Today's Countdown to Rocky Balboa features a clip from the third installment in the Rocky sixology. As always, there were many clips from which to choose. Here are the one's considered for today's post: the opening montage revealing that Rocky has acheived celebrity status (or, in the words of his long-time trainer/manager, Mickey, "become civilized"); Clubber Lang challenging Rocky at the unveiling of the infamous Rocky statue at the Philidelphia Museum of Art; Rocky learning that his title defense bouts have been selected to ensure victory; the scene where Mickey passes; Apollo's motivational speech to Rocky, where he tells the champ that he's lost the Eye of the Tiger; Paulie's emotional meltdown; Rocky's admission to Adrian that he's afraid "for the first time in his life"; the training montage; the final bout where Rocky defeats Clubber; and, of course, the charity match between Thunderlips and the Ultimate Meatball.
I chose the charity match for today's countdown--and only because brother Harrogate is a big wrestling fan, as you may have gathered from his Monday Night Raw reviews (temporarily put on hold until he finishes a paper). In this scene, Rocky fights Thunderlips, aka The Ultimate Male, a professional wrestler played by none other than Hulk Hogan. While I always prefer seeing Hulk play a good guy, he does make a good heel.
So without further ado, and in honor of Harrogate, here is today's countdown clip: the charity match between Thunderlips and Rocky that raised $75K for a youth club.
Just 3 days left.
1 comment:
Hogan did indeed make for a great heel. It is for this reason that Harrogate has frequently referenced his groundbreaking stint as "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan in the late 90s, complete with the founding of the wretched NWO.
Those NWO guys, with Hollywood as the Godfather and Eric Bishoff as the corporate progenitor, for a whirlwind couple of years managed to take Pro Wrestling storytelling to another level altogether. It was really something to behold.
It was, indeed, entirely because of the electric Rhetorical Situation Hogan had prepared, that Bill Goldberg's victory over Hogan in 98 for the WCW title (live on TNT) rose to the epiphanic level.
In this clip from Rocky III, you can see the raw Charisma of Hogan; you can understand why he was able, over such a long period of time, to inspire huge degrees of love or hate, depending on what he was going for.
Finally, on last night's Raw, Stallone made an appearance and did a live interview for the crowd in Washington D.C., promoting his movie, praising the great Hogan, and smoothly dissing "K-Fed" all at the same time.
'Twas magnifique.
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