Not Enough People Talk About How Rocky Balboa Was Kiiiiind Of A Scumbag That Killed Or Tried To Kill Everyone That Loved Him

Clem1/18/2023 6:00 PM

I had to take a quick break from grinding film and game planning for this weekend's Giants/Eagles game as every other Big Blue fan should be doing since it's all hands on deck for a division playoff game.

Anyway when I came up for air, I saw this tweet from my coworker Rone, who just so happens to be a Philadelphia fan.

I'm not here to debate the merits of the Statue of Liberty, which served as a beacon of hope for millions of immigrants looking for a better life for their families and actually has had a glow up thanks to the aforementioned rust.

Chaay_Tee. Getty Images.

Blogger's Note: God DAMN that is one beautiful lady

I'm here to wonder if there should even be a statue for their fictional boxer. I get that the statue was built years ago when Philly was looking for any sort of sports success to cling to since they were in the middle of a massive championship drought, even though Rocky had 21 losses on his record before his first movie, where he lost a split decision to Apollo Creed.

But as we like to say around these parts, #SomethingsAreBiggerThanSports, which is why I have to look at more than just Rocky the boxer.

Rocky Balboa the person always gets praised for what he did outside of the ring. But let's take a quick glance at his bio:

- When we first met Rocky, he was a hired goon for a local loanshark that would have no problem pounding your face like it's a piece of meat if you were light or late with your payments.

Giphy Images.

- Rocky's courtship of Adrian was a little bit rockier (get it?) than we may remember. I'm not saying it was problematic or anything like that. But looking back, it's a little aggressive. At least for 2023, which granted is almost FIFTY years after the original Rocky was made, which makes me want to crawl out of my skin after writing that.

- After those lovebirds got married, they went half on a baby, which led to Adrian almost dying during childbirth.

Now I would never blame Rocky for almost killing his wife by getting her pregnant. However I will blame him for sending her to that pet store in her third trimester which led to all the stress that caused the birth to have complications (I was in the delivery room for both of my kids' births and slept on the small chair at the hospital every night both times, so I'm pretty much an expert on the topic).

- Paulie almost drank himself to death multiple times, partially because his brother-in-law didn't give a flying fuck about him once he struck it rich and forgot about some of the branches on his family tree.

This hurts me not only as a brother-in-law but as a fan of vintage coin-operated games that grew up in the arcade era.

- While Rocky may not have killed his son, he was pretty much dead to his son on some Cat Stevens shit. Not that I blame Rocky Jr. considering his father squandered their fortune, didn't help his kid get acclimated to the South Philly life once shit hit the fan, and his dad somehow missed five years of his life simply by going to Russia for a few months.

- As for Rocky's boxing family, I don't think it's hard to connect the dots about how Rocky killed Mickey.

I know you weren't going to keep an old salty son of a bitch like Mick away from the ring when his biggest fighter was fighting. But if Rocky could've just listened to the guy that trained him into becoming the HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD and took Clubber Lang more serious, maybe his ticker wouldn't have given out from all the stress leading up to the fight.

- Rocky obviously replaced Mick with Apollo for the rematch with Clubber Lang and how did he repay him? By refusing to take Drago's open challenge to the West like any true champion and letting that Russian son of a bitch kill Apollo right in front of his family.

Also it has to be said that this is not how you should hold someone that just went through blunt force trauma.

I bet Apollo survives if Rocky lets the medical professionals do what they're supposed to do instead of making it all about himself while wearing his bougie Boss shirt. Disgusting.

- I know Rocky supporters will say he ended the Cold War in Russia by beating Drago then turning the Russian crowd on his side with his iron strength and legendary speech.

But have you guys watched the news lately? Are we sure that the present day is the best possible scenario for the geopolitical world? The Soviet Union was going to fall sooner or later because it was built on a bunch of bullshit. If you disagree with that, you are probably a commie that was rooting for Drago.

I also imagine Rocky ducked the shit out of Clubber Lang since no boxing promoter in the universe wouldn't have tried to cash in on a trilogy where the fighters split the first two fights, which isn't a surprise given his past.

If that's the kind of guy you want to build a statue for, that's fine. Philly is famous for not caring what everyone else thinks.

Me personally? I'd rather stick to statues for true heroes like a guy named George Washington that just so happens to reside on Wall Street, the base of our wonderful capitalist country.