We've all heard of curses in the sports world. There used to be one that haunted the Boston Red
Sox, but
that curse was broken in 2004. Not to be outdone, the
Cubs have their own curse, as do the
St. Louis Cardinals (later broken in October 2006), anyone or anything touched by basketball legend
Elgin Baylor and
the entire city of Philadelphia, apparently suffering under an umbrella curse that affects all of their sports teams. Well, I'm proud to coin the newest addition to the landscape: the curse of Rocky Balboa.
You see,
Rocky Balboa is the
quintessential Part-American success story, a linguistically challenged, down-on-his-luck
Italo-
Philadelphian boxer, portrayed effortlessly by the
linguistically challenged Sylvester Stallone. The first movie, Rocky, actually won two Academy Awards (Best Picture and Best Director) in 1976 and netted Sly a nomination for Best Actor. Following that success, there have been several iterations of the Rocky franchise which, along with the first film, have
grossed in excess of $500 million in aggregate. The
plot line for the subsequent movies did not stray much from the original: Rocky takes extraordinarily dramatic punishment and, in some cases, a loss, before triumphantly stomping a
mud hole in each successively larger opponent. With that beating complete, the villains who opposed Rocky have only begun to suffer-- for they have now been infected with the curse of Rocky Balboa.
The first victim of the curse was Carl Weathers, who played heavyweight champion Apollo Creed. Creed wins a heart-wrenching battle in Rocky I, but later returns for multiple beatings in Rocky II and Rocky IV. If that wasn't enough for Carl Weathers, he later lost an arm in an unforgettable scene in the 1987 hit Predator.
Beginning with the third Rocky movie, new villains had to be introduced to provide some false hope that Rocky would finally get the beating that he deserved. In Rocky III, Hulk Hogan makes an appearance as a heel, but the real hay makers landed on the inimitable mug of Mr. T. Not that either Hogan or Mr. T needed much help in failing, but the curse has pushed Hogan back to the disdainful world of television wrestling and displaced Mr. T from once-budding star bodyguard to pitchman for collect phone call commercials.
Rocky IV's villain, Dolph Lundgren as the Cold War villain Ivan Drago, also stumbled following his stint as Stallone's appointed punching bag. His next role was as He-Man in the Masters of the Universe, and then he was The Punisher. Need I say more? Okay, he was also engaged to Grace Jones, who left an indelible mark on the silver screen with her work in Conan the Destroyer.
All was well and good at this point, as the villains were only taking a symbolic beating as victims of the Rocky Balboa curse. What happened next was, well, simply breathtaking. The curse of Rocky Balboa first manifested itself physically in the form of Tommy "The Duke" Morrison. Morrison, an undefeated professional boxer, took on the role of villain in Rocky V. Less than a year after that film was released, Morrison took a monumentally viscous beating at the hands of "Merciless" Ray Mercer. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, you can now share in the joy of witnessing that savage beating by pressing play in the frame below:
1 comment:
You are much better when you keep out of the political arena. Your ability to analyze "dead-in-the-water" sports, such as boxing is breathtaking.
Also what is a "beautiful finace"?
JH
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