Rocky

Rocky was a film from 1976 starring Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa and Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed. It tells a classic rags-to-riches tale about a washed-up boxer from Philadelphia who gets a shot at the world heavyweight title in the Spectrum. It was written by Stallone and directed by John G. Avildsen.

In it, Balboa takes his one thousand to one shot at the title and makes the most of it deciding before the fight that even though he can't win he will go the distance with Creed an imitation of Muhammad Ali In the first round Rocky nearly knocks Creed out, from that point on Creed takes this match serious and beats Rocky to a bloody pulp. But Rocky refuses to give up and fights Creed for all fifteen rounds (a feat no one one has ever accomplished)before losing on a 15 round split decision and gaining instant fame world wide.

An interesting detail is that Joe Frazier, a real life former world heavyweight boxing champion who boxed Ali three times, had a cameo appearance in this film.

The film won the Oscars best picture award for 1976 and earned Stallone a nomination as best actor.

The success of Rocky spawned a number of sequels (Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV and Rocky V), about which it is generally agreed that they got progressively less inspired and less entertaining.

One legacy of the original movie is the stirring theme music, which is often played at various sporting contests.