Several former boxing champions, wrestling champs and noted football players, and athletes are among the men attending the Jack Dempsey dinner in the film. Also, they all join in the fight at the New York docks, helping the independent cab drivers against the Comet cab company. Among them are former world heavyweight champs Dempsey and James J. Jeffries, former world light heavyweight champion Maxie Rosenbloom, former All-American athlete and double Olympic gold medal winner Jim Thorpe, and George Godfrey, Rex 'Snowy' Baker, Man Mountain Dean, and Cotton Warburton.
Cotton Warburton (born Irvine Eugene Warburton), who appears amid the Jack Dempsey dinner crowd, is a former All-American quarterback for USC. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1975. As a film editor with Walt Disney studios, Warburton won an Academy Award for his work on Mary Poppins (1964).
The same year that this film came out, New York City began requiring taxi licenses for drivers and created the medallion system for cabs, a system still in place. The law limited the number of cabs to 16,900, but the actual numbers dwindled to less than 12,000 until the early 21st century. In 2016, the number of cab permits was just under 13,600.
Cotton Warburton, who appears in the final fight scene for the independent taxi owners, is the only Academy Award winner (1964 film editing for Mary Poppins (1964)) who is in the College Football Hall of Fame.