The v2 Boxing brain of the year 2014 - Round 1 - Fight 1

Please vote for your favourite response to the question at hand. The judging will be open until Monday and further rounds will be published as and when.

To avoid bias, the contenders are not revealed.

Was the Rocky franchise good or bad for boxing?

The Blue Corner (Contestant 1)

How could the Rocky films be anything other than good for boxing? They were the reason Vinny Pazienza first put on the gloves. Ok, you’re gonna need a bit more than that right?

Rocky hit cinemas in the same year the Spinks brothers, Howard Davis and Ray Leonard lit up the ’76 Olympics – significantly boosting boxing’s popularity and ushering in a golden era for the sport (especially in the US). Yes, the films deteriorated in quality as the series progressed; yes the fourth instalment was little more than a homoerotic pop video, however, it remains an incredibly popular canon.

Stallone’s writing tended towards mawkishness. At times, the films positively dripped in sentiment; however, he plundered many of the sport’s great storylines: the long shot underdog, the unbeatable thug, the faded veteran, the unscrupulous promoter, the turncoat protégé.

The underlying theme - that anyone with a dream and the guts to try and realise it had a fighting chance - was one that resonated with the young and in turn, led them to the gym. Capitalist claptrap or inspirational? I’d side with the latter.

How many kids heard “Gonna Fly Now” or “Eye of the Tiger” when they tore down the road, throwing punches in the air for the first time? How many still do?

Think of all the real boxers who’ve spoken about having their “Rocky fight”. Micky Ward, Wayne McCullough and others, who actually wanted to be in the wars they’d seen Stallone play out on the silver screen.

The films undoubtedly lost their way: Rocky 4’s (and Rambo 3’s come to that) Commie bashing was excruciating. Yet you’d still watch it if it popped up on TV tonight. Those training montages are so uplifting, you can’t help it.

Rocky drew people in: the misfits, ne’er do wells, no hopers, who latched onto the film’s themes (whether realistic or not) and decided that boxing could help them escape their limitations. And as those of us on this forum know all too well, with boxing, once you’re in, you’re in for good.

Anything that brings light to the sport is a good thing. The Rocky films did that. Love them or loathe them.

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The Red Corner (contestant 2)

Brendan Ingle once remarked that you could always tell when a Rocky film had been on TV at the weekend; because his gym was always jam-packed with new kids come Monday. Each yarn of the Rocky series probably got more and more obscene and clichéd as time went on, but here's the thing - they weren't that far removed from the crazy realities of boxing. Just as they do in the Rocky films, in real life we see promoters chucking their morals aside to take advantage of fighters, fights which occasionally transcended sport to take on social significance and fighters launching comebacks so ill-advised that we can only bring ourselves to watch them through parted fingers. If you've been a historian of the sport for a while you'll probably write off Rocky in that regard, but if you're just dipping your toes then the films at least offer a reasonable starting point in to the idiosyncrasies of the sport (or more aptly at times, the business).

To all of you who have spent any reasonable amount of time in or around a boxing gym - can you really say with a straight face that you've never heard some Rocky quotes used as inspiration amongst training partners? "Eye of the Tiger," maybe, or "There is no tomorrow!" Speaking of the Eye of the Tiger, isn't that the song popularised by Rocky III which we've seen used for the ring walks of Manny Pacquiao, one of the biggest stars boxing has seen over the past thirty years? More than three decades after its release, it's a film still ingrained in to the sport in some way or another. Decent films though they were, will we be adding titles such as Cinderella Man, The Fighter and Hurricane to that list?

What helps make boxing the greatest sport in the world is its rich history, more interesting and illustrated than that of any other sport. Hearing records like Eye of the Tiger, Two Worlds Collide and Hearts on Fire lets us all retreat to that boyish, macho chamber we all still have inside us for a little while and remember / fantasise over the era of boxing they emerged in - the glorious eighties, before PPV took an unwelcome stranglehold over the game, when fighters were mainstream celebrities and when genuine super fights weren't pipe dreams, but the norm.

Ultimately, in an age where we keep hearing that boxing is dying, the Rocky films have a) drawn new people to the sport, and b) given us sound bites to keep boxing in the public conscience. That can only be a good thing.
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Vote for your favourite above!

Seconds out.

Very impressive stuff guys.....

Hard to choose..

Very tough one to call, contestant two nearly nicked it my quoting Sheffield's finest Brendan Ingle, but just thought one made the argument a bit better, and so gets my vote. Very diffcult though and a good standard to get the ball rolling.

I thought it was you Mate.....

Not guilty Truss, have done mine, not sure when it will appear though.

Just to let you all know, I have received some but no other pairs yet!

Still waiting for submissions from:

Hampo
Kingraf
Milky
Sean
Hammersmith
Reborn

If any of those above have sent it, could you please resend as my inbox was full.

I have John Waynes and Rowleys ready to go.

I couldn't decide so I did a Simon Cowell and voted to try and even the score for added drama. I can only apologise.

Thought it closed yesterday?

hazharrison wrote:Thought it closed yesterday?

I'm sure they will take my important vote into consideration regardless.