Rocky makes me faster

I recently purchased Rocky Balboa: The Best of Rocky [Soundtrack] from iTunes and I swear when I'm plugged in and running around Finsbury Park with this shit on, I might as well be Rocky himself flying up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and pumping my fists at the top.
It could be my imagination but I think I get some strange looks from passers-by, especially when I'm deep into 'Heart's on Fire', 'Eye of the Tiger' or my personal favourite 'No Easy Way Out' from Rocky IV. Arms pumping, sweat in my eyes, and more often than not in London, rain in my face, the power of simple music to inspire never ceases to amaze me. I haven't yet attempted to quantify the 'Rocky effect' in any kind of scientific manner, but I would estimate I run roughly five-times faster with Rocky in my corner.
It's a funny thing, but for a boxing fan I think I came quite late to the Rocky movies. I remember seeing a couple of them when I was growing up, but they weren't an indelible part of my childhood the way other films were. In some ways I'm grateful. There is nothing worse than the boxing "fan" whose only frame of reference is a certain fictional heavyweight. And as outrageous as the Rocky films are in terms of boxing realism (getting progessively more outrageous as the series progresses) there is almost nothing that happens in a Rocky film that hasn't at some point happened in a real fight, albeit to different fighters, and at different times. Boxers retire, make improbable comebacks, get up off the canvas to win, and are touched by tragedy. Where would boxing commentators be without Rocky references? Next month's Haye v Valuev has more than a touch of the Ivan Drago about it.
But I got to agree with the makers of the excellent recent documentary 'Thriller in Manila' that it is an absolute disgrace that there is a statue of the (entirely fictional) Rocky Balboa in Philadelphia and nothing honouring that city's greatest, real-life heavyweight, Joe Frazier.

Haye versus Valuev is a circus sideshow

Heavyweight boxing has been in the doldrums for a while so there was definitely a buzz in boxing circles when David Haye stepped up to heavyweight after unifying the cruiserwight division.
And after a few false starts - most notably an aborted bout against Vitali Klitschko this summer - fight fans will get another chance to see Haye fighting at heavyweight next month. And not just any heavyweight but perhaps the heaviest of them all, the so-called Beast from the East, Nikolay Valuev. Standing 7ft 2 inches and weighing in at more than 23 stone, Valuev is, even by boxing standards, a freak of nature. Anyone tuning into the recent press conference may have been forgiven for thinking they'd stumbled across a David Attenborough documentary, because the fact is, and I'm not going to win any Russian friends by saying this, Valuev doesn't look human.
Haye told reporters: "He's a giant of a man, big, hairy and ugly." And it's hard to argue with that. But what fascinates me most is his head. It's literally twice the size of Haye's head and looks like a large, unmoulded lump of clay. You could argue that Haye will have a bigger target to aim for. True. But he's got to reach it first. Haye's giving up a full nine inches to Valuev as well as seven stone in weight. That's probably more than the average supermodel. Still, you've got to say, it's going to be a fascinating encounter. I can imagine non-boxing fans tuning in purely for the circus sideshow-aspect of the fight. It's being called, somewhat unimaginatively, David vs Goliath, and this is probably the closest we'll get to witnessing something in that biblical ball park.
So all eyes will be on Nuremburg on November 7, and let's not forget that there's a real world title on the line.