It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over

It’s not about how hard you can hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It ain’t over till it’s over.

On March 24, 1975, in Cleveland, Ohio, Muhammad Ali fought a journeyman fighter from New Jersey named Chuck Wepner, “The Bayonne Bleeder.” Bleeder or not, this was Wepner’s heavyweight championship bout, and to is chance to be a “somebody”. Even though the 6 feet 6 inches boxer ranked in the top ten and had fought Foreman, Frazier, and the rest, he was twenty-to-one underdog. Ali said the fight will be over in three rounds.

On the faithful night, however, Wepner put up the fight of his life, stunning the boxing world. He knocked Ali down in the eighth round, but in the end, Ali’s skill won out over Wepner’s heart, and Ali won in a TKO in the final seconds of the fifteenth round. The forgettable fighter had put up an unforgettable fight.

A young actor happened to see the fight.

Within three days, with a ballpoint pen and a spiral notebook and in a state that he later described as a “frenzy”, he wrote the screenplay Rocky. The actor was, of course, Sylvester Stallone.

The script was strong and well-written, and studios were eager to buy it for as much as $250,000. But Stallone demanded that he must play the title role and he must receive a share of the profits. Producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff accepted the bold terms. Rocky went on to become one of the biggest hits of all time, winning its author and lead a Best Actor nomination. Audiences saw it as the quintessential triumph of the underdog story, a mythic comeback legend for modern times.

Rocky was made for just $1 million, a small budget even in 1976. Stallone was paid a salary of all of *23,000 for his acting performance. It was a great investment for all participants. The film took in $225 million worldwide.

But that was just the start. Rocky would prove to be a billion dollar idea.

The six Rocky movies; Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky V and Rocky Balboa brought in a total of $1,200,000,000. That is more than one billion!

Sylvester Stallone did not have a happy childhood. He was born to a chorus girl and an Italian immigrant. During his birth, an accident with the forceps cut a nerve in his face and left parts of his lip, tongue, and chin paralyzed. His speech would always be slurred slightly, and his lower lip would droop; it wasn’t an act for Rocky, it was real.

Besides the nerve damage, Stallone suffered from rickets. His parents struggled to get food on the table for Sylvester and his younger brother, Frank. Most of his five years were spent in foster homes. As a result, he was starved for attention and affection, and he believes this catalyzed an interest in acting.

When Stallone was eleven, his parents divorced, Sylvester was assigned to his tough dad. By the time he was a teenager, Stallone had attended twelve different schools and racked up several expulsions for behavior problems. His grades were terrible, and his classmates bullied him. He made it bearable by creating fantasies in which he would cast himself as a hero and defender of the underdog.

When he was fifteen, Sylvester relocated to Philadelphia to live with his mother and her new husband. There he was sent to a school for emotionally disturbed children. He spent his time lifting weights in the gym, learning fencing and playing football and of course, involving in theater. He then graduated and got an athletic scholarship to the America College of Switzerland. From there, he slowly picked himself up and went for his dream to become an actor. He starred in many small films and went for many auditions. However, all those were not enough for him and his wife whom he married in 1974.

Then, Stallone saw the Ali-Wepner fight, created his own acting vehicle from it, and catapulted to the top of the acting pyramid. He also penned and starred in the Rambo films.

At the age of sixty, Stallone made another comeback with the film Rocky Balboa (a long 16 years after Rocky V)! In a radio interview in advance of the launch, Stallone revealed his deep motivations for the movie. He wanted to respond positively to the issues raised by his friend Susan Faludi in Stiffed: The Betrayal of the Modern Man (1999), regarding the emasculation and discarding of the male in the modern society, especially the older male. Stallone himself was a case study in the book. Stallone wanted to show that the older male still had the utiliy, still had dignity, pride, worth – that he could make a comeback, and a huge one at that.

The advertising slogan for Rocky Balboa was “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

Sadly, unlike Sylvester Stallone, many of us give up too early.