‘Rocky II’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan

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The Rewatchables brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. We can find the watch with Chris Ryan.
Here I am. Big hit episode with Vince Gilligan.
Yeah. Was it a hit?

It It seemed like it was a hit. Thanks for watching.
People want to know about Pluribus. Yeah.
Have you checked it out over the Thanksgiving week? I've been saving it. Okay.
Oh,

it's good. It's really good.
Yeah. Yeah.
Van Lathan Higher Learning. Absolutely.
Ringer Tailgate. Yeah.
Red Hot Show right now with all the LSU drama. Going crazy.
So much happening.

And then the Pew Pew. Pew Pew, me and my boys.
Forgot the name of the podcast. I'm actually the new head coach of North Texas.
I'm going to be leaving the ringer. You like that? Yeah.

Going over there to take the job. Yeah.

Before we get to the pod today, somebody sent me a video. Somebody went through all of of the HBO movies from the 80s and how many times they aired and did a top 50.
It's on YouTube.

I'll tweet it out of those.

This was right up my alley.

Where did he get this data? He went through somehow every single week of HBO programming.

Couple highlights. Eddie and the Cruiser, 16th.
Most airings. Eddie and the Cruisers moved.
I don't know if that was too high or too low. It was just on HBO channels.

I thought this was HBO original movies. Okay, my bad.
Yeah. Victory, fifth.

Lone Wolf McQuaid, I thought was going to be really high. It was only 37th.
I thought that was disappointing. The distortion field of your own nostalgia.
Number one, Bill Cosby himself.

Yeah, it was on all the time.

It was a devastating number one. It was 25 minutes of.
It was so good. You got to keep it real, though, man.

Yeah, and it was like, what's the number one movie going to be? And it was Bill Cosby himself. I'm shocked this list hasn't been publicized before.
Yeah. And you got to keep it real.

Remember the bit about son playing football? Yeah. Bill Cosby was on all the time.
Bill Cosby himself all the time. Booty Allen's Manhattan, number two with a bullet.

Eddie and the Cruisers, 16. The streets are just shouting for the rewatchables.
We just need it somewhere streaming. What an option.
We have Tubi, we have Howdy, we have Pluto, one of these places

without a streaming option. Do you feel like people just have to be able to see it, though? It's, I want people to see it.

You've seen it, right? Eddie and the Cruisers, of course. Okay.

All right.

Have you seen Eddie and the Cruisers 2? Eddie Lives? I don't like that movie as much. I don't like when we go to Canada with Eddie and he's working construction.
Not on my list.

That did not make the top 50. A movie that we're about to do is our 12th Sylvester Stallone movie, a movie we've been circling for a while.
Rocky 2 is next.

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All right, guys, it's our 12th Sylvester Stallone movie.

Rocky 2. We've done three, we've done four, we've done one, we've done Creed.
Yeah. Haven't done two.
I'm going to go through the Stallone movies we've done. He's now tied for fourth

all time. This is a great example of executive unitary theory where this is like

you

putting your, with your sheer act of will, just making Stallone top four for us.

Arguably not enough, Stallone. Oh, what do we need?

There's five we haven't done.

I like Daylight. I like Lockup.
Daylight's Lockup. I like Nighthawks.

You're scraping the ball. Oh, Nighthawks is cool.

So he's tied for fourth all-time now at Denzel. Here's what we've done.
So we did Rocky, the most important Stallone movie. We did Rocky 3, I think the most entertaining.
Rocky 4, the most 80s.

Yeah, we're going to do it. Personification of the 80s Stallone.

First Blood, I think the best 80s.

Best 80s, what? Best 80s Stallone movie. Okay.

Victory, most underrated.

Beloved.

Cobra, most ridiculous. Over the top, best bad movie he's ever made.
Tango and cash, guilty as a pleasure. Oh, tango and cash.
Cliffhanger, I think, his best 90s movie. Copland, his biggest swing.

Creed, best 21st century movie he made. Yeah.

So what is Rocky II?

Rocky 2. Rocky 2 is the most important of the Rocky movies to me.
Oh, explain. So.

I was trying to figure out why I like Rocky 2 so much. Like I told you, I like the movie.
Yeah.

I love it.

It's one of my favorite ones. It's not a hot take.
The last 28 minutes of the movie.

Of Rocky 2 or Rocky 1, you're talking about?

So there's two reasons why I like the movie so much. Number one, this movie plays like an HBO 24-7 episode.
Yeah. So when you watch HBO 24-7, it's a slice of life.
It's, this is what I'm buying.

These are the commercials that I'm going to. This is the life of a pro fighter.
And then at the end of it, it's the fight. And this is how that movie really is.
There's really not much plot happening.

It's like a long HBO 24-7 movie. And then whereas Rocky stands alone as this, the original Rocky, shot, say, stands alone as this incredible dramatic achievement.

This movie is kind of the actual beginning of the Rocky franchise as this being a sports action movie franchise.

The first one is a very small drama and it's more about, you know, the life of this guy, this big shot that he takes.

But this movie is the movie where you're in this world and the world is forming for the lore of Rocky to deepen and become what it's going to become.

And I like this version of it, the over-the-top, super muscled us against the Russians. That's the Rocky that I like more than the understated version of it.
What do you have, CR?

Yeah, I mean, I think that this movie for me, Van makes a really good point that this is like the beginning of the Rocky saga and the Rocky franchise.

What I like so much about Rocky 2 is that it is essentially a remastered version of Rocky. It's essentially a remake.

I mean, you know, you start with, but I call it a remastered version because in the first 10 minutes are essentially the end of Rocky with some technical embellishments.

I think they're using the same footage, but I believe that they ran it through some processing to make it look a little bit better. They did some insert shots.

And then for the most part, beat for beat, the story is relatively the same.

A guy who's down in his luck, who finds a girl, who finds a trainer, who finally finds the will to fight against impossible odds.

And then everything for the last last 30, 40 minutes is right out of Rocky One, essentially, in terms of like the training, the montage, the entrance to the fight, everything like that.

You just have some different, different emotions going on there.

So, yeah, I think that this is an example of something I wish Hollywood almost would try more of, which is essentially the sequel that is just a remake.

You know, it's interesting because I don't feel like we talked about sequels before on rewatchables. Like, somewhere in the late 70s and the early 80s, sequels became,

oh, we should expanding. This is like a huge money opportunity.
We should do this. This was like the purest form of a sequel where Rocky, the original one,

had a beginning, middle, and end, and it was supposed to end. And then people loved the character and won the Oscar.
And then everybody was kind of like, can this guy come back?

I just want to hang out with Rocky more. Yeah.
Because I saw this in the theater. I remember what it was another one.
I remember I went with my best friend Reese Genser. Cleveland Circle.

And it was the only thing. I don't think I heard Rhys before.
What are these names? Where'd Reese go? What happened to Reese? He was my best friend in first, second, third, fourth grade.

What do you do? I don't know. What do you do to you though? Hold on for a second.
He dropped schools and that was it. All right.
So what happened? He switched schools and there's no more Reese.

I mean, I'm sure he exists. So what is it up to?

I'm sure he's doing great. I don't know.

So Reese has a lot of people.

No, we exchanged emails a while ago. Okay.
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.
What'd he say? How could he ever talk about it? How you doing?

It's like Reese is like, Reese is listening to a bunch of pods. He's like, we saw Rocky 2 together last year.

Maybe we'll reach out again.

Okay, um, but we saw this, and it was the only time in my life I remember, and I think I've talked about this before: the entire theater cheering like it was a real sporting event, like for real.

Oh, yeah, and it was a lot of kids, and everybody just wanted Rocky to win. And people, it was like we were on close circuit watching like Leonard Hearns.
Are you gonna make a no?

Go ahead, make yourself

right.

Yeah, they wanted Rocky to win. They brought it,

they wanted Rocky to eat

three. And the double knockdown was an all-time like

oh my god what and they did a really good job of announcing the announcer going although they bent the rules but it's like whoever gets up first and you're just like they set the stakes perfectly and everyone went nuts when he won like nuts i gotta be honest i'm not entirely sure

i think that i may have spent some of my a significant part of my life thinking rocky two was rocky one Oh, do you know what I mean? Like, I'm not sure if I even saw it.

I mean, they kind of merged together in one giant movie. You know what's funny?

When we did Rocky One, when I re-watched it, I kept waiting for the scene where Mickey tells Rocky that he shouldn't fight Apollo because his eye. Because of his eye, because he's too slow.

If I can get that shot on you, think about what Creed would do to you. He's going to hurt you permanently.
But it's actually in the second movie. Yeah.
Yeah, I think they do bleed together.

They are one A and one B of one big movie in some ways. It's an interesting from a rewatchable standpoint.
And there's a reason we waited to do it because,

you know, when you see it the first time, second time, third time, but after 45 50 almost 50 years of this movie there's about an hour where you're like i think i'm good yeah you know i would call this the coma scene's 11 minutes this is only rewatchable in the sense that if you do not know where it's going it is unwatchable like if you are watching this for the first time or the first time in a really long time you're like holy shit nothing's happened how many jobs is this guy gonna get and get fired from and then now adrian's in a coma it feels like he's reading to her again it feels like a series of deleted scenes on youtube where it's like deleted scenes rocket too but it's the actual movie for 45 minutes but back to your point it assumes that you care so deeply about the character yeah because if you don't you just don't care about adrian getting her part-time job at the pet shop back yes it just assumes a deep connection to the characters and at the end that's kind of why it works is because when he's holding that belt at the end of the movie all of those feelings just come pouring out of you it's kind of brilliant how they do it, but I don't know how re-watchably fun it is to watch his dignity just get stripped out of it.

Watching him in the meat packing plant or getting rejected at the top of the

boxing gym. Doing the boxing gym

for me to do it. Oh, and the guy's a get closer.

Huge nitpick. Why?

He's too famous to work as a trainer. Number one.
Or not even a trainer. I've been in a lot of senator, basically.
In a lot of boxing gyms. all over this city and other cities.

He just would not be treated that way. Just no way.

They would not treat him like that. Like up at Phil, sometimes Zab Judah will come in, Donna Dragon Wilson will come in.
This just doesn't matter. He would not.

Guys who have even had like five or ten pro fights, you looked at as like a different species in a gym like that. And there are other pros in there.

He just, they wouldn't have, they would, in no way, shape, or form, somebody that just went to war like that, what they have treated him that way.

Well, the good news is that's not even one of the 10 most ridiculous things about this movie,

including that he's blind in his right eye and goes 15 rounds with Creed.

This was a big movie for Stallone CR because between Rocky 1 and 2, it comes out with Fist. When was the last time you cranked out Fist? I'm not sure I've ever seen Fist.

Yeah, does Sean even own Fist on Blu-ray, you think? Sean own Fist. Maybe Black Friday sale and the Kino Lorber site.
Sean's grabbing Fist.

78 Prevention. We should live call Sean and be like, do you own this on 4K? Yeah, he definitely does.
So Fist bombed.

And then he directed and starred in Paradise Alley, which seemed good on paper, paper, but that also flopped. And is that like a Great Depression kind of comedy?

Yeah, it's just people are like, can you just be Rocky again? Yeah.

But he uses that to his advantage. Yes.
Right. So, I mean, you could tell the story of the making the film, but

yeah, I can do that quick. Completes the screenplay in 77.

Calls it Rocky 2 Redemption.

Strong title.

We're supposed to get John Avaltson to direct, but he's doing Saturday Night Fever, a good movie that we've done on the rewatch movie.

Aviltson later says he's like, I wasn't super pumped to just remake the same movie. Yeah.

But it had conversations with Stallone about some interesting wrinkles that Rocky's character could go through that we can talk about later. Stallone

basically says, I have to direct or I'm not going to be involved. Studio breaks.
$7 million budget. He gets a lot of points and it becomes the highest grossing sequel ever.

It holds the record until Empire Strikes Back two years later or one year later.

$7 million budget makes $200.1 million and then is on cable for the next 48 years. So this is about as good as it could be for him and sets up the 80s for him, more importantly.

Sets up Nighthawks, Victory, First Blood, Rambo, everything. It sets up the next 15 years of him being an A-plus lister because he proved people wanted to come back to see Slice Thawn.

It's interesting, though, he's like a heavier.

I don't know what happened between Rocky II and Victory basically two years later, but his face. You don't know what happened? Well, I don't know whether he just

stopped eating bread or... What do you think happened? Well, he got thinner.
You think he had surgery? He's on steroids.

But he's big bonk. I think he was on steroids in one and two, though.
Oh, but his body. Better steroids? It's 70s steroids.
They're pretty.

Like the 70s make you water. Well, he's on steroids.

He probably has more money, has different steroids he can get. He gets more into it, and then things are changing along those fronts.
But obviously, by the time he used steroids, O'Drago did. True.

Rocky Ford, he's not even natural. He's just lifting

cutting and all that. That's right.
He's lifting Paulie in the sled.

But yeah, so he's, it's kind of a doughier, very 70s Stallone. But then that's the second guy that's coming along.
And by the time three comes, he's like an action figure. He's like, not he's he-man.

He's one of those people in Rocky one and two. You could have told me he was six, four, and I could have believed that he was a little kid, but he was really like, what, five, seven and a half?

Yeah, small casting, whatever. What do you think? Do you have a steroids take, Craig? Rocky?

I don't, I don't know how if he was on steroids in compared to yeah, but he's 100 million percent on steroids in three and four. You can't look like that.
Four.

Yeah. The whole, he's, it, his whole body.

He's like fully oiled up

in three. Yeah, by the time we get to even first blow part two, like it's obvious that he's, he's, he's training hard and he's, he's on something.

He could be natural in one and two maybe so the the big calling card of this movie as it was on marathons forever and ever was how good the last 28 minutes are

um the moment the moment we get mick going what are we waiting for

this is the best movie of all time it might be the best run of a re-watchable movie every single it might be the moment is perfect it might be the best running in film history you know what i'm i'm running so shocked i'm so shocked at how moved I was re-watching it.

The scene just works. It's timeless.
It's classic. Just Rocky running with all the kids.
After all of this time, it should not be moving, but you want the guy to win.

You want that guy to figure his life out. I still don't think I want him to beat Apollo, but he's running with the kids and the scene.
gets the whales out of you. Oh my God.
Yeah.

Yeah. I was the exact same age of those kids.
And I think that might have been the coolest moment of my life to that that point.

Just the chance that kids my age got to run with Rocky like broke your brain. It's like, oh, I'm so jealous of all 800 of these kids, specifically the one,

the one who turns into Carl Lewis for like two seconds trying to keep up with him. One of the great athletes in the history.
He runs right by my old Little League field on the parkway there.

Oh, you showed me. Yeah.
Showed me when we were in Philly. There's some controversial how long he ran that we'll get into later.
But that kid who keeps up with him.

I would also say his pace is unsustainable. He's sprinting.

I just thought about a young Bill in Boston, like stalking out joggers, trying to run behind him. Wishing that, like, Gordy Howe coming out of a store

six cases of beer. You're just playing in Philadelphia, and Rocky's running by, and you're like, come on, let's join him.
And you're just,

he's got a whole jogging pack.

There's no Ebert review of this movie, but, but on TV,

Siskel said he loved it and that he was looking forward to Rocky 3, that it is Siskel and Ebert. Ebert said, I really did enjoy it.

And he thought the sequel's fight scene was better. But the big thing is he wrote a piece about watching this with Monique.
Very cool. Very cool piece.
It's on the Ebert site.

I guess maybe that's why he didn't review it is because he wrote a feature, which is, did he write a lot of features? That was a pretty unusual piece. It's a pretty famous Ebert piece.

And Ali had not. gotten the tar beaten out of him by Holmes yet, so he was still relatively coherent.

Some of the ollie highlights

he you know obviously identified with apollo creed he said apollo sounds like me insulting the opponent in the press to get him psyched out that's me exactly he criticized stallone's boxing um says it's good acting it's not boxing and he points to the guy in training in the background says that guy in the red trunks back there you can see he's a real fighter this was interesting he talked about He don't feel like fighting because his wife is sick.

That's the truth. The same thing happened to me when I was in training camp during one of my divorces.

You can't keep your mind on fighting when you're thinking about a woman i don't know if this is true for your training for me yeah no it helps me to think about women okay um different only fans models but he they're watching brains right

he says i have i predict she's gonna get well and then rocky's gonna beat the hell out of apollo creed that was a mid-movie ali prediction um

he said there is no way apollo could hang could rocky could hang with apollo he was jealous of master and disaster and then he had this quote For the black man to come out superior would be against all America's teachings.

I have been so great in boxing, they had to create an image like Rocky, a white image on the screen to counteract my image in the ring.

America has to have its white images no matter where it gets them. Jesus, Wonder Woman, Tarzan, and Rocky.
Wonder Woman. How she get thrown into it? I don't know.
That was all these things.

That was all these people. Out of nowhere? They decided not to put that blurb on the poster.
Okay.

For Molly, but those were his takes.

So when you watch the movie, it is, you're just blown away at how good of an athlete Carl Weathers is. It's ridiculous, right? Carl Weathers moves like a fighter, throws punches like a fighter.

He also looks like a fighter when he's just wearing a suit, moving around his house and moving through life. Yeah.
Obviously, Rocky was going to win.

The spirit and then the non. I'm not giving up all of that stuff.
That's what the movie is about.

Like when you go back, that's kind of the deal you're making with the film is to like suspend the disbelief that Rocky could beat any of the opponents that he's ever fought.

I will say, I find Apollo Creed in this movie to be fascinating. Well, he doesn't smile, I don't think, once in the movie.
He's so angry.

He, the scene, and we'll talk about it later, but the scene where they're trying to convince him not to do this, where everyone is completely afraid, and he is so resolute, he's not angry at all, he's fixated on what he has to do.

And him overcoming this and then falling short and not being able to do it when Apollo slumps down and can't get up,

gutting, just didn't have

the arm at the end, and then raises the arm at the end, like just his entire perspective in the movie, the reading of the hate mail, all of that, kind of an interesting look at the modern athlete and the kind of chances they take to protect their legacy.

Like one of the first times a movie really did it that I could connect to. He's all wrong for us, baby.

Beat that man and he just kept coming. He kept coming.
I have a incredible later. Yeah.

Yeah, it's funny watching, knowing how the rest of the Rocky series goes, and he's so much fun in Rocky 3, Apollo Creed. There's no sign of that in Rocky II.

He just is like so fucking mad that Rocky almost beat him. The hate mail makes him so mad.
All he wants to do is destroy the guy. And he's just like this really angry, vindictive character.

And then Rocky 3 just. Well, he also is just a great...

It's also like right at that moment where I feel like these guys are on camera, not just when they're competing, but when they're building up to fights or building up to any events.

And so he's also like playing three different characters.

There's the character in the ring, the character at home, and the character who is just being filmed at press conferences and any kind of public appearances.

And so he always has like these little shades to the way he's performing, weathers, I mean, that's just incredible. It's funny.

As a kid in the 70s, it never occurred to me what an Ali impersonation it was because the only champ I really knew was Ali. So I just thought all champs acted like this.
Sure.

But now as the years pass and you watch it, it's a very like interesting

Ali slash Hollywood hybrid character. There's a lot of Ali in it, especially the way he carries him, the way he talks, like how powers he is.
Yeah.

He's like a businessman. He's charismatic.
He's like, it's.

We talked about this with the first movie, too. It's an interesting juxtaposition because, you know, Rock is really in the hood with criminals,

with his homeboy sister, like in Philly, where when you look at Creed, the singers around the garbage can be the singers. What happened to that? The

doo-op guys,

you know, the warming. They just like to hang out on a nice cold Thursday night, singing some doo-op songs.
Whatever you say to them, they go,

but then, like,

walk by and tell them, think about how dehumanizing. Walk by, hey, give me a little Frankie lineman.
Okay, fellas. Yeah.

That's a jukebox in the neighborhood. Show some respect.

But then when you see Apollo, a group of guys in suits, a dedicated PR guy that's giving him advice on how he's going to look like the villain, so polished, like so methodical that he is literally conning Rocky into taking this fight.

Our entire narrative in the story, which is this second fight, is based upon Apollo's ego. Fascinating character.

Also, it's possible it created the whole how to bully somebody into fighting you, and then the wrestling version of this that they just borrowed for the 80s, 90s, and so on.

Which is cool because we're calling out another wrestling movie. It was in three, I guess.
Yeah, it's a very professional wrestling type of you've got to fight me. What do you come on? Let's go.

All right, we're going to take a break. We have a lot going here with the category, so we're going to take a break, come back with most revashable scene.

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All right, most re-watchable scene. You know, I get why they re-ran the last six minutes of Rocky one as a remaster, but for the marathons, I always really always bothered me.

I used to write about this a lot.

If they're doing a Rocky marathon, you don't have to. I think it should just go right to them in the ambulance.
So here's the thing.

As a discrete experience, though, if this movie doesn't have a fight in the beginning, there's no fighting for an hour and a half then. Yeah, true.

And you would be, it's a tough watch if there's no action. Yeah.

For an hour and a half.

Rocky and Pago, the hospital. The opening credits are the first rewatchable scene because they have the remastered Rocky theme song.
Yeah.

You guys aren't with me? Great title.

I'm with you. I just think you should be around the warning.
Maybe you could be one of the guys.

That's what you're doing.

One man doo-hop version. Burrow house.

The house kid next to me next to Frank Swarm.

Bring Reese back. I thought that song was really good.
Could have gone badly. I like that you have brain damage.
I don't see any. And then Creed in the wheelchair talking shit.
Yeah.

What do the ads end up at the same hospital in the same waiting room? Well, there's only like a couple of hospitals in Philadelphia that you would really go to. Anyway, I have that.
Very small scene.

Rocky taking the wheelchair over to Apollo, asking him if he gave him his best.

It's a short one, but I like it. Rocky's marriage proposal.

How's the Philadelphia zoo for you, CR? Well,

a lot of good times there. That's an interesting callback to the first movie.

If you remember that, oh, the Casso's driver. The Caso's driver says retards like the zoo.

Retards like the zoo.

And

they get engaged.

I'm not saying I endorse the language, but I noted that they brought it. It was Chekhov Zoo.

This was a running joke with my buddy Gus and I all through the 80s that if one of us was going to propose, it'd be, I was wondering if you wouldn't marry me too much.

Classic line. I like when he invites the tiger.

Rocky's just full of brain damage for the first hour of this movie.

She's doing that. Rocky film in a commercial.
Brutal. This hurts.
I think CR could have played the director. Yes.
Yeah. That would have been a good, good.

A true auteur that can't deal with the incompetent talent. Yeah.
It's like Fincher making him do 60. I can't read.
I can't read. I feel so bad for Rocky.
Get out of here, sir.

CR, would you have bought Beast Aftershave? Yeah, for sure.

If I was a young Philadelphia kid just getting into puberty. What was the Aftershave and Aqua Velva?

Nah, not that one. The one where they had different athletes to, and you were supposed to act,

the audience is going crazy. They know what I'm talking about.
But

you were supposed to be upstanding where you wore it.

And the guys would come out. Not Old Spice.

Was it Old Spice? Yeah. Yeah, Old Spice.
And they would have guys in the Old Spice commercials and all that stuff. That's basically what he was doing, right?

Aqua Velva had the athletes with like really, really attractive women. That was a campaign in the 80s that was very effective.
That's when Joe Montana met his wife. Oh, he married the Aqua Velva lady.

Oh, so he was like, I'm taking her home. Did he say,

if you would maybe want to get married to me?

He took her to the Philadelphia Zoo.

Mickey doing the finger test with rock

is a great scene. Awesome.
On the stairwell. Yeah, that's what I'd hurt you permanent.
Hurts you permanent.

Mickey's the angriest guy that's ever pointed poem in it point it poimminate and then when he wants to work back in the gym he's like where's your dignity it's just it's it's really good and rocks i think stallone does i think he has a really couple really really good acting scenes in this i think that's one of them where you just feel like the guy's fucking lost his way and it's not happening yeah i mean it's he's got to be trapped in a movie with someone

making bad mistakes because of like brain damage essentially and also just like a lack of kind of imagination about what they could do with their life.

And it's a kind of uncomfortable movie because for the second that they're like, you should invest in condominiums or you should sign with this talent agency or you should do this or you should do that.

And watching him, you know, blow through his money and buy a house without going upstairs and all that stuff.

It's just kind of like, this is, this is like a pretty brave character to play because you don't get a lot of the hero moments until the last few minutes.

And they must have really believed in the climax of the movie because everything is played.

It's so understated. Yeah.
Like there's never any, there's hardly any, should I say, huge dramatic failures from Rocky. Rocky gets fired.
Hey, we got to let you go. Yeah.

Rocky takes you, hey, I got to go. Hey, can I work the rest of the day? Can I work the rest of the day? Like, all of that stuff is just.

they're almost edging you to the big climax at the end and sorry for that but they almost get to

get you jesus To get you to the big club. Frank likes going to the zoo, too.
I like it. Yeah, it's great.

Well, the guy who fires him at the meat packing. Frank McRae.
Frank McRae. That guy.
48 hours. Yeah, of course.

Is it Alice? That's right. I called him that.

He's so good. That's my favorite Angry Sergeant performance in a 70s or 80s police movie.
More than Inspector Todd?

Yeah.

Yeah, I like him more than Inspector Todd. I like how furious he is at Jack Cates.
Yeah. he's really just had it jack cates really screwed up um

apollo pushes duke for a rematch

and then duke does the he's all wrong for us baby i saw you beat that man like i've never seen you beat anyone the man kept coming

one of the greatest monologues in any sports movie we don't need this kind of man in our life yeah This is what they'll be saying about Drake May in January to Mahomes and Josh Allen.

We don't need this kind of man in our life.

The man kept coming. Let it go.

This is when he's so good in this scene that Stallone must have filed it away as like,

bring this guy back. When I kill Apollo and Rocky 4, there's going to be a really important lock cabin scene of this guy because I know he can do it.

Apollo calls out Rocky on TV all the way to Mickey coming over for the. You mean the Musburger interview? Yeah, the Musburger.
Astonishing.

I never asked you to stop stop being a woman. Don't ask me, don't ask me to stop being a man.

And then Mickey shows up. I think we ought to knock his block off.
Polly, Van's Lee's favorite character in movie history. Yeah, really funny in the press conference.

This really, I came around to your way of thinking. This viewing

absolutely

big, the most big-time fucking scumbag character I've ever seen. I wish he went out like

a comedy guy to have in a movie like this. I don't, I don't, I just mean he's not

shit, though. I guess he causes, he is a plague on these people's lives.
Yes. Yeah.
Like, causes his sister, stresses her out into having huge premature labor complications.

Where do you have him versus Rod Tidwell's brother? Rod Tidwell's brother. Rod Tidwell's brother was basically fine.
It was because Paul didn't do anything.

He said a couple of things that were off color, but Paulie. To Jay doesn't like going over the middle.
Shut up. And then she attacks.
Paulie legitimately caused a premature baby. And then

advocates for domestic violence time after time. And he

breaks the pinball machine.

Which one did he get the robot in? That's four. That's four.
Yeah, Servo. Yeah.

They did. Stallone, I refused to watch it, but he recut Rocky 4 and apparently the robot's out.
Oh, I love the robot. When did he recut Rocky 4? Oh, it's on Amazon.
Who asked for that? It's Stallone.

He's got nothing to do all day. Why take the robot out?

The robots always bothered him.

He took took all the footage he shot and recut a different movie it's on amazon he's got nothing to do all day

oh yeah i guess he has to king um

all right so we go through

do you want to talk about the coma now yeah

i mean it's it's isn't this what you go ahead go ahead It's 11 minutes of real time. Like, think how long 11 minutes is.
I know how long 11 minutes is.

It's the same length as Allie Larder's dinner speech in the first episode of Landman season two.

I was going to say that's like a fourth quarter, like 17 play drive where they're like, they've had the ball 11 minutes. That's how long she's in the coma.
Rocky's in church. Rocky's reading to her.

Rocky's in the hospital. Paulie's there.
It just goes on and on and on and on and on. But it does lead to she finally wakes up.
You say, yeah, about that fight. I just want you to do one thing for me.

Win.

And he like lights up. And then Mick, that it's one of my favorite sports movie moments of all time yeah well what are we waiting for

and then the music comes in

one arm push-up against the sunset and we're just like we are back training montage we catching the chickens we doing the whole now we know it's one arm sit up yeah is he the best jump angrily doing the jump rope finishing and then whipping the jump rope down he is i think he put that goat of beating up scrap metal he is right he's the training montage goat well this was this i mean there's a training montage in one this is like takes it up nine levels then there's a training montage in four two again that's just broken four is 15 minutes of training montages in a row with like no dialogue um this this sets the template for what happens so you guys

you let me ask you

fight expert

Do you think, how, how close to the fight is he engaging in this training montage? And how long is he training for? Because I'm going to say this is like six weeks. Yeah, six weeks out.
Yeah.

Six weeks out. Yeah.
Okay. Because they started, he had probably two or three weeks of uninspired training.
Well, he's sitting around with Adrian for a long time, too. Right.

So he's probably six weeks out. I have a question for the group, including Craig.
So we have the OK Motherfucker Award for the exact moment when the movie goes up in us. I had that.
Yeah.

Which is named after Al Pacino and Heat. Okay, motherfucker.

We're not watching them. They're watching us.

L-A-P-T.

Police department. So we named that.
That was a category somebody suggested. We just got made.

I was watching it again the other day. Yeah.

Did we change this award to the, well, what are we waiting for? Because technically, heat's already up nine notches. It's not like heat needed the bump.

So it's kind of a misnamed award, even though it was a great moment.

By okay, motherfucker, Al Pacino has already done the actual okay motherfucker moment of heat, which is, by the time I get to Phoenix,

he'll be rising.

He'll probably leave a note right on the door. Like, that's really when it jumps up.
Yeah, you get killed, bumpy doggy.

Yeah, i feel like we're already up enough to give me what you got yeah yeah poor guy so i think i actually think we should change the award to the well what are we waiting for because

anyway this movie actually this is on the same coma

yeah yeah it's for coma and then it and when she says when yeah you run through do you agree with that crack yeah yeah the movie is literally and figuratively in a coma yeah and then it gets out the coma is 11 minutes the fight in the movie is only eight yeah the coma is longer than the fight yeah that would have been one of my notes if he did a screen for us

He's in Philadelphia. Like he's just wandering around

South Philly ghost town at night, going to church and shit. It's so like, oh my God.
But from this point on, the movie makes use of all your emotions, all of them.

Like the movie gives you this emotional euphoria of the run. Well, to be fair, it actually puts you in the, in the headspace of Rocky.
Absolutely.

Which is like, you're basically sitting around for 90 minutes and then for 30 minutes your heart explodes. A couple of things I love in the montage.

I I love when he's carrying the log and he kind of loses it. It's like too heavy for him and he drops it and it seems like he's going to stop.
And then he's like,

no, I got to keep going. And he picks it back up.
And it's just like a good perseverance part. I personally just want a spin-off movie of the guy who runs the scrapyard.

And Mick and Rock are like, can we come and hit this with hammers?

And it's just like,

yeah, man, knock yourself out.

Hey, dude, fucking Rocky Belbo is here. Rocky Belbo is beating the shit out of a Pontiac.
Can we give a shout shout out to Mickey's assistant, the black guy with like the,

I don't know, he's got, he's got ball, but he's got the hair on the sides. George Jefferson.
He has no lines at all. But he's fucking awesome for like two minutes.
He's doing the medicine ball thing.

He's punching him in the stomach. Is that guy's name Johnny? Is he because he's in the gym earlier, right? We never get any scenes with him.

There's another guy that I'm going to point out as some of the worst on-screen boxing I've ever seen before in my life.

I don't think it's the same guy, but there's another, there's an extra in the background. I'll say this about the training montage.
Well, there's two training montages.

So, we have that first one that ends with the chickens and I got speed,

and then we have the running scene, the running scene.

So, I didn't, we're, I'm gonna separate them because that's the next one I have, but like there's Rocky's training, but then there's Apollo's training, and it's interesting kind of to go back and forth because what the montage really does is underscore that Rocky is training in his neighborhood, He's training with his people.

He's getting back to himself. Whereas Apollo's training is ego-driven and focused on himself.
It's dangerous for people. He's knocking people out without any concern for who they are.

Bring me another one. Meanwhile, Rocky has all of these people helping him who love him and all of this stuff.
It's clear they're fighting for different things.

Rocky runs through Philly.

Red jacket kid.

It's an incredible job by him trying to keep up.

There's some stuff, I guess we can do it now, about how long he ran.

Somebody tried to figure this out. It was 30 miles, right? It was 30.2 miles.
Yes.

If it went from where his South Philly house was all the way to the top of the art museum steps in the same day, 30.2 miles. It was road work.
He finishes with a

dead sprint. That is not a short sprint from where he starts at like the Rodan statue or the Rodan statue going up the art museum steps has got to be like 600 yards.
I don't know.

I'm not, I'm not positive, but like he's running full out

and then hits the steps and takes the steps with all the kids. Kids would be like falling down on the steps, like passed out.
12 dead.

Yeah, that would have been, that would have been the dark version of this movie. Two kids die on the run.
One kid gets hit by a car.

The big fight, the second round.

Don't let up on this man. This man's dangerous.
I'm dangerous.

I love that everyone in the audience is getting ready for World War III and Rocky going, I ain't going down anymore. And then they play the

and you're like, okay, here we go. We're running the old movie back.
So this was in the research. I don't know if this is true, but I watched it and it might be true.

They get ready for World War III and they're like pushing each other and have to be held back by the cornerman.

Apparently, Stallone and Weathers were actually mad at each other because some punches landed. And that was actual footage of them yelling at each other and having to be separated.

And Stallone liked it, so he kept it in the movie. Smart.
I don't know if that's true because this movie's been out for 47 years.

And I, as you know, I feel like some of the half-ass gets made up as the years pass. Yeah, there's not a lot of lore about this movie.
So that's really interesting. Yeah.

Rounds three through 14 would be another re-watchable and then the 15th round,

the double ko when did you switch in the he switches in the 15th but if you watch the movie i feel like he's fighting southpaw half the time in the movie so who knows um he also gets punched in his right eye like 400 times yeah craig what are your thoughts on the double ko

just as a as a gimmick in a boxing movie the only thing that bothered me was was rocky doesn't get hit i mean he trips that's a trip that's the thing that that's the technical that's a that's a picky nip and it's like it'd be ruled a slip he would be hit only apollo actually had had to get up also yeah and it wouldn't be that hard for rocky to get up after a trip compared to apollo who's hit well it depends on how exhausted he is i guess but it's not the same right i mean he did get punched over 2500 times flush in the face he couldn't see out of either eye so i don't know maybe couldn't figure out how to stand up uh rocky's speech at the end too oh man my kid been born this is the greatest day of my life notices the wedding wasn't in there so fuck that right yeah yeah i'm asking you you guys are married so like

if you were to have like this, this like tremendous professional, I know the kids have to go in there, right?

The kids have to go in there, but like, do you put like a sports enemy or something like that, like ahead of the marriage? Where does the marriage fit in?

As greatest day of my life, as greatest day of your life.

Would it be if Rocky's talking? Number one, right, guys?

Yeah, number one, man. I'm asking.
Keep it real, man. It's like top three with birds beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
Yeah. Gotcha.
But you're not going to say, because he goes,

he says very clearly, oh, this is, besides my kids being born, this is the greatest. But was his kid being born one of the greatest days? Because his wife

miscarried and almost bled to death. Right.
So in a way, that was insulting to her. He gets an error.
He gets his son. He also wasn't.
He didn't even see his son the day his son was born.

He refused to even see his son. And so she woke up.
Yeah, I'm sure the good doctors at Penn Hospital are just like this fucking bad.

i mean an actual monkey that that kid had the most hair i've ever seen on a baby oh jesus that was an italian

i'm just keeping it real that kid had a lot of hair whoa be careful there that's his kid had a salon's kid

actually

oh wow really oh yeah that was his first son that kid had the most hair i've ever seen on a baby i've never seen a baby with more hair than that ever it's not a newborn baby probably like in the movie probably like a baby i thought baby was pretty young though but it's not a newborn baby

baby had a lot of hair what's your most rewatchable scene van uh it's um

so you can't beat the fact that the 15th round the 15th round of the fight is most re-watchable scene but if i was going to give a 1b

it's the conversation between rocky and dude not rocking dude between um apollo and dude like that scene is the scene that i wait for whenever I watch this movie.

Me, it's coming out of the coma. Well, what are we waiting for in the the training scene training from that yeah that's it uh what's the most 1979 thing about this movie i got one for this let's go

uh

nine and a half percent mortgage rate i had that too buying a house in philly for 16k with a nine and a half mortgage uh the the national like average was 11 so i wonder if the bank was giving him a break

but this is nine and a half it's fucking high i have this as what's actually age the worst it's like a young couple being able to afford a house yeah that's what's pre-something that pre age the worst i have my candidate for this is when rocky is training for the fight he's sparring with a smaller quicker fighter and that fighter is roberto durant yeah yeah

a young roberto duran

a year before he beat sugar a leonard in montreal

and two years before sugar a laner fucking disgraced him in new orleans made him quit made him quit like a fucking loser oh my god my gosh you're not into him you're not into durant well sugar a is my guy he didn't shake sugar a hand after after

they hate

but i will say that this is

durant has that no moss what it was

he no mossed him durant has spent the entire 70s dominating at 135 one of the best fighters at my way ever so he by that time he was ray made already a legend yeah ray did him quit and then hern stopped pointing at me like you're gonna make me quit one day duran

i just don't like him i didn't like i thought it was a bad sport i thought he was one of the most colorful interesting boxers that's ever lived but yeah in the 80s it was the golden boy sugar leonard against the hated roberto durant i was so mad when he lost the durant fight i saw that in a closed circuit just furious boy if you guys want to be entertained furious watch the the end of that fight after durant gets the decision over leonard look how crazy durant is going he hated him hated he's looking in the he's the he's going nuts.

Leonard goes to touch gloves after the fight and Duran like does the hell out of here.

Yeah, he's going

crazy on the rain. I don't, he's because Sugar Ray was like the American popular guy.
Yeah, whatever. Duran was like, you know,

the hard scrabble, get it out the mud. And he felt like Sugar Ray was actually not a tough

fighter, but was a creation of the boxing press and all that stuff.

Yeah, he bullied him into actually fighting him versus boxing him in the first fight because he called him a pussy basically for six straight months. Talked about his wife, talked bad to him.

He was so mad, he comes out and he tries to actually fight him for 15 rounds versus like boxing him.

And then the second one, he was just, he was too quick for him. Duran said he ate like a steak and that's why he quit.
Man, he fucking quit because Ray kicked his ass. 1970,

Jesus, 1979 stuff. 15 round boxing fights, obviously.
Yeah, that's a good one. 15 round boxing fights.
When did that end? Like 80, 86, 87, right? Early to mid-80s, they went to 12 rounds.

And then actual hate mail.

Yeah. Like getting hate mail.
I had this in What's Age the Best? That like actual hate mail and reading hate mail rather than responding to tweets.

It's a lot of energy to write out a letter. Dear Apollo, dear Apollo,

fuck you.

Sincerely. Oh, sincerely, Chris Ryan.

Dear Roberto,

one more 1979 thing. Fights both on regular TV and in Philly.
Nowadays, we only have fights in places where people don't have human rights, like Riyadh and Vegas.

This is

Riyadh in Vegas.

Okay,

we don't get to give this out all the time, but the Steven Seagal shitting on himself award for most unbelievable anecdote from the actual film shoot.

This didn't come out till years later, and I'm not positive I believe it, but Rocky said the switch to fighting right-handed was not in the script.

It came about because of an accident on the set when he was weightlifting with bodybuilder Franco Colombo. Oh, remember him, the short guy from Pumping Iron.

And he had a complete, almost complete tear of his left pectoral muscle.

And they had to reattach it, and he he couldn't fight with his left hand. So they had to do the switch thing.

I'm not positive I believe this. I watched the movie carefully to see if there was like scenes and stuff where he's fighting right-handed.
Yeah, he uses his left arm the entire movie.

And I, so Stallone claims this is true, but I'm not positive I believe this.

It is true, and assuming it is true, just for the sake of the argument, it's two major plot points that were basically like cover-ups for an injury in Stallone's case and Talia Shire making a different movie.

She had like a scheduling conflict. So that's why they did the coma.

I think the pectoral, I think, I think it is true because the entire training montage, he's only doing one-handed workouts. He's doing the one-handed workout.
Right, Craig?

He's doing the one-handed pull-up.

Also, he's not using that hand. That's a good point.

Yeah, so who knows? Yeah. And what CR said about

Adrian was, Talia Shire was filming Old Boyfriends. which was John Belushi's in that movie and could only film near the end.
So that's why she didn't go to the fight.

ah they had to film her scenes later

like months later they shot her stuff yeah

what's age the best

you mentioned the zoo thing the zoo callback from gazzo's driver

gazzo uh rocky not wanting to invest in condominiums because he never used them

characters going on spending sprees yeah the movie's always good yeah it's a real 70s 80s thing when you know they're up yeah yeah it's like yeah i'll get the new trans 37k took you a long way though back then, man.

Yeah. Get a car.
Car, house, bunch of Rolexes. Yeah.
The spectrum being filled with actual extras on like the first fight. Yes.
Because the first fight, we talked about that.

They had to cut all these corners and it's just dark. What else do you have for what's age of best? I just love Tony's monotone hype up speech to Apollo in the locker room.

You're the man, you're number one, the champ, the best of all time. Girls love you, man.
Old people love you. And I just imagine like, this is how Ben Johnson talks to Caleb Williams.

Like, you wear nail polish. You make plays off off structure, off platform.

You got a 51% completion rate.

Oh, damn.

And also,

at one point, Rocky is told that he's just going to be pumping gas in Jersey. You know, you can't pump your own gas in Jersey.

I used to make fun of Charlemagne because I would be on the phone with him and then he would stop. You'd be like, fill him up, fill it up.
And he would be like, he would be like, fill it up.

Like, I did this for a long time. He'd be like, fill it up.

Like, fill it up, whatever and i'd be like bruh i've been you can't get around your own gas and then he goes you can't do that in jersey you can't i was like what he's like in jersey you can't pump your own gas they gotta pump it for you the whole time i was getting my little jokes off it was like an actual it's true connecticut has parts in that too where it's mostly somebody's pumping your gas and when my mom moved here to la she couldn't believe that there weren't gas stations where They had the gas station attendance.

It's definitely more of an East Coast thing.

I've never been to a full service gas station to have somebody pump my gas ever in life if you and charlemagne did a rewatchables together would we ever get through the categories probably not there would be several arguments i think one of you would leave halfway through it would be we go back and forth a lot it'd be exactly that's the nature of all friendship though it's like you know it'd be an interesting experiment

uh any other what's age the best before we move on um just the rocky lore and universe like when you watch this movie you see all the ways that creed this was the movie that creed really took more from like the running montage with kids, the training montages.

You literally see the bones of Creed in Rocky 2, maybe more than you see in any other movie. That's good.
So that's really Age the Best. And once again, I said, man,

Carl Weathers is a phenomenal athlete. He's a phenomenal.
He has fast hands. He moves well.
He's got great feet. Great actor, too.
Just like a great actor.

Like him in this movie, I could have done with, I could have been up for a lot more Carl Weathers in this movie. That's my flex.

It's the Sasha Jenkins award for the guy I can't believe is not a bigger star. Carl Weathers is so good.
Like, he's so funny. I mean, him going through Happy Gilmore, great comedic timing.

He can just do so many things. I don't, why did he warn? Yeah,

I feel like are you an action Jackson guy?

Yeah, it's on the list. No, I've never seen Ashen Jackson.
Oh, bro, you're gonna. We're definitely, it's on the list for the next year.
Can I interest you in peak,

peak woman, peak? I can't tell you. The great thing about this movie is you can list two people here.

I would pack both choices. I'm going Vanity, though.
But Sharon Stone. Sharon Stone is what I'm saying.
Sharon Stone and Vanity. It's like

Vanity and Sharon Stone at the peak. There is nothing more beautiful.
We've

discussed this before in Rewatchables. I can't remember what movie, but.
I think it was Kyle, probably. But the fact that they didn't make five Action Jacksons is unbelievable.

Everybody loved that movie.

But in general, Craig, your point is correct. Like, why wouldn't you? Why wasn't he in a Tarantino movie movie or something?

I'm telling you,

there's one thing. It's a really, really crowded space in the 80s in terms of action stars.
It's the heyday of that. Action Jackson has all of the stuff.
It has him jumping full over cars.

It has bad Craig T. Nelson.
I think he got a little pigeonholed by the Apollo character because the Rocky series was so famous. It was hard not to see him as Apollo.

I think Danny Glover market corrected him a little bit. Because Carl Weathers easily could have been a lethal weapon.
Is it Carl Weathers in Predator One? Yeah, and he clover Predator two.

But can I tell you why, though? I don't think that Carl Weathers would have been a good choice for Lethal Weapon. He's too physically intimidating.
Yeah.

Like in Lethal Weapon, you have to believe, and this is something else that probably held him back. He's with

a lot of people. He's supposed to be too old for this shit the entire time.
Yeah. And he looks physically.
For that, you needed an everyman. It looked like Reyes could kick his ass.

And that just, yeah, it wouldn't have looked like that.

He almost got pigeonholed because of his physique and athleticism right do you know he was like an nfl player for like six seven years yeah yeah yeah san diego state baby r.I.P.

rest in peace man very sad yeah car weather's almost a unanimous approval rating i think from the general public one of the all-time underrated actors just made every movie better that he was in in the scenes that he was in made every movie better

had to die a lot for these other guys to get their shit off though pissed me off yeah like predators pretty bad predator had to die apollo had to die happy gilmore had to die stop killing them hey boy if i have my koofi right now hey man stop killing these black men to exalt your heroes all right it's over now he's even funny in arrested development

it's weird he never had like a sitcom like a you know everybody had a sitcom he was in arrested development briefly as well that's right but like late 80s where he's just like he did does a career swerve all of a sudden he's got like a little family he's like working in a law office or something when happy gilmore came along along i was so excited to see him yeah and he was hysterical he is so good at it yeah

uh big kuna burger were best use of food and drink the meat's back

oh jesus sure what what else would you have poly snow cone oh okay i got snow cone in the fall i got

the spit bucket

is that a food or a drink a drink

great shot gorder were most cinematic shot the little kids with rocky or would you go i actually had the uh the first fight footage being projected against mickey as he's talking to him about how he's gonna how they're gonna fight and it's also mickey early ball knower early tape head you know going through the footage yeah trying to find the the margins he's like or lavsky he's like shanahan yeah

why do you have to protect the eye if you already can't see out of it yeah uh i think he can see i think that if he gets hit again he's gonna go blind he detached his retina or something like that but he gets hit in that eye like 400 times in the fight it's not even they they just dropped that

throughout the whole movie, they're talking as if Rocky's a human being. He's not.
You can't. It's like Michael Myers.
Can't do anything to kill him. Yeah.

His eyesight gets better during the four Rockies. Yes.
Once they keep cutting it.

Kid Cutty Pursuit of Happiness where Best Needle dropped the opening credits, the ambulance, right? Yeah, of course. Chess Rockwell.
Not going to fly now over the training montage. Oh, that's good.

Ah, that's probably. Yeah, you're probably right.
With Frank Stallone on box, right? That's probably it. Do off band.
Shout out to them real quick. Yeah, the doo-op guys.

Yeah, chess Rockwell, Brock Landers Award, best character name, still Apollo Creed. I have a father car mine, though.
And it's pretty good. Yeah.

And then I got to throw this in today. The Nico Harrison Award for Worst Decision.

Latest third in the West.

Apollo demanding the Rocket rematch, but then fighting him in the spectrum. Well, he was saying anytime, anywhere.
He said, I'm going to beat this man in front of his people in his town.

Yeah, fight him in Vegas. You don't need the Philly crowd.
Come on, Apollo. You're supposed to be smart.
Go to Vegas or Riyadh. One of those.

I think he's doing it also in Philly so that he can't be accused of there being any fixing throwing going on. All right, we're going to take a break.
Come back with CR's Flex.

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All right, CR, what do you got?

Well, I did actually have the OK Motherfucker Award for Adrienne saying win, but I will off the top of my head do a reverse Mallory Rubin. Oh.

of did this movie need a better sex scene it's more of a question do you think that's the one and only time adrian and and Rock have sex

is on their marriage night? Now, remember, very chaste. No, we did this.
We did this in the first movie, right? Oh, did we? Remember in the first movie, she became a little muskrat. Oh, that's right.

A little minx. Yeah, right.
That's right. She was trying to get to him.
He brought her out of her shell.

She's a late bloomer. That was my take.
Oh, my God. It was way too many trips to the zoo for her.
Empty house, no furniture. Yeah.
Every room christened in it. Remember?

Because she, yeah, but so, yeah. You know, who sniffed that out, Clever Lang.

Oh, that's right.

You can see that twinkle in her eye. Club Relane looked at it.
I was like, she needs a little bit something more.

Adrienne has like a personality transplant in three and four, right? She's like a different woman. Three, she's that's her best performance in the movie.

And then four, she still does the thing that she does where she shakes her head and talks and looks at the ground and says the line.

And I'm like, why don't you just communicate so this guy doesn't go out and get killed? And then five, she's dead. No, five, she's alive.
Five, she's a rocky Valboa, she's dead.

Rocky Valboa, she's gone. Yeah.
Van's Aileen win a looks, five.

The Butch's girlfriend. Rocky five is good, man.
Butch's girlfriend award for weak link of the film.

I went with a one-eyed, slightly brain-damaged Rocky beating a prepared, motivated, angry Creed in the rematch. It was my pick.

If you can't see out of his right eye, which is the jab,

you just creed, he had to have been up by 100 points heading into round.

He was.

And Duke's like, you gotta, all you have to do is just not get. Yeah, it's

the weak link. Apollo did everything that you could do to win a fight.
He beat Michael Myers. Yeah, but what'd you have for the weak link? Well, two things.
One, coma.

And two, obviously. Gazzo being in the movie and not having any impact on the plot.
Shows up like three times, asks about the condos, comes to the gym.

Never really, if he had not been in this film, it wouldn't have made a difference. And he's Spinel so good.

I just wish there had been some like mafia, like we're trying to get you to throw the fight or something going on.

Oh, that would have been better than the coma, but he has a cool ass line where he goes, Hey, you remember that guy? Yeah, and then he walks out. Yeah, that's all.

But the movie needed to, I feel like he's in the movie, but and like they just either cut his plot or there was like a poly plot that they didn't use.

There's something where he's in the film, but there's no story with him. Yeah, maybe one more dimension for the movie.
You know what he gets, though?

A coveted spot in this, in a any big sports movie is the the cutaway shot to the guy in the crowd go get him rock yeah yeah the hug shot vision quest was the best one for this because there's four different people in the audience that they're just cutting to throughout it did you have a weakling fan uh no every no no i mean adrian that's it what's age the worst um

polly just horrible as always we already talked about him Ollie said on Rocky's weightlifting, it's the worst thing a boxer can do. It tightens the muscles.

A fighter fighter never lifts weights, but it looks good in the movie.

A fighter never lifts weights?

I'm not on that level. I mean, they lift weights, but I just go in there, hit the bags, and then get in the ring, get my head beat in.
Adrian not going to the fight.

So they have the kid, six weeks of training. Are you trying to say that Adrian like she should have gone to the fight?

It's a bad job by her. Go to the fight.
Your guy's fighting. You might get killed in the the ring.
You're just going to watch it.

These are really funny. Come on.
You watch this on a black and white TV in 1979. Go to the fight.
It's 50 minutes from your house. I have one really good Woodsage the Worst, but what do you guys?

Do you guys have anything for

a young couple buying a house that

age is pretty bad right now? Stickball. Kids don't go outside to do anything besides protest right now.

It's true.

I mean, like the last time I saw a group of kids outside and there was no cost. It's been a while.

The character of Paulie aged terribly.

The scene where Rocky is hitting a heavy bag and

Rocky's hitting a heavy bag, right?

And Adrian comes down and says that she's going to go back to work. Yeah.

Basically, she has to go back to work. Part-time at a pet store.
Part-time at the pet store because Rocky's not making making any money. Then Rocky says, hey, go get dinner started.
So

he has no income. The 70s were different, man.

Definitely. He has no income.
She comes down. I got to go back working part-time at the pet store.
He says, hey, doesn't he also save, but is he sort of like, I want to support you?

He doesn't want her to go back.

But I just don't know of the modern woman where she decides, I have to go back into work.

to support the family and then you can say how much is she making at that pet store anymore can she can they make that mortgage

1500

property taxes because that that scene in 2025 would be different way different nine and a half percent and the last one i gotta say this at 54.26 in this movie over mickey's left shoulder

i don't know how you guys can put it there is some terrible boxing by one of the extras it was just i mean it looks crazy And the only thing that's worse than the boxing by this extra is the hairline.

And

I have to show you this. This is one of the worst hairlines I've ever seen in anything that's ever existed.
Look at this. Look at that guy.

Look at his hairline. Look at that.
Whoa, it's like a peninsula. Yeah, it's got an entire peninsula.

But when you see it, when you look at the actual, the actual time code, what the fuck is he doing back there? And then I was completely distracted.

I have,

by what's age the worst, my biggest one is that I think Rocky, I think Stallone dials the brain damage up a little too high in this one. So, I had my scale of brain damage for each.

I actually have what age the worst too many in this too many characters in this movie on the Balboa side of things have little to no brain activity,

it's just too many people just not being able to like

communicate. So, it's not exactly Michael Clayton, brain damage from one to ten.

Rocky one, I think he's a four.

Rocky two, he's like an eight and a half.

Rocky three is back down to a two. Yeah, he's recovered.
Rocky four, he's a one. I mean, he's like, he could be running a record company.
I'm interested now. Rocky five, he's a full 10.
He's a 1,000.

He's like 49.

What happens to Rocky 5?

I don't understand why he made Rocky 5.

Drago scrambled his egg. It's post-Drago.
Drago is the now. He's a 1,000.
And you like this movie. Love it.
Creed, love it. Creed, I think he's about a five and a half, six.
Oh, he's back.

Oh, he's fine in Creed. He's running a small business.
Yeah. So you have him lower? Yeah, I have him at like a four or four.

But look, but literally, in Creed, he's running a restaurant. You know how hard that is? Watch the bear.

But literally, in five, Tommy will ask him a question about boxing. Like, Rock, what should I do? Shall I drop my left hand? Rock will go, oh, yogurt.
And then the scene will end.

Like, he's, like, he's, he's, like, totally. I like to be out of here.
of here. Stallone has disowned Rocky Five.
Has he?

Van's the only person that owns it. Who directed five? I can't remember.
I think Stallone. But Tommy Gunn is in that with John Avilson.
Oh, he came back for five?

Rocky losing his money, just the whole thing with his son. Oh, five is when Pauly loses all his money? Pauly loses all his money.
His son has to go back in Philly, but evil

Kevin Connolly is in that terrible Kevin Connolly. Yeah.
And his son has to learn how to bow up and the whole thing. Don King character.
I like it. It's crazy.

The Don King character is probably the funniest part of that. George Washington Duke.
Ventamiglia is in Balboa. Yeah.
And then he's in Creed 2. He comes back in Creed 2.
I think.

So John Avilson, just as a quick aside, does Rocky

and then is doing Saturday Night Fever and gets pulled off it. He gets fired.

And then by the time we get to,

then he does Karate Kid 2 as a comeback. But he does back-to-back, Karate Kid 3, Rocky 5,

back-to-back 80, 90.

What a run!

What a run! Oh, bro. Karate Kid 3, the funniest sports movie of all.
It's bad for all the wrong reasons. The bad boy, Karate, Mike Barnes.
Yeah, that's right. Really such an awful movie.

Okay.

The Ruffalo Hannah Rubinik Partridge overacting word for

the overacting, the commercial director? Burgess.

Burgess. Make the case.
Yeah. Wow.
What do you mean, make the case? Watch the movie. What do you mean? Every fucking scene, Mickey is going like, rock, rock.

You know, like, it's just, it's, he's completely over. Do we need to add Mickey to your characters? Cause we need to refresh the 2022.
We do Mickey from Rocky would be good

commenting on some of these movies.

I agree. I think

Mickey is killing me today. I think you're, but that's kind of, isn't that Mickey's whole deal, though? Yeah.
But like, he's really going for this 20 hours. Tell me commented on it.

He said the trainer would never be that

on it, yelling at a boxer the whole time. Uh, what do you have for a flex category, Van? Uh, top five.
I made up my own top five unrealistic sports movie outcomes. Okay,

uh, so number five is team wolf.

Uh, if you guys haven't seen the end of the team wolf, Scott as the wolf has gotten the team to the championship game, the team that features are you really telling us the ending of team wolf?

Just making sure the audience knows. Okay, yeah, all right.
Scott decides in the last scene not to wolf up, yeah, yeah, and they go out there and they win, never fucking happening.

I don't know if you guys have seen their power forward but if you could be a mi of like 45 they're just not gonna go out there and get a victory it's not happening number 23 puts up like a triple double o and team wolf yeah what's number two uh number number four is the karate kid part two

um yeah he's not beating that guy not beat he's not going to japan he okay him winning the all-valley tournament against johnny is one thing He goes to Japan and beats up the head of a karate gang.

Sato's karate gang henchman, dude. He's not winning that.

He's not winning that them stupid ass drums he's not doing that that's not happening daniel son this time not for points for life for life for life it's not happening right but

i go for it man it's a quote it's a new day so we should add pat merita to the the cast of characters

have we done kid two yet uh i think it's terrible yeah i don't think we've done it although i will say that i one thing is swank is three

swank is no swank is the the next word

okay uh one thing i do like about these two movies having common is both karate kid part two and rocky begin with the recap of the last movie. Number three, necessary roughness.

Texas State takes, beats the number one team in the country with a 34-year-old quarterback named Paul Blake, who hasn't played football in a long time. True.
Now, at that time,

we hadn't seen that, but you can see a 34-year-old quarterback playing in college football all the time now. Number two, the Little Giants beating the Cowboys.

I just don't believe in it.

I think Spike is going crazy. I don't believe in ice box.
I don't believe in anything that the Little giants had going on. And you look at Spike, he's ready for war.

He's going to go out there and leave some corpses out there. That's number two.

And Rocky's number one? Rocky's number one. Rocky went in the rebound.

You didn't go after Hoosiers a little bit. Nah, because Hoosiers,

Hoosiers is, I can see it happening in the Hoosiers.

If Hoosiers would have played the team from across town,

if Hoosiers would have played, if they'd have played like, with Hoosiers in Indiana, right? Yeah. If they'd have played like W.E.B.

Dewall High School in South Chicago, then they probably would have played. But they playing this.
That's, you know. So one-eyed Rocky beating a motivated.

They could fight 10 times.

It is not happening. And it really hasn't happened because people like to go say that Rocky is like Rocky Marciano.
Rocky Marciano was a dog. Yeah, he beat everybody.

He was a dog. Tough, powerful, all of that.
Can I add an honorable mention to your list fan for challengers, which ends in two professional tennis players hugging at the net yeah

after doing volleying it back and forth from two feet away most intense matchup ever and they ended up in that movie i would add to your list which i enjoyed i like challengers

i like them too until that time's bad um

i'm trying to think there's one

so

bad news bears breaking training okay

They had to cheat with the lineup to win, though. So maybe technically, you know, but I think victory is the one

the uh with slash still in the soccer beating the nazis yeah beating the nazi team that's been practicing and it's like they have this ragtag group of pows michael kane is like a pop belly

and it's fixed the refs are in the bag there's no way they tie that game i don't think yeah that they lose like five to one something like that uh the sierra thinks luke wilson could have been harrison for at house stake award

This one leapt off the screen this time, and it basically is following up something Van mentioned in our opening segment. But I think inside of Stallone, there are these two characters.

There's his physical form and he's like, I got to be an action movie star. I got to take juice.
I got to be built up and I am Rocky, right? I am synonymous with Rocky.

And then there's the other person, which is the more sensitive storyteller, filmmaker, creative side. And if he had listened to that side, this movie would have been called Creed.

And it would have been the godfather two of sports movies. Wow.
And he would have made a movie about Creed dealing with the embarrassment and humiliation and shame of losing to this Paluka.

That's kid. And what's he going to do? And he's getting the mail and his wife won't have sex with him.
And Duke's like, we got to do this or whatever. And it would have been awesome.

It's in this movie. You see the four scenes with Carl Weathers.
We're like, why can't we get 10 more of these scenes?

It is the better perspective. I couldn't agree more.
And if we had done that, and then we have... One is Rocky, two is Creed, and three is three.
And it's just about Clubber Lang and

it goes, or, you know, you even jump to four basically and like have these guys together.

But I thought it was just like so great idea that never would have happened because everybody just wanted to see Rocky with I know, but I'm saying when I made 200 points when we saw Godfather 2, you probably weren't like what I want to see as young Vito Coral.

No, you're right, yeah, from a movie standpoint, you're 100% right. It's a more interesting movie.
I just don't think that's why it's a great hot take.

Thanks, I don't know if they ever would have made it. Um, mine is that Rocky and Apollo's lives would have been much better if they swapped wives.

That's true. So

Apollo needed some vanilla serenity, right? He needed a little muskrat, a little Minx cat to jump on him and calm him down. That's what he needed.
Somebody to like be cool and have to go back.

And Rocky needed

a sister. You know how she looks at him? Apollo's up there.
He's reading the hate mail. She's like, stop reading it.
Right. But Apollo, he can't appreciate that.
Rocky is okay, Cynthia.

Like, he would have been all right with it. If they would have swapped wives.
Apollo's wife wouldn't let him work in the gym.

You're going to carry a bucket for these guys.

You're a hero.

Look at these guys over there. Those guys talking to you.
She would have been the one to be like, hey, talk to my man like that. You talking to Rocky Balboy, you paluka.

So things would have been better for them. I thought that in the movie.
I'm like, Rocky needs some, you know what I'm saying? He breaks. Rocky three wife spot.

It's right there. Probably already happened.
Y'all know how I feel. It's great.
And it ties into my hottest take. Okay.

So glad you brought up apollo's wife apollo's wife one of the best looking black women of the 1970s talk about it here's my list

oh wait wait a second i i knew you would love this more than anybody i know this is it this is the content you want yeah let's go best looking black women of the 1970s top five my list how many how like how many how many sisters are on the list

Seven. Seven sisters.
How big was the long list? Like, how big was the pool for you?

No, this was the seven. Okay.
I don't think the list, I didn't go in with a number. Okay.
I went with how I felt as a kid and how I feel now and tried to combine those two worlds. Let's hear it.

Diana Ross. Okay.
Is this number one? Seven or one. No, no, no.
I'm not ranking. Oh, you're not ranking.
That's really sweet. Yeah.
Yeah.

Diana Ross.

Studio 54, Diana Ross. I like that late 70s, Diana Ross.
Beautiful. Ollie's third wife, Veronica Porsche.
Gorgeous. Was fucking outrageous.
Gorgeous. The best-looking athlete wife of all time.

Like next level beautiful. So beautiful that she goes to the hotter than Britney Mahomes.
He meets her and

fuck off.

He meets her.

Ali meets her and immediately gets divorced as he's trying to fight George Foreman. Yeah, not the best thing, but yeah.
He's like, I gotta have her. She's gorgeous.
Yeah.

Lola Falana.

Classic. Always liked when she showed up on the love boat, and I always knew Isaac was getting, getting in in that episode.
It's like, oh, this is gonna be good for Isaac. Thelma from Good Times.

I've talked about her many times.

One of the career highlights was Rembert and I getting a picture with her.

That's four so far? That's four. Okay.
Rem and I got a picture with her. You're making me a little nervous.
Go ahead. That was a 14.

Why am I getting making you nervous? I'm worried about somebody you're looking out. I'm thinking about it too.
Pam Greer, thank you. Of course has to be in there.

Of course Pam Greer is going to be out there. I have to be in there.
I can't trust you.

Apollo's wife, Sylvia, I think her name's Sylvia Miles.

Just an absolute smoke show. Sylvia Miles.

And then the number one Jane Jane Kennedy. Jane Kennedy.
Jane Kennedy in the running for best looking. anything of all time.
But she was almost fucked up.

No, I'm saying any era.

Like she could, she could move into advanced from the 70s into the all-time bracket the type of of lady that your father hays just i want to make sure you know about jane kennedy i want to make sure you're up on her can i interest you in two people listen the 70s just two people we're all winners on this list we all winners yeah carol speed

which one was that carol speed she's in i think she's in the mac love her She's in the Mac or she's in Speed. I'm familiar with Carol's work.
Carol Speed,

Marilyn McCoo.

Thought about her she didn't quite get there for me because she she the 80s came along and like she really would be things she's solid gold did it a little solid gold but in solid gold that's my era of marilyn mccou then i go back and i look at marilyn mccou when she was in the fifth dimension oh that's cool marilyn mccou in the fifth dimension like marilyn mccou in the fifth gorgeous beautiful beautiful beautiful yeah jane kennedy levidated i i had to do the rankings veronica and is probably the one beat of jane kennedy yeah jane kennedy is otherworldly next level, gorgeous, just really,

really important sports. Do you know who Jane Kennedy is, Craig? So NFL, the first ever NFL pregame show on CBS.
It's Brent Musberger, Irv Cross, and Jane Kennedy.

And I think Jane Kennedy followed Phyllis George. I'm not familiar with it.
Yeah, Phyllis George. Initially, it's the three of them.

Phyllis George marries John White Brown, the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy who buys the Celtics.

They replace him with Jane Kennedy, and she's just, everybody's in love with her from the moment she shows up. And I'm not, then she married Leon Isaac Kennedy, the star of penitentiary penitentiary.

Some things happen.

Some things happened. Yeah.
Yeah, we all talk about that. Casting what ifs.

Couldn't really find any except for Chuck Webner was offered the part of a trainer but bombed the audition. Like, is he supposed to be

bad? Because he was the real life rocky.

Oh, yeah, he's the movie's based on him. Yeah.
And he didn't want to put him in a hole. Oh, were they going to make him like Mickey's assistant or something yeah i think so

um they deleted that character from the script best that guy award

so joe spinel

it's frank mccrae man it's frank mccrae yeah the the frank mcrae of that guy though i think he's a that guy yes to 99 of the people listening to this podcast he is okay fine dion waiter's award this is i got one musberger musburger it's brick musburger blacks out

wrote his own dialogue Musberger went nuts. It's like you're like, this is real.
This is happening. He's like, one, many reporters like this one standing next to you, Apollo, would say.

And he's just like, you're entitled to your opinion.

I don't know why I'm doing Pacito. It's an incredible scene.
It is. Well, Frank, we have Frank Stallone.

Get some doo-up with him.

We get Rocky's commercial agent as a possible DM waiter. Sure.
Slinking out as the beast aftershape as a go well.

stuhan got a bench at him and then i think duke is eligible in this no he's only in like three scenes yeah but he's in four movies yeah it's not no way for deon waiters he can't well then if that's the case he's the deon waiters of all well no because he's way no he's really good in this if i was going to give it to anybody other than musberger but musburger is just like It makes this feel like more of a sporting event that the entire country cares about.

Trying to think of who it would be now that would be the equivalent of Musburger being in in this pat mcfee

pat mcafey craig made a face you hate him

i guess

it would be mcafey has like mcfee having you don't think it would be like joe buck i was gonna say buck and aikman it could be buck it's buck and aikman oh yeah

who's a guy who crosses because because you're killing you're covering like a serious sporting event well if it's fights who does fight i mean it would be

or kellerman or no but brent was like legit on a show that like 20 million people watched before these nfo yeah

it would have to be the most famous announcer now i think it's buck probably i guess it would be buck

uh recasting couch director city

i would recast the commercial director with cr

and i would just use ai to make it work and just have cr playing a character uh backup choice al pacino yep just two minutes of uh pacino you did your flex category, right? Yeah.

My other mini hot take is that Stallone is clearly a better movie runner than Tom Cruise. Oh,

undoubtedly. He just is.

I actually think. Yeah, it looks like he has wheels.
It just looks more athletic. It looks more natural.
Cruise is way too robotic and stiff with it.

This feels, you can like feel how difficult this is with Stallone. He's the best movie runner.
Who do you think, Stallone? Who is your best movie runner ever? I did not come prepared for this.

Because we know Segal is the worst.

I'd like to go back and watch the crud up and leto tape of the two pre-fontaine movies just to see it. I haven't seen that in a while.
I don't know. I gotta say, Cruz is pretty good in the firm.

It's pretty stiff. He's running away from

it.

Some of his Mission Impossible running scenes are just fantastic, but there's also so much majesty in the way that it's shot and they're shooting them all that time.

Eddie Murphy, 48 Hours, the Subway Series? Can't remember pretty well. Rocky's sprint feels more like a sprint.
It feels like he is truly like at 100 out of 100.

And the cruise ones, the cruise's sprint still feels a little bit reserved, like he kind of knows what he's doing.

When Rocky sprints in this movie, you're like, this guy is running as fast as possible. The only problem is like Rocky III, you know, weathers throws that sprint.
It's pretty clear.

He eases up on the beach big time. Do you know who is an underrated movie runner? Who? Michael J.
Fox. Oh.
Oh, yeah. Back to the future.
Back to a future, scrappy runner, getting up there.

Marty's always running, trying to get something. Michael J.

Fox, underrated runner i think uh i i was impressed with what little i saw of austin butler running and caught stealing this is keep your eye on him

as one over the future you know up the right a don russ rated rookie for me put him over here just in case uh all right we'll take one more break then we'll do half-assed this episode is brought to you by netflix jay kelly the new film from academy award nominee noah bombback my guy george clooney stars as an actor confronting his past and present on a journey of self-discovery alongside Adam Sandler, my guy, as his devoted manager.

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Watch Jay Kelly December 5th only on Netflix. This episode is brought to you by Coca-Cola.

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Refresh your holidays. All right, Half-ass Internet Research film is dedicated to Jane Oliver.
That was Stallone's first agent. She died.

Leroy Nieman's in this. He's drawing a picture of Apollo while he's training.
Yeah.

The book that Rocky reads to Adrian for multiple excruciating scenes is The Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County by Edgar Rice Burroughs, published in the 1940s. You know, you're a big fan.

You're a big Burroughs guy. I know.
Yeah. Can we talk about the fact that in this movie, Rocky basically like learns to read?

He actually seems pretty adept at reading. I mean, he's doing Zane Gray or Louis Lamore books later in the movie.
I know, but is he... But it,

so could Rocky not read or was he just brain damaged? Well, it seems to me that like a secondary story in this movie is Rocky learning to read,

which should be kind of like

sounding out words. He's reading Edgar Rice Burroughs.
It's not like you're like a picture book. So I know, but why did, why do we come back to him reading?

I think it's Stallone being like, just so you know, I got some shit to me. Okay.

I'm going to crank some burrows in this scene.

Estimated 800 school children used as extras for the Rocky running scene. Adrian's

hospital room number was 669 which is considered an angel number did you guys know this i didn't yeah 669 is that what it is yeah

there's a novel published by ballantine in 1979 for rocky too and stallone is credited as the author and it's a first person you've gotta please reach out i want to know

by rocky except it's it's like written in rocky's brain pattern so it's apparently like sounds awful it's like settle down faulkner all right

flowers for algernon type yeah and but when they write about when he writes about uh apollo it's in the third person and is normally written and then uh burt young lost a lot of weight between the first and second film yeah and then they comment they put it in the movie so in the when the scene right after the fight when they're in the hospital they had to like pad him to make him seem fatter well with one of the guys so he says it's hey you lost you lost a lot of weight like they addressed it so what's poly's arc here he at the end of this, at the end of the day,

is the word we can use. He, after one, after the fight, he's basically like, Rocky, get me your job with Godzo.
Then, two scenes later, is like a made man and is like lording over the docks, right?

Yeah, he's basically who's the guy in what in Wire Season 2? Uh, Ziggy, Frank Sabaka, yeah, Frank Sabaka, he's basically Sabaka, yeah,

and then

but is, but is also like, Rocky, you need to thank me for getting you a job at the meat packing plant, right? right what an asshole i hate this guy

by by the fourth movie he's just living in the guest room playing with a robot and then getting rid of

it and is so angry after he's ruined their lives i know is so angry what about me what i

how come no woman for was is it possible polly was either asexual or gay could be this might this might be why he was i haven't seen the recut version of rocky before so i don't know this might be so

hey just you know it just dawned on me. Okay, Paulie.
Paulie's in love with Rocky. Oh,

this just dawned on me. The reason why he treats Adrian like shit this entire time is because he's in love.
He's mad that Rocky. Yeah.

Paulie, this entire time, was trying to get some of that Italian sausage. The entire, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's jealous.
Or the alcoholism made him

incompetent. sexually.
Either way. Couldn't get one up.
They didn't have Viber back then. Apex Mountain.

Stallone, no. Nah.
Carl Weathers,

no. But maybe Rocky III, Rocky IV ring.
Definitely, definitely, definitely

the spectrum. Because we are coming off the back of Broad Street.

Broad Street Bullies. Yeah.
Doc,

this. The original Doc.
The only Doc.

You also have some good wrestling back then, too. WWF.
Big hotspot. Big matches there in the spectrum.
Yeah, that's good. Spectrum, I like that.

Philadelphia zoo definitely right that's the most famous thing that's happened in philadelphia zoo i mean there's some tigers and stuff there but talia shire i'm gonna say no godfather somewhere godfather two slash two rocky maybe even three she's good in three she's like one of the only redeeming

three yeah she's she's a redeeming quality of three burt young i can't give him any credit for anything here i'm sorry i'm gonna go mid 80s for burt when he's in miami vice rocky four and back to school with rodey danger film oh sure

that's a a redeeming role for him. Yeah.
Like,

what's the guy's name in Back to School Again? The guy who does triple N.

What's the character? I can't believe I can't draw this. Anyway, but he's his muscle.
Did you say Apex Mountain for Stone? Thornton Mellon. Thornton Mellon.
Did you say Apex Mountain for Stone?

No, it's not.

I don't know. It's not.
It's got it. You got to go.

He forces his way into the game.

He's got Rambo 2 and

I think First Blood Part 2 is.

He's got

1985. I just think by the letter of the law of what Apex Mountain is, which is obviously like a very clear and understandable concept, he forces his way into

the director's chair for this sequel, gets points on it, makes $200 million with this movie, creates an iconic character, and can pretty much call him shot from here.

But if he's at the peak of his powers, it's mid-80s Stallone, right? He can do whatever he wants. Mid-80s Stallone, he could have been like, I had this idea.

He's trapped in his own body, and he has to just make action movies. Like, you know, it's not until Copland that he truly gets out of that.
He lost the vote two to one.

Burt Young, Brent Musberger, yes.

1979, Brent.

You're looking live. I mean, for me, I've listened to Brent Musberger every Saturday for like, it's like, you know, so this, I would not be looking at this as Brent Musberger's Apex.
Just Brent

NFL today and Brent College football. Oh, you know what? Wait, was it not Brent Musberger when

Iron Bull? No, no, what's your what's his name? What he called the girl, yeah, yeah, uh, AJ McCarran's girlfriend, yeah. Um, yeah, how can I not remember her name? Kate Kathy.

This is a huge moment, and he's that's kind of apex Brent Musberger, right? When he was being how about Cunder the Tiger?

That's the tiger Rocky talked to, apparently, a huge attraction in the Philadelphia Zoo. I think Sierra's embarrassed by the Philadelphia Zoo.
No, I think it's great.

Okay, coma scenes that go on too long.

Have we ever taught this for Rocky 2 11 Minutes?

man that's

million dollar baby

still magnolias

million dollar baby is that's just the last 10 minutes right

that that movie should be shot into the sun hate that movie we made that you ever we made jomi had never seen it oh god so did he know anything about it didn't know anything about it yeah that's like actually cruel that's it

jomi didn't know anything about it jomi had never seen it know anything about it we talked about it i was like hey chuck i was like jomi go home and watch million dollar baby and then report back to us and he he texted me that night all caps what the

you just can't see it coming and he just totally turns somehow that movie when they ask her

that happens like what halfway through the movie not halfway like maybe you've seen it

yeah what are you talking about when she dies no when she when she breaks her neck oh yeah um was it half i can't remember i said it's the ending it's the last 50 minutes of it.

Last like three-quarters of the way through or something like that. I can't remember.
Boxing movies, no. 1979, Pontiac Firebird, Trans Ams.
Yes.

That was the Apex. Cruise or Hanks for this movie?

Who would have been a better Rocky?

Almost like. It's like it's too bad that Cruz never did a boxing movie.
Because you know that.

Command considers it a boxing movie. That's true.

Bare knuckle boxing right there. I'm going to say Hanks.
No, Hanks is rocky. No, Hanks has rocky cruise.

Hanks can't do this.

Cruise fighting for the Welter Wade title. Yeah.

Scorsese or Spielberg? I think Marty. Yeah.
It's Marty, but I would like to see Spielberg's version. This big, expansive, like morality tale that he would make this into, but it's definitely Scorsese.

What role would Philip Seymour Huffing have played? Probably Mickey. Paulie.

Oh, Paulie would be.

Yeah. Or a good commercial director.
What do you have for picking nets here?

We've gone over the ones that I had, a lot of these. All right, I have some left.

After the first fight, Rocky's definitely getting more than one commercial. I think Sports Illustrated's following him for giant feature.

And Gary Smith. I mean, people are just throwing money at Rocky.
This has always been an issue with this franchise.

He's way more successful and popular after the first fight. So even when he loses his money we've talked about this before in five and then he has to move back to the ghetto in philly right

it just doesn't make any sense he is the greatest heavyweight of his generation he just beat

but i thought the whole thing

is that mick set up 10 easy fights for him so that he wouldn't get hurt again so like is he really the greatest heavyweight or does he just get he's beaten clubber lang he's mostly legend yeah yeah most popular he's beaten clubber lang and also he has has beaten the Soviets on the worldwide stage.

He has. He's beaten the Soviets on the worldwide stage.
He got the Soviets to root for him. Yeah, he's signing autographs.
He's doing the whole thing. Rocky's getting put.
Rocky is not going to.

This fighter exists. This guy that continues to come.
Making Mike Tyson based upon the strength of his personal brand. This fighter exists.
He's not going broke.

They make it seem like the fight's a year after the last fight. So you're going

early 77 philly right right he's going to sixers games that year he's at the finals he's going to hockey he's going to hockey he's like going around he's getting invited to stuff he probably somebody owns like some cheese steak store or something that they he probably has his name on a pizza place come to rocky

opportunities i think the problem was him getting hoodwinked and not being able to deliver i mean he was he could have been in those commercials he fucked up i think paul is running some sort of he becomes the maverick carter for rocky He's like getting him.

He does his version of Spring Hill. He's got a content company.
Yeah, he's doing it. All kinds of things are happening for him.
He would have a drive-time radio show, Rocky.

Rocky Balbo, a boxing show. He's not doing one commercial and then working as the book guy.

It's not happening. That's not happening.
Well, he's doing cameos and movies. I had these possibly unanswerable questions, but was the solution here for Rocky just to invest in condominiums?

Would that have been like a. That would have been the time to do it.
Yeah. Mid-70s.
Yeah.

Apollo didn't fight for six months after the Rocky fight.

How often do you guys box? I don't know. Back then, they're fighting every two, three months.
Well, if you're not, if you're the champ, right? If you're the champ, you're fighting the club.

Ali fought like six times a year, not when he was in his, not when he was really

75 to 78. He fought like 19 times.
Huh, interesting. Well, like he's fighting Shavers, fight Norton again, fight Dwayne Bobbick.
Like, he just kind of kept going.

But if you know your guy and you want to read it, Danny Tyson used to fight like twice a year. Yeah, guys fought a lot back on the way up.
Like, but when you get to the point,

twice a year is one thing, but when no heavyweight of that ilk is fighting six times, it's also works because Apollo's obsessed with Rocky.

Yeah, because they're like, we can get you this guy, we can get you that guy. He's like, I want Rocky.
Rocky chasing a chicken, the worst training idea ever in a sports movie. Like, what the fuck?

Roy Jones does that. Really?

In homage to Rocky or just because

I think both. It feels like that's how COVID could have started.
Like a boxer chasing a chicken that was ground zero. That's good.

Alternative to lab leak.

What was going on in Philly that hundreds of kids were just hanging out outside in the middle of the day? Is that what Phillips was like?

We're a great sports town. What were they protesting?

He was probably like a trash strike or something. Ali's nitpick was that they would have stopped the fight once his eyes closed.

And then the double knockdown we covered, Rocky Falling would have been ruled a slip.

And in real life, if both fighters get up the fight just keeps going if you both get up before the count of 10 we're going apologize

it's not about beating a guy to getting up yeah it's not beating guy here's my isn't that just as an aside isn't that one of the most dramatic ways maybe the most dramatic way to end a boxing don't they have to get up in time before the last

right yeah yeah but it's not i got up before you so i won right like one thing that boxing uh movies have a problem with a lot of times is how dramatic the ending of the fight is.

Some guy gets knocked out. How dramatic can you make a knockout? If he goes to the decision, how dramatic is it? But this is legitimately probably like the most dramatic way.

Like double knockout, who's going to get up first?

I have a small nitpick on Apollo's boxing. I've never seen anybody just take body shots like that.
Well, don't neither of them defend very well. Right.

If Apollo's supposed to be the greatest fighter, Rocky's just like going to town. But Rocky's like hit me in the fucking eye that might fall out of my head the whole time.

He's not defending his face at all. Put your elbows down.
Try to block him.

Here's my biggest nitpick, though. So Adrian's in a coma for a while, like three weeks.
You think Rocky would be just getting something on the side?

No tubes. She's lying in the bed.
Oh, yeah. They're just not connected to anything.
She's going to the bathroom.

Is there food, water, anything?

She's just like, yeah, I'm in a coma. Yeah.

Yeah. You're going to go see Adrian? Yeah.
Let's go see her.

Nothing. That's just what comas were like in 1979.
Yeah.

People were tougher.

Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, Blackcaster, Untouchable. They've done all of these.

Except for Prestige TV. Except for the literal Creed prequel.
Yeah.

Prestige TV might be coming. Did you hear Mike's got a show coming? Set in the World of? Set in the World of Creed.

michael be jordan yeah i don't know i don't think he's gonna be in it or if he is i think he's just gonna be mike is now the kevin feige of the creed universe he's got a creed verse coming

interesting

just need to get him an oscar nomination i think it's coming it should you think it's happening well i don't know like the year all of a sudden got super duper crowded i still think that he deserves one but i think i'm gonna be really mad if he doesn't get nominated i think autumn will get nominated the the cinematographer i think ryan will get nominated and i'm really i think it would be awesome if mike got nominated too i think it was a great performance my dude joel edgerton might get nominated train dreams

good movie did you see train dreams it's awesome good movie bill you never ceased to surprise me i why wouldn't i have loved train dreams that movie was great yeah good movie good movie see train dreams didn't you not like weapons like i don't even know how to like

weapons is fine okay train dreams was awesome i haven't seen it yet that's the sing sing guys right yeah it's a great movie. I had no idea it was going to be.

A couple of people told me it was good. Sean, I thought it was amazing.
I'm just surprised that you liked it. Sean put me on the movie.
Sean told me about it.

I caught Jack doing something like Train Dreams was good. You know, Sean had already seen it.
He saw Train Dreams probably like 2021.

So

he had already seen the movie. So he goes, hey, man, like, this is like one of those went south and it lived up to the hype.
It was great.

Is Rocket Two Better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Treyo, Mad Dog, Russo, Doris Burke, Buffalo, Bill, Sam Jackson, Nell, Byron Mayo, Tony Romo, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Long Legs, or Wilfred Brimley?

Oh, Mike, she doesn't even have tubes in her. She's just sleeping there.

It's a Wednesday night in Philly.

I feel like we need new names.

You stopped in the middle of it. I was just doing Collins.

Yeah. You're not doing Wayne Jenkins? For this? Yeah.
No. All right.

I don't even know if we need new ones, but we should just thin out some of these.

We're going to get new ones for 26. Can I give you one that's not on the list? Yeah.

2025 Al Michaels doing the double knockdown scene.

Okay. And Rocky's knockdown Creed.
They're both down.

Whoever gets up before 10 seconds is going to win this.

Al, come on. You're one of the best announcers.

I need a little more. I just need a little more.
New season of the boy.

That's on the dissalm.

I just need more. I know more is in there.
A new season of the boys. Now streaming on Amazon.
Prime video. Just, yeah, Al could get more excited.
They've had some good Thursday night games this year.

Need a little more from Al.

Just one Oscar who gets it. Bill Conte?

What a great call. Yeah.
I mean, I guess he's running back the same score from the first one.

Changed the key in a couple of places.

Or Apollo's wife. Probably unanswerable questions did adrian adrian's pet store ever have a customer nobody's ever in there what's the same four dogs and seven birds what could she possibly be making

oh like what is it it's 19 it's like an exotic pet store in south philadelphia in the 70s any pet store need that much bird feed

actually the only person that ever bought did did rock you not buy something in there no bruce turtle right

for his uh did he buy something for the dog too oh yeah for what's the dog's name again brutus buccus buccus it's like oh good adrian's gonna be able to work part-time at our pet store with no customers it's in right across the street from the boxing gym what kind of foot traffic did they get

uh we mentioned godzo earlier the mafia bookie godzo or godzo uh i think it's just gazzo yeah

what happened to him before rocky three

That's a great question.

You think he got taken out in the like an Italian restaurant?

Hey, you know what? You know what happened between Rocky III is what year again? 82. 82.
This was the time when the Rico statutes came in. This is the Irishman.

This is the whole time they were fucking, they fucking holdies. He got blown up at the docks one day.
They blew up the chicken man in Philly last night.

Rocky, they said. It's Bruce Springstingler.
Oh, okay.

Rocky was a five to one underdog. for this fight they say would you have bet that

after the first five to to one seems like pretty,

pretty tasty. I think Sal and I would have talked ourselves into that.
You would have parlayed over something stupid, though. I would have done Rocky for the knockout.

Let's do Rocky, but let's get the Hartford Whalers in here, too.

Pull him as blue jackets. That would have been Sal.
Sal would have taken like a high favorite.

What piece of memorability? Wait, I just want to ask one unanswerable question. Yeah.
Does Rocky love boxing? No, not at all.

He, well, so he's a club fighter. It's something that he is really good at.
It feels like he's trapped boxing.

He's like, this body, this mind, you know, I have a few gifts. This is what I have to do.
But I don't feel like he's ever like, man, I can't wait to get back in the ring because I love it.

I don't know if Rocky had a lot of opportunities. Yeah, right.
That's the thing. But it's like asking, like, if

Murph loves. going on walks.
Like, I just don't know if there's a lot going on intellectually for Rocky.

What would Rocky's dream have been? Like, I really love the theater. I don't don't know.
He seems captivated by the old West. You know,

Rocky didn't want the rematch with Apollo at all. And you would think that he is the one that will want it more than anybody.
I think he wants to love boxing. I think Rocky loved boxing.

What else did he have? He just fucking walked around with a Super Bowl occasionally would stop by the do-up guys. Maybe they had a good fire going.

What do you think? He loved like independent movies? That's really the only thing.

I love De Palma's movies lately. They've been really good.
Like, what did he have?

He wasn't a sports game called Trust to Kill.

He didn't love like the flyers.

We never did. What were Rocky's hot? I don't know.

Couldn't drive. Terrible driver.
Presumably he knows a little bit about sports gambling because he's collecting for the mob, right?

That's one of my favorite TV movie things when the guy can't drive and they park and they hit like the garbage cans. Right.

What piece of memorability would you want or not want from this movie?

I think it's the Beast Aftershave bottle for me. Okay.
It's like very stealth, but I could put it like right behind CR.

Like right there, right next to the Patriot helmet, just have the Beast Aftershave. I also like his fake broken nose eye thing for the commercial that you take on and off.
That would be fun to have.

And then the trunks. Apollo's trunks.
Either. Yeah.

I would like trunks, gloves, anything from the car too. The car is fly.
Yeah. The snow cone machine that Rocky says he's gonna buy poly oh

i miss having snow cones really good what one your coach finstock award for best life lesson

do you have one

yeah listen to your trainer uh don't listen to your ego that's what got apollo what got apollo like legitimately relegated to a co-star in Rocky's universe yeah is he was too anxious he was chasing it he could have literally if he hadn't read it don't read your mentions.

Yeah. Don't read your hate mail.
Don't read your hate mail. He could have literally let Rocky fade away into obscurity.
Yeah, nobody would have, nobody would remember that.

And the whole thing is about Apollo, but it's about Rocky now because Apollo chased it. Double feature choice, would you go one or three?

You know,

I would go three just for variety because I feel like this is so close to one. I would do three because in the marathon.

The 28 minutes from two,

when then they would go to Rocky III, the first like five, 10 minutes of Rocky III, which is like probably the best stretch in the history although can i can i make a recommendation from the not rocky universe for uh digstown oh what a movie digstown honey roy palmer james woods and lee guns at on blu-ray i'm sure he does

digs count for 4k u hd

what is the movie it's a boxing movie but it's got

Cuba Gooding Jr. Oh, Gladys.

Yeah, James Marshall. Yeah.
And the guy from Few Good Men. The guy from Few Good Men.
Hal? how,

how, come on, answer this question.

Ask him a question, like, how, how, like, literally, man, shout out to our men and women in service.

Brian Danahy gets in the ring with him at the end, and at the end, he's good, gladiator's good, and he's punching, and he puts his forehead down like that to make him hurt us.

Yeah, Gladiator's good, too. Gladiator is my dick style double feature.
Okay, who won the movie? Stallone Stallone, yeah, directed, wrote it. Craig, what do you got?

Um, I think the Rocky franchise is really interesting because you get to witness in real time the transition from 70s hollywood to 80s hollywood yeah and you have like the first two movies are in the 70s and it's like the gritty 70s and then the next two are in the 80s and it's like the glossy 80s the first two movies are two hours the next two movies are 90 minutes and i gotta be honest i think i like three and four like i it's like i i don't love that that's my opinion but i'm like i can't help i'm not i'm not sure i don't disagree i'm not sure i don't agree because the red is clear yeah that's why we did three and four first before we did one and terror like the end of these movies, all of them are fantastic.

My dad and I watched this over Thanksgiving break, and we like basically both fell asleep halfway through the movie.

But then by the time you get to the end, we were like shadow boxing our way out of the living room. Yeah.
So it always delivers at the end, but it's a tough first 90 minutes. It is.

YouTube kind of killed this movie. For sure.
You can watch the montage. You can watch the fight.
And you're like, I'm good. I mean, YouTube

did a lot of harm in many ways to movies.

I feel like now you can, like, I talk to my two brothers-in-law, and every big movie, they're like, oh, I just, I saw the end of that movie on YouTube, and I'm like,

Are you even gonna watch it? And they're like, Well, there will be blood, like I, the bowling, I saw the bowling alley.

So, I'm like, Well, it's like seriously, oh, yeah, you just watched like the 20 best endings in movie history, but you showed that up on YouTube, you know. I'm so close going to hell, Sir.

I'm such an idiot that that makes me watch movies. I like, I got something that popped up in my algorithm that the whole YouTube video was about the way that Sicario is written.

Like, how the actual protagonist of of Sicario is Benicio del Toro's character, but the whole script makes you think that it's Emily Blunt's character the whole time. Have you seen Sicario?

Yeah, heard it's heard good things.

You guys heard it? We did Two for the Money

the other week that was pitched to me by Bill as here's your birthday movie.

And so I watched

like, that's not how this is supposed to work. I watched the whole video and then the video is maybe like four minutes long about the true hero of Sicario, whatever.

Oh, how Sicario Fools the Audience, I think is the name of the video. And then I went and watched Sicario like last night when I should have been watching doing high alerted stuff.

So that probably's going to suck today. But like, I went and I watched Sicario, watched the whole thing.
It's just hard.

There's a lot of like TikTok top 10 performances of the 21st century, and you're watching like the climax. Yeah, it's crazy.
I've slipped on some of the some of my favorites.

Like, I feel like it's been a while since I watched a few good men in full, but have watched you can't handle the truth and you cut these guys loose like you know, 300 times.

Well, I mean, we have stuff like Landman to watch now. That's true.
Real art. Thanks to Craig.
Thanks to Gal. Thanks to Eduardo.
Don't do that top seven social media.

Why do you get weird about it?

We'll be back at the Rewatchables next week.