Everyone Falls, not Everyone Gets up… Will you?
Questions of the Week
Where might you be giving up to soon as the fight has become tougher than expected?
What motivates you to keep getting up after being knocked down?
Where are we accepting no, when yes might still be possible?
The easy road is called easy for a reason… What opportunity are you pursuing to stand up to life, take a shot, and go the distance?
Everyone Falls, not Everyone Gets up… Will you?
It’s hard to believe that it’s been sixteen years since witnessing what I considered the greatest comeback in boxing history. On May 7th, 2005 the late Diego “Chico” Corrales fought José Luis Castillo in Las Vegas Nevada. I’d watched them fight for ten rounds with Castillo winning every round, even knocking Chico down twice in the last round only to witness the heart of a warrior come alive storming back to end the fight with a Technical Knockout (TKO). Corrales suffered two swollen eyes, two knockdowns, and yet he never gave up. Watch the 10th Round Yourself .https://youtu.be/WkvzLrU5Zu4
I’ve always loved a comeback tale, who doesn’t? It was a similar story that sparked over a 1.4 Billion grossing movie franchise. In the early 70s, an unknown actor moved from New York to California in hopes to achieve his dream in the movie industry. One night he went to see the greatest of all time Muhammad Ali, fight the man known as 'The Bayonne Bleeder.’ Chuck Wepner turned pro in 1964 and worked his way up from the bars of Bayonne New Jersey taking on such prominent fighters as George Foreman and Sonny Liston. The Liston fight left him with a broken nose, a broken cheekbone, 71 stitches in his face thus his new nickname the Bayonne Bleeder. For one-brief moment, a supposed stumblebum turned out to be magnificent and Wepner not only lasted, but he also actually knocked the champ down. “What I saw was pretty extraordinary. I thought if this isn’t a metaphor for life.”
That was the catalyst for the young actor who’d moved from New York, Sylvester Stallone: “A man who was going to stand up to life, take a shot, and go the distance,” said Stallone in an interview with Michael Watson.He started writing and in three days had the script for Rocky done.”
Never stop fighting until the final bell rings…
Stallone was offered $360,000 from producers for the Rocky script, with the condition that he wouldn’t play the lead. At the time Stallone had no car, $106 in the bank, and sold his dog to pay the bills.
“I thought, ‘You know what? You’ve got this poverty thing down. You really don’t need much to live on.’ I sort of figured it out. I was in no way used to the good life. So I knew in the back of my mind that if I sell this script. and it does very very well, I’m going to jump off a building if I’m not in it. There’s no doubt in my mind. I’m going to be very, very upset. So this is one of those things, when you just roll the dice and fly by the proverbial seat of your pants and you just say, ‘I’ve got to try it. I’ve just got to do it. I may be totally wrong, and I’m going to take a lot of people down with me, but I just believe in it.’”
The producers eventually relented and gave Stallone one million dollars to make the movie, starring himself. They came in under budget by using family and friends in the cast, handheld cameras, and only using one take to film most of the footage. One million dollars was an extremely low budget for a film, even in the 1970s.
Rocky went on to receive nine Oscar nominations and got three wins, including Best Picture and grossed over $200 million.
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