On March 24, 1975, Sylvester Stallone attended a fight between 33-year-old Muhammad Ali, the world heavyweight champion, and 36-year-old Chuck Wepner. The battle promises to be easy for Ali, already a legend, facing this virtual unknown. Except Wepner, who has been training very hard and full-time for eight weeks, will rock what we call “The Biggest.”
Indeed, the fight would eventually go 15 rounds, at the end of which both Wepner and Ali looked exhausted. The challenger has both exposed arches and a broken nose, and finally bows out by going to the ground in the 15th round.
If you’ve ever seen The Rock, you’ll begin to see where we’re going, but the story doesn’t end there!
Muhammad Ali was declared the winner by technical knockout. The end of this type of fight is fixed in case of abandonment of one of the competitors or by the decision of the referee. In this particular case, the referee Tony Perez will make the decision. The referee, who doesn’t like Ali at the end of the fight, points out that he took too many punches that he won’t tolerate..
Ali in particular was sent to the mat after a Wepner kick that landed on the leg of the champion (who could no longer avoid it) and without any reprimand from Perez.
Sylvester Stallone returns home and adapts this battle into a film script. Chuck will become Rocky, and Ali will become Apollo Creed. He wrote the script in 3 and a half days and started pitching it to producers. The sequel made movie history: Stallone became a superstar, his screenplay was nominated for an Oscar, and the film left three statues. His career began.

The translator of “The Italian Stallion” repeatedly recalls this original inspiration, also citing the journey of Rocky Marciano, but in 2004Wepner still sued Stallone for using his name to promote his films and career to make a fortune.
The judges will reject this last charge, but will uphold the first. The actor will settle the case by paying an undisclosed amount to the former professional boxer. Chuck Weppler’s extraordinary journey was the subject of the film The Outsider, starring Liev Schreiber.
Source: Allocine

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