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Seriously, was Rocky ever a good boxer?

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Master Thespian said:
How many times did he get dropped in his fights? Sure, he kept coming at guys afterwards...hence the "superhuman recovery" part.
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How many times was he knocked out despite getting the shit beat out of him by heavy handed boxers? He has an incredible chin for the damage he endures, superhuman even. Saying Rocky has a weak chin is like saying the Flash isn't very fast, it's his defining trait.
 
One of the reasons I've always hated the Rocky films is that the boxing in them is just so shit. They fight like gods with infinite health bars and the power of instant recovery throwing crippling shots like they're flicking somebody's nose, yet its all done with the tactical nous and grace of a pair of angry school children fighting in the playground. It's not fun to watch. It's funny, because Stallone basically took the exact same approach with Driven, with much more hilarious consequences. People bought it with boxing, because it lends itself to that overt sense of theatricality that Rocky exudes, but you can't do the same thing with indy car racing. At least Driven is comically bad, though.

Rocky, if he were a real fighter, would be destroyed within one minute by Butterbean.
 
Basileus777 said:
How many times was he knocked out despite getting the shit beat out of him by heavy handed boxers? He has an incredible chin for the damage he endures, superhuman even. Saying Rocky has a weak chin is like saying the Flash isn't very fast, it's his defining trait.
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We're talking about two different things: chin vs recovery. Guys with amazing chins don't even get dropped, no matter how many shots they eat. Guys with normal chins and amazing recovery can be dropped but they always get up.

They're two different things (which is why they always have two different categories for them in boxing games).
 
It doesn't matter how many times Rocky gets knocked down (as long as it's under twice a round) but it matters how many times he gets back up. Nothing in life is gonna hit you harder than Rocky's opponents.
 
Basileus777 said:
How many times was he knocked out despite getting the shit beat out of him by heavy handed boxers? He has an incredible chin for the damage he endures, superhuman even. Saying Rocky has a weak chin is like saying the Flash isn't very fast, it's his defining trait.
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He has a chin made out of granite but boxes like Ricky Gervais.
 
Master Thespian said:
We're talking about two different things: chin vs recovery. Guys with amazing chins don't even get dropped, no matter how many shots they eat. Guys with normal chins and amazing recovery can be dropped but they always get up.

They're two different things (which is why they always have two different categories for them in boxing games).
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I still wouldn't call his chin mediocre considering the blows he takes. He has no defense and gets killed every fight. I don't recall Rocky getting dropped by weak punches, but I haven't seen the films in a few years.
 
I wonder how Rocky would stand up to James "The Grim Reaper" Roper from Great White Hype. Fat Roper.
 
The way boxing is portrayed in the Rocky films isn't exactly graceful or super realistic, but Rocky III made a point of showing him becoming a better, more defensive fighter.


I just rewatched Rocky IV with about twenty friends at my birthday get together a few weeks back. We projected the movie onto the living room wall- filled the entire thing up. A few couches of people + alcohol + Hearts On Fire = great time.
 
I think Rocky would be a dominate boxer if he was real simply because of his ability to absorb punches. How can you beat a guy that is able to take full strength punches completely unblocked without any long lasting effect?
 
crimsonheadGCN said:
Didn't Mr. T's character say that Mickey hand picked the easiest opponents for Rocky? I remember that was said in one of the movies.
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In Rocky III, yes. And it was true, Mick admitted it. They was good boxers but they wasn't killers!
 
Might as well make a thread about Dutch from Predator having terrible tactics when attacking that Guerilla compound. "A real Major would NEVER have placed an explosive in a truck and rolled it down a hill to start the attack...took me right out the movie. And he could have been killed when he said "stick around" after impaling that guy. And why did he leave his knife, that's vital equipment!!! Worst military unit EVER!!!"

It's just a movie, heart trumps technique and the damage an actual human being would be able to endure.
 
It doesn't matter to me that the boxing choreography is shit and pretty much all the boxing is crap, they're just great films to watch. The first two have great heart, and the third was great in it's own right - it's only with the fourth that the shit hit the fan. I still watch that one occasionally, but it's a love letter from Stallone to himself and it shows. It's way over the top in it's cheese and silly elements, and the fifth...?

The fifth is hard to watch. Not because it's a bad film - I wouldn't call it a great one, but I also wouldn't say it is bad - but because we'd come to care for those characters and to see them sink so low was a punch right to the heart. How many times had we seen Rocky get back up after getting knocked down so hard, only for him to receive his toughest blow yet? Watching them to have to scrape a living yet again was hard, and then of course you have the betrayal from Tommy just all adding up for a hell of a depressing film. I recently gave my copy away, it's that depressing.

I love how they kept trying to raise the bar with opponent fighters as the films went by, trying to inject new levels of menace by giving Rocky something to face that went so far beyond anything he'd faced before. Sure, the wrecking ball that was Lang in the third and the steroid-inducing freak that was Drago in the fourth were fearsome opponents, but neither were the powerhouse that Creed was. Out of a total of fifty fights, he won forty-eight times, forty-seven of which were KO's. I wonder how long Lang would have lasted up there as the champion, no longer hungry? As for Drago... who knows? Creed was the only boxer to break Rocky's nose - both times in the first round of each fight.

In the fourth he was forty-two years old, and considering that in the first film one of the commentators mentioned he wasn't in the best shape he'd ever been, it's no wonder he lost. Creed really was the Master of Disaster!
 
dennett316 said:
Might as well make a thread about Dutch from Predator having terrible tactics when attacking that Guerilla compound. "A real Major would NEVER have placed an explosive in a truck and rolled it down a hill to start the attack...took me right out the movie. And he could have been killed when he said "stick around" after impaling that guy. And why did he leave his knife, that's vital equipment!!! Worst military unit EVER!!!"

It's just a movie, heart trumps technique and the damage an actual human being would be able to endure.
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Fuck, I can't watch Predator the same way again. The curtain was pulled back too far! Fuck!
 
Dagobert Duck said:
I need to watch Rocky IV again. Shit is motivational. Those training montages...
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8kl5LBu.gif


GOTTA GET A CLOSER LOOK, COMRAD
 
He was a great boxer in Rocky 3 in the 2nd Clubber fight. His skills deteriorated in Rocky 4 but his chin got better. I think he trained lots of chin in Rocky 4
 
Herne said:
I love how they kept trying to raise the bar with opponent fighters as the films went by, trying to inject new levels of menace by giving Rocky something to face that went so far beyond anything he'd faced before.
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The concept for the film Predator originated when someone made the joke "Since Rocky Balboa had run out of earthly opponents, he would have to fight an alien if a fifth installment of his boxing series were to be made." Some guy took the joke seriously, and several re-writes later, Predator was born.
 
I seem to remember they made an effort in Rocky Balboa to make the boxing more realistic. But yes he is a bad boxer with super human stamina in the other movies.
 
Rocky = Wolverine-boa
Apollo = Captain Americreed
Ivan = Sabretoothago
Tommy Gunn = Captain America's worthless side kick.
Clubber Lang = Hulk the first time, jobber hulk the second time around.

Given how all of the boxers in the Rocky movies have nothing less than super human durability and recovery, it's easier to see them as comic book characters in a way.
 
Synth_floyd said:
The concept for the film Predator originated when someone made the joke "Since Rocky Balboa had run out of earthly opponents, he would have to fight an alien if a fifth installment of his boxing series were to be made." Some guy took the joke seriously, and several re-writes later, Predator was born.
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That's freaking hilarious.
 
On the technical tip I'm sure peoples critques of the movies have merit but for sheer face-punching entertainment those movies made a boy hype! Every punch landed with super-human impact. It just looked and sounded fantastic!

You could break into a house with those jabs alone.
 
Herne said:
It doesn't matter to me that the boxing choreography is shit and pretty much all the boxing is crap, they're just great films to watch. The first two have great heart, and the third was great in it's own right - it's only with the fourth that the shit hit the fan. I still watch that one occasionally, but it's a love letter from Stallone to himself and it shows. It's way over the top in it's cheese and silly elements, and the fifth...?

The fifth is hard to watch. Not because it's a bad film - I wouldn't call it a great one, but I also wouldn't say it is bad - but because we'd come to care for those characters and to see them sink so low was a punch right to the heart. How many times had we seen Rocky get back up after getting knocked down so hard, only for him to receive his toughest blow yet? Watching them to have to scrape a living yet again was hard, and then of course you have the betrayal from Tommy just all adding up for a hell of a depressing film. I recently gave my copy away, it's that depressing.
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This is exactly my opinion of the sixth film and why I hated that movie. Rocky 1 is one of my all time favorite movies because of how uplifting it is. It's a message of hope and that heart and determination means something. I don't want to be reminded it all means nothing in the end. I don't want to think while I'm watching the original that regardless of whether or not he goes the distance, Rocky's wife will still die of cancer and his son will hate him and he'll grow old and miserable. I don't want depressing from that series.
 
To give a somewhat serious boxing answer, Rocky would be classified as a southpaw awkwardly-clever pressure fighter with a good chin and an ever better ability to recover. Carlos Maussa is probably the most infamous awkwardly-clever fighter of all time. He looks like a complete joke but he won a world title:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFmaMfG_OE0

The fights in the Rocky films are actually somewhat plausible in how they are written (at least as far as the strategy is discussed), though their visual depictions are insanely over the top in terms of how much damage the fighters dole out and receive.
 
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