Rocky

Rocky is a 1976 American sports drama directed by John G. Avildsen from a screenplay by Sylvester Stallone. Stallone also plays the title role of Rocky Balboa, a boxer from Philadelphia who gets an unexpected chance to fight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) for the world heavyweight title. The bout is scheduled for fifteen rounds and takes place on New Year's Day as part of the US bicentennial celebrations. The film shows boxing mainly through preparation. Rocky goes through several weeks of unconventional training, including punching sides of beef like a punching bag and running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Trainer Mickey Goldmill is played by Burgess Meredith, and boxer Joe Frazier appears briefly as himself. The character of Apollo Creed is loosely based on boxer Ken Norton, who fought Muhammad Ali three times. Norton was originally offered the role himself, but withdrew. Stallone wrote the screenplay after watching the match between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner on 24 March 1975. Sources disagree on whether it was a direct model: according to English Wikipedia, in the article on the film Stallone denies being inspired by Wepner, while according to the article on Wepner he acknowledged it years later. Wepner sued him in 2003, and the dispute ended in an out-of-court settlement in 2006. The film won the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. It was followed by five sequels, from Rocky II (1979) to Rocky Balboa (2006), and the spin-off series Creed (2015–2023).

Martial arts in this work

Origin

The match after which Stallone wrote the screenplay took place on 24 March 1975 at the Richfield Coliseum in Ohio, and it was for the world heavyweight title. Chuck Wepner, nicknamed the Bayonne Bleeder, who took 328 stitches over his career and broke his nose nine times, knocked Ali down in the 9th round (Ali claimed Wepner was standing on his foot). In the 15th round, 19 seconds before the end, Ali knocked Wepner out and the referee ended the fight with a technical knockout. English Wikipedia cautiously mentions as possible inspirations also the boxers Rocky Marciano and Joe Frazier and Rocky Graziano's autobiography Somebody Up There Likes Me.

Fight choreography

We have not been able to confirm from sources who directed the boxing scenes. During the shooting of the final fight, Stallone bruised his ribs and Weathers injured his nose. Weathers came to the film from sport: in 1970 he signed with the Oakland Raiders of the NFL as an undrafted free agent, where he played seven games as a linebacker in 1970 and one in 1971, and from 1971 to 1973 he played for the BC Lions of the Canadian CFL. According to his biography, as an eighth-grader he did boxing, judo and wrestling, among other things, but we did not find any boxing practice in adulthood in the sources. The training sequences in the streets of Philadelphia were shot with Garrett Brown's Steadicam, which made smooth shots possible while running alongside Rocky.

People and martial arts

• John G. AvildsenDirector
• Sylvester StalloneActor — as Rocky Balboa· Boxing (portrays the art on screen)
• Carl WeathersActor — as Apollo Creed· Boxing (portrays the art on screen)
• Burgess MeredithActor — as Mickey Goldmill· Boxing (portrays the art on screen)
• Joe FrazierActor — as Joe Frazier· Boxing (real practitioner)

Awards

• Won · Academy Awards, Best Picture (1977)
• Won · Academy Awards, Best Director (1977)

Series