![]() ![]() In Reel Life: Rocky's apartment looks awful - it's dark and small and grungy, and the only view is of a brick wall. Mark Kram, who previewed the fight for SI, characterized the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Wepner as "a wide, long slab of heart and dreams who is one of the last club fighters, the kind who gives you what he has, who turns a ring into a red-wine sea and keeps coming on for more." Wepner was a heavy underdog, and his fight with Ali in Cleveland was considered such a mismatch that Wepner appeared on a Sports Illustrated cover with the headline "Boxing's Strange Encounter." Stallone had watched on closed-circuit as Wepner, nicknamed the "Bayonne Bleeder," went 15 rounds in a title bout against Muhammad Ali on March 24, 1975, in Cleveland. In Real Life: Sylvester Stallone was inspired by Chuck Wepner, a 35-year-old club fighter who also happened to be the No. In Reel Life: Rocky Balboa is a 30-year-old club fighter. ( Note: ESPN Classic will be showing "Rocky" at 8 p.m. Which parts were real and which weren't? Read on. The character of "Rocky Balboa" was partially inspired by former heavyweight Chuck Wepner.īut still, most of "Rocky" was pure invention. ![]() ![]() It also displayed an ambitious fighter's harsh training and, from up close, the brutality of the sport. The movie showed Philadelphia at the depth of bleak decrepitude during the 1970s. "Rocky," which won an Oscar for Best Picture in 1976, has often been lauded for its gritty realism, both in and out of the ring. ![]()
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