Everybody loves a good underdog story, it’s been said countless times, but that doesn’t make it any less true. However, it can be easy to overlook Sylvester Stallone’s historic contribution in establishing that notion, because until Rocky the world really didn’t know how powerful these stories could be.
Sure, before there were plenty of real sports underdogs, think Jackie Robinson, Abebe Bikila winning the Olympic marathon barefoot or even Muhammad Ali defeating Sonny Liston, though none of them were really like Rocky. For starters, all these athletes were great, yet few people really knew them closely, which is what Stallone’s genius used to win over viewers’ hearts and build not only the greatest underdog story of all time, and one that happens to have very little boxing in it.
What Makes Rocky The G.O.A.T.?
Perhaps there’s no greater evidence of Rocky’s influence than the few sports films made before it that still remain relevant, with The Pride of the Yankees being one as it also leans on lessons about life and humanity as its focal point, rather than any actual baseball. Stallone knew that part of the script was key because his own acting career had been marked by early struggles, so he wrote Rocky to embody that same pain and sense of defeat that almost conquered him when he was considering giving up on the arts.
Rocky Balboa is not a happy man, and the movie spends a lot of time telling the audience just that as it’s the single part about it that makes Rocky so special. Before it, Champion, The Great White Hope and Fat City had all shown the potential behind sports dramas, but it was Rocky’s emphasis on storytelling and how well Stallone develops the characters in his movie that turned it into such an everlasting film.
There’s nothing going well in Rocky’s life, he’s a loner, stuck with an immoral job he doesn’t like, a flailing boxing career, little or no friends, no other career prospects and, despite his easygoing nice guy attitude, he gets called “bum” on a daily basis. It’s Rocky’s measly confidence that makes him fumblingly approach Adrian in the first place, she's in his league as she’s seen as unattractive, odd and shy, altogether not really wife material even by her own loser of a brother’s measure — as he later tells us, together they’re a perfect couple of misfits and that's why they can see the beauty in each other.
Stallone tackled this role as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as he’s stated numerous times he wasn’t first or second choice to play the Italian Stallion, nonetheless he insisted on it because he felt Rocky wasn’t just any movie, it was his story, his baby. For a film that has so many iconic moments, Rocky’s most defining scenes are not him training, it’s the heartfelt moments when he makes peace with Mickey and every time he hopelessly looks into the camera that explains why the audience cares so much about him .
Before And After Rocky
By playing the character he himself wrote, Stallone adds perfect nuance to his performance as he knows exactly what emotions Rocky is supposed to transmit in every shot. This is crucial in a sports film that doesn’t really feature its protagonist training over half an hour into the movie, by when the audience has already been lured into rooting for him, as if Rocky was some sort of shōnen anime underdog.
If Rocky has never had a shot in life, now he does, but only after the viewer and Adrian have started to look at him as a real human being, and not as a random proxy for the underdog boxing heavyweight challenger, Rocky is "show, don't tell" at its finest. Apollo’s perception that he’s facing a “nobody” is the perfect contrast to this, as Rocky is exactly the opposite for the viewers, he's their everything, he’s a man who’s had to take a good look in the mirror and admit he’s wasted whatever potential he had, only then can he rise to the occasion.
Part of why the first Creed movie emulates the Rocky formula so well is that it also features very little boxing, instead choosing to follow the human aspect of Adonis’ search for a father he never knew, an essential ingredient that usually determines how good a sports movie can aspire to be. Both are the type of sports movies non-sport fans can enjoy due to their human nature, a prevailing element that gradually faded off in the franchise, until Rocky Balboa brought the champ back as an aging old man whose most fearsome foe was again loneliness.
It’s easy to back Rocky because he’s the little guy facing the champ, nevertheless, the reasons why the film’s closing act is able to evoke real emotion in people are the “dull” moments that precede it. That this dimwitted 5’11” heavyweight southpaw with no footwork, like all of us, deserves his one chance to prove his worth, and that it’s just after all these events that he’s ready to fight for real.
Sports are popular due to the sense of achievement and community they can bring out in people, it's why the stories tied to the World Cup can be even bigger than the events itself, and why Ted Lasso or Welcome to Wrexham have triumphed in a country where soccer isn't even that popular. Rocky's legacy as one of the greatest films of all time comes down to its power to bring out everything that is great about sports because exactly like football, boxing is life too.
Creed III is scheduled for release on November 23, 2022.