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.
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.
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