Tuned in to the first Rocky, getting ready for the fight... I had forgotten the appearance of Joe Frazier in the ring before it starts... he went up to Apollo Creed in his lime green leisure suit and smiled and said, "you been ducking me a long time"... the two shadow-boxed for a few seconds...
I forgot how realistic this thing was. Always felt like the fight scenes didn't quite seem real, and that colored my view of the whole franchise.
Of course, it's dead on impossible to fake a boxing match realistically... and in hindsight, Stallone did it better than anyone. Carl Weathers was HUGELY impressive, such an athlete, such charisma. I don't think there was another person available who could have done that better.
Stallone refused a script sale with a price in the hundreds of thousands, so that he could star in the movie he wrote. He went for broke, could have BEEN broke and anonymous if it had failed. A real risk taker, who believed in his own abilities and convinced others to believe as well. He's made some dufus movies (Stop or my Mom will Shoot, etc) but that guy knew he had what it took WAY back when.
An American success story. Like all the others, not likely to happen anywhere else in the world, at any other time in history.
