As the opening credits for "Against the Ropes" roll, we find out that the film is inspired by the true story of Jackie Kallen. Kallen, the lone very successful female manager in recent boxing history, was a key player in making her life story into a film.

For years, she's been an inspirational speaker, believing her own story has an uplifting message.

Probably so. But the inspired by phrasing certainly leaves a whole lot of leeway for the filmmakers (who, in this writer's opinion, didn't seem at all inspired when making the movie).

So how much is the movie the story of Jackie Kallen, and how much is pure fiction? You decide.

In Reel Life: The young Jackie Kallen (played by 11-year-old Skye McCole Bartusiak) watches her uncle Ray Ray sparring in her father's gym and helps out.
In Real Life: Kallen's father and uncle were both amateur boxers. She told AtomicLife.net, "I grew up (immersed) in boxing."

In Reel Life: Jackie Kallen (Meg Ryan) works at the Cleveland Coliseum as an executive secretary for the arena's director, Irving Abel (Joe Cortese).
In Real Life: Kallen lived and worked in Detroit. She wasn't anyone's executive secretary. She was a journalist, a reporter for CBS's PM Magazine, and she had started her own PR firm when she began promoting boxers.

In Reel Life: Kallen wears revealing, tight-fitting outfits all the time. She also wears lots of jewelry and hot pink nail polish. In short, she makes sure that people notice her when she walks into a room.
In Real Life: That's Kallen's style. Susan Goldsmith of New Times Los Angeles described Kallen, then 52, in a 1998 profile: "You can't miss her. She's the one wearing oodles of pink. Her very tight sweater is pink. Her purse, shoes and belt are pink. Her long nails are pink, and so are her flashy beaded earrings. Her blonde hair is frosted to stiff perfection, and her makeup is flawless.

In Reel Life: The Cleveland Coliseum is featured prominently throughout the film.
In Real Life: What you're seeing is actually Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario. That's where many of the boxing sequences were filmed.

In Reel Life: Kallen buys the contract of boxer Devon Green (Tory Kittles) for a dollar. The general vibe of the scene in which this transaction takes place is that she doesn't have a clue about boxing and will, inevitably, fail.
In Real Life: Kallen never bought a contract for a dollar. And when she did decide to manage (after working for 10 years in the business), she got plenty of support from the best in the business, trainer Emanuel Steward. "She had worked very closely with me for years and learned everything," Steward told Goldsmith. "She'd ask me all kinds of questions and had good instincts."

In Reel Life: After she buys Green's contract, she finds him at an apartment in a poor section of Cleveland (actually, it looks more like a crack den). She gets into some trouble, and Luther Shaw (Omar Epps) enters the apartment and beats up Green. She likes the way Shaw fights and convinces him to train seriously.
In Real Life: Shaw is a thinly disguised version of James Toney, Kallen's most prominent boxer. Toney was a former drug dealer who trained in a gym where Kallen worked.

In Reel Life: Shaw is the first boxer she manages.
In Real Life: The first boxer Kallen managed was Bobby Hitz, a heavyweight, who at the time, was good enough to be knocked out by George Foreman (Hitz is now a successful fight promoter in Chicago). A year later, she started managing Toney.

In Reel Life: Kallen is single and unattached. At one point, Shaw asks her why she has no kids.
In Real Life: Kallen had a family when she managed Toney. She was married and had two sons, but she's since divorced and remarried. The reason she has no kids in the flick? "I fought to keep my kids in the movie but the powers-that-be felt it complicated the story and added a subplot that they didn't want," Kallen told eastsideboxing.com.

In Reel Life: Kallen lives in an apartment in Cleveland.
In Real Life: Kallen lived in a house in West Bloomfield, Michigan -- a suburb of Detroit.

In Reel Life: Kallen goes from being an executive secretary to a full-time boxing manager in very little time.
In Real Life: Kallen's pre-boxing career was much more interesting than portrayed in the film. She wrote an entertainment column for the Oakland (Mich.) Press, and in 1978 penned a story about Tommy Hearns, who trained in Detroit. She started doing PR work for Hearns' training site, the Kronk Boxing Gym, a few weeks later. In the meantime, she continued her column and was also a reporter for PM Detroit, a local TV magazine show. Ten years later, she started managing Hitz, at his request.

In Reel Life: The boxing scenes look pretty authentic. Shaw can take some hits.
In Real Life: Although Epps had a stand-in for some of the boxing scenes, he did most of the hard work himself. He said he trained four hours a day for two months for the part. Too bad -- Toney could have played himself in the boxing scenes since he did a pretty good job playing Joe Frazier in "Ali".

In Reel Life: Shaw has no family -- except for a brother in Philadelphia.
In Real Life: Toney's mother played a major role in his life. Sherry, who was 39 when her son won the IBF middleweight title in 1991, had earned a Masters in Communication and Theater at Eastern Michigan. She was also the owner of a wholesale bakery when Toney was at his peak.

In Reel Life: Shaw hasn't fought in a single pro bout when Kallen becomes his manager.
In Real Life: Toney had won his first seven pro bouts before Kallen became his manager after the previous manager, Johnny Smith, was killed.

In Reel Life: When she becomes Shaw's manager, Kallen finds him a bigger and nicer place -- partially to keep him away from the drug scene.
In Real Life: Kallen did -- before Toney's middleweight title bout -- rent him a house in Redford, outside of Detroit. But she didn't do it to keep him away from drugs. She rented him the house, "Sports Illustrated" reported in 1991, to keep him away from Burger King. "The place is full of rednecks and bikers," Kallen told SI. "I figured he'd be too afraid to go out."

In Reel Life: Shaw's nickname is Lethal Luther.
In Real Life: Toney's nickname was Lights Out.

In Reel Life: Kallen faces a formidable opponent herself in Sam Larocca (Tony Shalhoub), a local promoter and kingmaker. Larocca is nasty and disrespectful to Kallen.
In Real Life: Larocca's a fictional character, and doesn't seem to be even remotely based on anyone Kallen dealt with on a regular basis. "I'd have to say 99 percent of the men I've dealt with have been respectful, at least to my face," she said back in 1994.

In Reel Life: Kallen makes a deal with Larocca: Shaw will fight for the title after he wins a few more bouts and has time to train and recover. Instead, Shaw is rushed into the fight by Larocca, having only three weeks to recover from one bout and prepare for the other.
In Real Life: This scenario echoes the one that ultimately led to Kallen's split with Toney. Two days after he lost his title to Roy Jones Jr. in Nov. 1994, Toney blamed Kallen for forcing him to fight Jones when he had the flu. He told WDFN Detroit, a radio station, "I got (angry) because she knew I couldn't make the weight, and she was trying to put money in front of my health."

In Reel Life: Shaw's opponent in the main event, the reigning titleholder, has an unnamed, unrecognizable corner man.
In Real Life: Michael "Second To" Nunn, who Toney beat for the middleweight title, had the most famous trainer in boxing history -- Angelo Dundee.

In Reel Life: Shaw's title bout is against another local boxer and takes place in Cleveland.
In Real Life: Toney's title bout against Nunn took place in Davenport, Iowa -- Nunn's home turf.

In Reel Life: Shaw is a huge underdog.
In Real Life: Toney was a 20-1 underdog against Nunn.

In Reel Life: Shaw is pounded throughout the first half of the title fight, but seems to get stronger as the bout goes on and turns things around late.
In Real Life: For most of the bout at John O'Donnell Stadium along the Mississippi River, Nunn scored consistently with jabs, reported the Associated Press. His quick steps frustrated Toney, who did little damage in the early going. Toney bided his time, though. Throughout the fight, billed as the "Rumble on the Riverbank", he smiled and smirked after each Nunn volley to show the punches were having no effect.

In Reel Life: After Shaw's success, Kallen opens her own gym named (surprise) "Kallen's Gym."
In Real Life: Kallen did have her own gym which was called "Redford's Galaxy."

In Reel Life: Before winning the title, Shaw gets angry at Kallen for grabbing lots of attention (getting her own HBO special, for example). She belittles him at a press conference and publicly takes a lot of the credit for his success. Shaw, fed up at this behavior, splits with Kallen.
In Real Life: Toney and Kallen split after he lost his title, not after he won. Two days after losing to Jones, he threatened to kill her. The following report appeared in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel:

"James Toney grabbed a gun and threatened to kill his manager two days after he lost his super middleweight title, his first loss as a professional boxer, police said Monday.

"Police staked out the suburban Detroit home of manager Jackie Kallen and the Ann Arbor home of Toney's mother, Sherri, on Sunday, but the boxer never showed up, said police in Oakland County's West Bloomfield Township.

"Anytime we get a threat like that we take it very seriously, especially when there's a weapon involved," police chief Ron Cronin said.

Kallen said at the time that Toney was "out of control."

The incident severed the relationship between Kallen and Toney, though he fought a few more times for her to fulfill his contract.

In Reel Life: With Kallen as his manager, Shaw wins one world championship before the movie ends.
In Real Life: During his time with Kallen, Toney won three world titles in three weight classes: middleweight, super-middleweight and light heavyweight.

In Reel Life: The break between Kallen and Shaw lasts a few weeks or so. They reconcile publicly at a party held after he wins the middleweight title.
In Real Life: Kallen and Toney did reconcile, but it took about seven years.