Matheson adapted his own short story "Steel," originally published in the May 1956, issue of The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction and subsequently collected in the anthology The Shores Of Space.

This was the first episode sponsored by Procter & Gamble.

Lee Marvin was also in "The Grave."

Joe Mantell is also in "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room."

Chuck Hicks was also in "Ninety Years Without Slumbering."

Frank London is also in "A Penny For Your Thoughts."

Merritt Bohn is also in "One for the Angels."

Opening Narration:
Narrator: Sports item, circa 1974: Battling Maxo, B2, heavyweight, accompanied by his manager and handler, arrives in Maynard, Kansas, for a scheduled six-round bout. Battling Maxo is a robot, or, to be exact, an android, definition: 'an automaton resembling a human being.' Only these automatons have been permitted in the ring since prizefighting was legally abolished in 1968. This is the story of that scheduled six-round bout, more specifically the story of two men shortly to face that remorseless truth: that no law can be passed which will abolish cruelty or desperate need - nor, for that matter, blind animal courage. Location for the facing of said truth: a small, smoke-filled arena just this side of the Twilight Zone.

Closing Narration
Narrator: Portrait of a losing side, proof positive that you can't out-punch machinery. Proof also of something else: that no matter what the future brings, man's capacity to rise to the occasion will remain unaltered. His potential for tenacity and optimism continues, as always, to outfight, outpoint and outlive any and all changes made by his society, for which three cheers and a unanimous decision rendered from the Twilight Zone.