course, seemed mostly all mouth to the media assembled at the weigh in and, after Taylor's winning decision, the champ's vanquished foe still wasn't willing to accept that he had lost.

But Ouma also gave a great accounting of himself for 12 rounds, proving to be a tough target for the much bigger Taylor to hit that night. Taylor, in fact, was out to prove he could deliver a knockout punch and wasn't just a jabbing champion who could only win a title bout on scorecards alone, but none of his thunderous deliveries that night could floor Ouma.

We knew some background back then on Ouma, and how he had spent part of his childhood in a Uganda resistance force before making his way to the U.S. But had we been privy then to the award-winning documentary film "Kassim the Dream," which was made last year, we might have had a better understanding why standing up to Taylor was easy in light of what Ouma had seen growing up.

Ouma was slated to return to Arkansas for the screening of the documentary this weekend in the Little Rock Film Festival, but he had to pull out because of the death of his grandmother. We were looking forward to the discussion with the boxer about the film, his life, and his thoughts these days on Jermain Taylor and the fight game.