WWE Wrestlemania 30

Yesterday I continued my annual tradition of watching the previous year's Wrestlemania shortly before the new one, which means today I will be covering the Wrestlemania 30 BluRay. As usual, the BluRay was bundled with the 2014 WWE Hall of Fame ceremony that transpired the night before the biggest wrestling extravaganza of the year, so let us start off with that. If you do not recall, last year's Hall of Fame ceremony was quite a doozy.

When I attended the 2012 Hall of Fame ceremony, every speaker had a visible countdown timer for their speech to help keep the ceremony moving so everyone can get to sleep early for the big event the next day. If I remember correctly, the inductors all had five minute time limits, and each succeeding inductee had time limits from five to 20 minutes depending when they were slotted on the show. Apparently, someone forgot to bring the timer last year, and everyone paid a price. Lita was the first inductee, and she gave a great speech, but she meticulously went over her entire career in great detail and went nearly a half hour when she finally wrapped up. Jake Roberts and Scott Hall were both notorious for having reputations as wrestlers looking like they were about to croak, but looked great here in their inductions thanks to getting rehab help from Diamond Dallas Page. Jake gave a very memorable speech talking about overcoming his demons, and Hall kept his short and sweet because of Mr. T before him.

Mr. T was the year's celebrity inductee, who played a big role in the first two Wrestlemanias, yet in his near half hour long speech he spoke nothing about Wrestlemania, and instead talked about his mother for nearly the entire half hour before Kane mercifully interrupted and cut him off. It was ludicrous for how long he went before WWE finally interjected. I do not blame WWE having a little fun at T's expense by making a celebratory Mother's Day montage video on RAW a few weeks later. When rewatching the Hall of Fame ceremony yesterday, I had no choice but to skip Mr. T's induction, no way was I going to endure that again. Ultimate Warrior was the headlining inductee, ending his 14 year long exile from the company. He gave a very memorable speech considering all his behind-the-scenes controversies he was part of and I was all ears when he touched on topics like getting fired after Summerslam '91 and the DVD WWE put out trashing his career in 2005. I am happy he made peace with the company and was able to appear here before his untimely death just three days later. For more on Warrior, check out the entry I wrote last year when WWE Network had Warrior Week honoring him with exclusive specials shortly after his death.

Now onto the Wrestlemania 30 event itself. The preshow featured a fatal four way elimination match for the tag team titles that is included on the BluRay as a bonus. It was between Curtis Axel & Ryback, Jack Swagger & Cesaro, The Matodores and champions, The Usos. If I remember right this was supposed to be on the actual PPV, but like in years past WWE overbooked the show, so unfortunately this got bumped to the preshow. As a result, the match got plenty of time and went nearly 20 minutes, and it had a great buildup of bigger spots and entertaining moments, and the crowd was really into it throughout which saw the Usos retaining in the end. It may not be a high honor, but this bout will go down and easily usurp all the other prior battle royals and lumberjack matches as the best preshow Wrestlemania match of all time.

Wrestlemania 30 proper kicked off with special guest host Hulk Hogan hilariously getting tripped up in his promo, and getting the show's venue the Superdome, mixed up with the Silverdome that the Hulkster competed in at Wrestlemania 3. Steve Austin and The Rock were not advertised, but they joined Hogan in the opening exchange, and gave him some good natured grief about Hogan being rusty on the microphone. It was a fun opening segment, with a unique dynamic of these three legends that got the crowd psyched up.

Triple H and Daniel Bryan had the first true match on the card, with the winner getting the third spot in the main event triple threat WWE Title match. The two put on an epic PPV caliber main event, with Triple H impressively showing no ring rust from his long absence in the ring, and being able to keep up with Bryan's quick style, until Bryan hit him with a running high knee to guarantee himself in the main event later that night. These two put on a clinic and it easily gets my nod as match of the show.

Next up the Shield put on a beating and destroyed their opposition that night that consisted of legendary tag team, The New Age Outlaws and Kane in under three minutes. The Shield literally got about 95% of the offense. I was cracking up at how fast this match went and felt no remorse for the Outlaws or Kane getting buried. Following this was the first ever Andre the Giant memorial battle royal. It featured nearly 30 superstars. Stars in this match no longer with the company include Alberto Del Rio, Rey Mysterio, Brodus Clay, Drew McIntyre, Jinder Mahal, Yoshi Tatsu, Justin Gabriel and The Great Khali. This match was better than it had any right to be, and once the bodies started clearing out we got a lot of good moments with spectacular eliminations, and near-eliminations, and a fantastic finish with Cesaro showing off his brute strength by eliminating Big Show to win the battle royal.

Next was Bray Wyatt against John Cena back when Wyatt was trying to get Cena to unleash his inner 'monster' and make him a villain. I remember this feud having a lot of good build up, and this match featured some good moments with Wyatt doing his trademark spider crawl for the first time ever here to a good reaction, and awesome crowd participation to mess with Cena's head. Cena got the feel good win here with an Attitude Adjustment in the first of three matches on PPV. Too bad this was the only good match of the feud because the rest were overbooked with too many silly gimmicks that led to a decline in the then-emerging Bray Wyatt character.

Brock Lesnar challenged Undertaker's Wrestlemania undefeated streak. Compared to the last decade worth of Undertaker matches at Wrestlemania, this one was a letdown as these two were never really able to shift into high gear. Considering how WWE always touts 'Taker as the 'Best Striker' in the company, I originally envisioned a fast paced back and forth MMA-esque brawl between the two, but it was not meant to be as it looked apparent that the Undertaker was on cruise control as he went through his usual arsenal of moves. This could be because it was rumored 'Taker got an early concussion seconds into the match from a Brock suplex, or it could be that after all these years that Undertaker's age is finally catching up to him. What people will remember from this match is the shocker of a moment when Lesnar pinned 'Taker after a third F5 to end Undertaker's undefeated streak at 21-1. Props to WWE for showing the shocked looks of several faces from the crowd that will forever go down in infamy.

WWE gave the Divas division the honor of following a shocked and dismayed crowd as AJ Lee defended her Divas Title against the entire Divas division in the Vickie Guerrero Invitational. All 15 to 20 or so Divas in this match at least got in one quick spot after another, all while the ring quickly filled up with fallen hair extensions. It took several minutes of nonstop Diva spots to finally get a smidge of a reaction from this depleted crowd as AJ Lee rose up against insurmountable odds to successfully defend her title.

During the main event entrances I was mildly amused that Randy Orton got the honors at Wrestlemania this year as the guy to have the band who recorded his entrance theme to play him out live. I say this because Randy is notoriously outspoken for trashing most of his entrance themes in years past. Batista and Orton laid a beating on Bryan in most of the match, and right when Bryan looked poised to win, there was some masterfully timed interference from Hunter and Stephanie, topped off with the Authority bringing in long forgotten crooked ref Brad Armstrong in a dramatic near fall. Daniel Bryan got the best of the Authority however, and overcame both Orton and Batista to walk out of Wrestlemania as WWE Champion in a wonderful moment to close the show. I will forever remember this moment of Bryan's brief run as champion, and not the godawful booked feud he had with Kane following this before he was prematurely forced to vacate the title due to a neck injury that kept him out of action for the rest of 2014.

Other random notes from this show is WWE had some terrific video packages hyping up the Daniel Bryan/Triple H and Undertaker/Brock matches. They do take up a bit more time, but do a great job of recapping feuds in music video form and got me amped up for the matches. At this point in 2014, JBL has been back in the mix on commentary for about a year now, and I am surprised at how awful he is and how much he takes away from matches by trying to crack random, awful jokes and going off on random tangents in undercard matches. JBL used to be great on commentary in his first run of it on Smackdown with Cole right after he retired from mid-2006 until the end of 2007. Fast forward a year later and he is very grating, and near intolerable to listen to, especially now with Booker T at the announce table on RAW instead of Lawler.

One last thing, on the Hall of Fame disc there is another hour worth of extras with one-on-one interviews with Batista and Randy Orton, a tribute to Andre the Giant, a countdown of the 30 greatest Wrestlemania moments and a few other video packages hyping up other featured matches. Daniel Bryan/Triple H and yes, the preshow Tag Title elimination match get my nods as best matches of the show going out of your way to watch. The main event triple threat is still pretty good, and worth seeing for Bryan's big moment, and Cena/Wyatt is an entertaining affair with just the right amount of tomfoolery incorporated before the rest of the feud went overboard with it. It had just enough big moments and matches to make it a standout Wrestlemania, especially compared to the surprising lackluster build to this Sunday's Wrestlemania. I was never less hyped for a Wrestlemania main event in quite some time, and WWE has been doing a horrendous job at booking the rest of the card too, but we will get into that next year. Thanks for tolerating my yearly Wrestlemania blog, and enjoy Wrestlemania 31 this Sunday!

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
RoH Supercard of Honor V
RoH Supercard of Honor VI
RoH Supercard of Honor VII
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28
Wrestlemania 29
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too

The Wrestler (2008)

With Wrestlemania 31 just over a week away, I thought it be best to keep up the wrestling theme with the random movie blog of the month covering a film focusing on the darker side of the squared circle with 2008's critically acclaimed indie film, The Wrestler (trailer). The people at FOX Searchlight wanted to partner up initially with WWE to promote it, but WWE refused because of the dark portrayal of the sport not matching WWE's corporate views. However, once The Wrestler started to garner a lot of positive critical buzz and even a couple Oscar nominations, WWE begrudgingly latched on to promote it at Wrestlemania 25, with the film's star Mickey Rourke making a guest appearance and getting into a little scuffle in the ring with Chris Jericho.

Mickey Rourke stars as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, who once was a huge pro wrestling star of the 80s, but is now well past his prime, competing in front of crowds no longer in the tens of thousands, but instead of just a few hundred in the independent circuit in 2009. The opening act does a great job at setting the stage of what life is like for Randy now in 2009. He unfortunately is like a lot of former pro wrestlers nowadays who were not wise with their money who try to stay too far past their prime to get every dollar possible by working weekend shows, and having manual labor day jobs and selling his own custom merchandise at low attended fan expos.

Randy lives in a rundown trailer he is constantly locked out of whenever he is late on rent. His only friends are a stripper by the name of Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) he frequently visits to toil away his life's problems to, and a neighborhood kid who gets frustrated at getting whooped by Randy in old school Nintendo wrestling games. A traumatic event later in the film inspires Randy to reconnect with his estranged daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood) to no avail. Whenever things start to look up for Randy, he keeps getting sucker punched to reality in this heart-wrencher of a film.

As I mentioned in the intro, The Wrestler is a pretty depressing picture of what life after wrestling is like for many former grapplers. The low budget nature of this indie film actually works to this film's benefit to help capture the dark, gritty feel it has throughout. There are three main matches featuring the Ram taking on a few opponents at various indie wrestling leagues. WXW, Combat Zone Wrestling and Ring of Honor all cooperated with FOX to let them film the matches with very gracious and cooperative crowds in the middle of their wrestling shows. They are not 15-20 minute affairs as they would most likely be if you were to attend a headlining match at an actual live wrestling event, but nice abbreviated two to three minute scenes that do not overstay their welcome, but provide plenty of up close shots of all the weaponry being used that resulted in a lot of bloodshed in the no rules, anything goes match in the middle of the film. Wrestling fans keeping a keen eye will recognize many big and minor stars making cameos throughout the film.

I do not mind the film showing how the business works with the wrestlers talking their way through their spots before and during the match, and showing how wrestlers bleed during matches and how the wrestlers conduct themselves in the locker room. They lay a lot of the inner workings of the business out there on screen, yet do not exactly spell out how it all works, but provide plenty of context I feel for non-wrestling fans to piece together how the business works. Suffice it to say, you do not need to be a fan of wrestling to enjoy this film, much like how you do not need to be a fan of boxing to enjoy classics like Rocky or Million Dollar Baby or a fan of MMA to enjoy Warrior. Like those films, The Wrestler is about the character's journey along the way, and in the end they are the driving force that get you to care about them, not the sport they compete in. Rourke and Tomei are fantastic in their roles as these characters, and both of their hard work was recognized with Oscar nominations (a lot of film buffs went on to say Rourke was robbed of the award at the Oscars, but it is worth noting he did win Best Actor of the Year awards in other highly reverent award shows like the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs).

Bruce Springsteen also won a Golden Globe for his original song he provided for the soundtrack. Speaking of which, I love how almost the entire soundtrack is an excellent arrangement of 80s hair metal. It perfectly captures the old "Rock 'n Wrestling" era of the 80s that was Randy's heyday in the business. The Ram even has Quiet Riot's "Metal Health" as his entrance theme to get you pumped up for his matches!

Springsteen's music video is included as an extra feature. The BluRay edition of The Wrestler has two more extras, one is a 42 minute behind-the-scenes piece called Within the Ring. It is an in depth take on how the film came to be, and goes in depth about filming on location at actual wrestling events, scouting other locations, casting the main roles and interviews some of the wrestlers featured in the film about how accurate the film's portrayal of the business is. Lastly, there is Wrestler Roundtable, which is a 25 minute interview session where a moderator sits down with past wrestling legends Brutus Beefcake, Lex Luger, Diamond Dallas Page, Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine and gets their thoughts about the film and they all share some of their past stories from the road.

There are a lot of films that came out over the years based upon wrestling. Unfortunately, while some of them are at best 'so bad they are good' guilty pleasures like Ready to Rumble, most of them are quite awful. The Wrestler is a much needed, legitimately good and respectful take on the sport that is pro wrestling. While WWE likely shuns this film for not being an in-house made puff piece like No Holds Barred was in the 80s, it perfectly captures the dark side of wrestling that is still a major factor of the business. Again, it is worth reiterating that you do not need to be a fan of the sport to enjoy this film, as the characters and their journey throughout the film transcend the career they are a part of and are ultimately the core of The Wrestler you care about most.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Bounty Hunters
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Faster
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Hercules: Reborn
Ink
Marine 3: Homefront
Marine 4: Moving Target
Rocky I-VI
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Source Code
Star Trek I-XII
TMNT
Veronica Mars
The Wrestler (2008)

RoH Supercard of Honor VII

It is time to pick up where I left off catching up on my Ring of Honor (RoH) Supercard of Honor (SoH) DVDs. Today I am covering SoH VII, the 2013 incarnation of the event. For whatever reason RoH decided not to have a SoH branded event in 2012, but they made sure to bring it back right in 2013 by having it take place on Wrestlemania weekend in the same region WWE hosted its biggest PPV of the year by having SoH emanate in New York City.

SoH VII is being taped at the acclaimed Hammerstein Ballroom. For those that do not know, it has a long history with wrestling dating back over 20 years where most of the first year’s worth of Monday Night RAWs were taped in 1993, and then it started to take over the old ECW Arena for ECW’s flagship event center for its final year in business in 2000. When WWE brought back their version of ECW, the first two One Night Stand PPVs took place at the Hammerstein 2005 and 2006, and now in recent years RoH and TNA Wrestling have been hosting cards there. So to have SoH VII take place there during the biggest weekend of wrestling of the year adds a special dynamic to the event.

We are now a couple years into RoH being owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, and they have made noticeable improvements to the overall video and lighting production of the shows. SoH VII was originally broadcasted live on Internet PPV, and the in-ring lighting and entrance stage areas got a big bump up in quality from the last SoH event in 2011. It is still a couple tiers in quality below WWE and even TNA Wrestling standards, but at least it does not have that low-rent, home movie feel that many of RoH’s past events suffered from. It also appears now that RoH has contracts with several indy bands producing music for them because wrestler’s entrances are no longer cut off anymore. When RoH was more under-the-radar, for their fist several years of existence they were able to get away using copyrighted music, but now since growing more in recent years it is good to see they took the appropriate steps at licensing music with independent artists so they do not face a huge lawsuit from big label music companies.

Enough prefacing, let us get on with the show! There is a well made opening montage setting up the back story going into this event where the big bad faction causing a ruckus in RoH known as SCUM went on a streak of terror at the recent RoH 11th Anniversary Show. However, matchmaker Nigel McGuiness rallied the RoH troops to stand up to the group at SoH VII. The card opened with ACH & Tadarius Thomas beating QT Marshall & mystery partner, his manager, RD Evans with their big bang finisher. RT had a good promo hyping up the mystery partner being himself, and this was a good opening bout with fast paced action to set the tone for the crowd. Next, Shelton Benjamin was supposed to take on former partner Charlie Haas, who suddenly retired from competition which lead to impromptu opponent, “The Prodigy” Michael Bennett. Bennett won with a dirty heel roll-up, and I will tip my hat to Bennett’s manager and former WWE Diva, Maria for taking one hell of a bump towards the end of the match.

Moving on, “Unbreakable” Michael Elgin squared off against Jay Lethal in a contest that featured one of the best superplexes I have seen in quite some time and Elgin winning with a devastating flurry of powerbombs. Afterwards, we had a 10 man RoH vs. SCUM clash with Cliff Compton, Jimmy Jacobs, Rhett Titus, Rhino & Jimmy Rave representing SCUM against RoH’s BJ Whitmer, Mark Briscoe, Mike Mondo, Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander. I am digging Whitmer’s new look since the last time I have seen him, this is the least bland he has appeared and he actually looks menacing now. This bout had nontstop chaos, with SCUM’s manager Steve Corino getting in the mix by laying a beating on commentator Caleb Setzer. In the end of this mayhem, SCUM emerged victorious after a vintage gore from Rhino.

We then were treated to a lengthy montage of Jay Briscoe falling short of winning many RoH World Title matches in previous encounters against Xavier, Samoa Joe and Nigel McGuinness. It helped set the stage for the main event tonight of Jay’s title bout against Kevin Steen. Speaking of McGuinness, he came out to replace Setzer at the announce booth for rest of the show. Next up was Karl Anderson beating Roderick Strong with an Ace Crusher, but like I mentioned in my last SoH write up, I am just not a big fan of Strong, because even though he has some sick looking moves, there is something about his act I find boring and stale in the ring, and this match continued to prove it.

RoH Television champ, Matt Taven successfully defended his title in a triple threat elimination match against Adam Cole & SCUM’s Matt Hardy. First Cole pinned Hardy after a devious low blow, and then Taven got a quick roll-up shortly thereafter to win in a match that featured many interesting shenanigans transpiring ringside with new RoH knockout, Scarlett. The penultimate match featured the tag team titles on the line with the Red Dragons successfully defending against the American Wolves. I think I would have gotten more out of this bout seeing it live since it featured countless highspots in quick succession, but watching it on video the huge lack of selling of these moves and a ref that does not give a damn at having double teams last seemingly forever made this stick out in a bad way as a “indy-riffic spotfest.” I guess I am use to WWE’s officiating significantly improving in recent years in treating wrestling more sports-like and getting quicker at reacting to illegal holds and double teams, and to have the RoH ref here make little to no effort to break up surprising long stretches of it here just did not gel well for me.

In the main event Jay Briscoe challenged SCUM’s Kevin Steen (who you may be more familiar with as NXT’s current top champion, Kevin Owens) for the world championship. I liked how the RoH/SCUM storyline carried over here, with RoH troops quickly preventing SCUM from running in and helping out Steen in his title defense and surrounding the ring and successfully fending off SCUM in a wild brawl. This match did not have as many epic spots as some of the previous duels, but it told a great story between two indy veterans with Jay Briscoe finally winning the big one and claiming his first RoH World Title in a fantastic moment.

Overall, this was a great return to form for the Supercard of Honor brand by having it finish off with Briscoe finally ending Steen’s year plus world title reign. Most of the first half of the show and the main event gets my seal of approval, but the Strong/Anderson and the tag team and TV title matches left me a little underwhelmed. Overall though, a pretty entertaining show that gets thumbs up from me.

I will finish with a quick aside. I do miss the bonus feature video wires that dominated most prior RoH DVDs that usually feature a bunch of promos and quick sketches from the wrestler’s hyping up their matches, but the show kind of made up for them by having quick video packages detailing the history leading up to most of the matches on the card. There are still two other bonus features on this disc with Jay Briscoe cutting a prematch promo and a Jay Briscoe word title celebration that aired on the next episode of RoH TV.

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
RoH Supercard of Honor V
RoH Supercard of Honor VI
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28
Wrestlemania 29
Wrestling Road Diaries Too

Rocky

About a little over a decade ago around 2003 I bought a DVD box set of the first five Rocky films and proceeded to watch a film a week over the next month. It was the first time I watched all the classic boxing films featuring Philadelphia's favorite son. Minus bits and pieces of the third and fifth films, I pretty much enjoyed them all. The DVD box set I had of them however took up way too much shelf space than I desired. Last year I was perusing Wal-Mart's video aisles and was surprised they had all six Rocky movies in one nice BluRay set for only $30, and the size of the packaging was of just one standard DVD case.

I have been meaning to relive all six Rocky films again since the upcoming seventh installment, titled Creed, is hitting late this year and features Rocky as the trainer for Apollo Creed's son. The whole series are terrific underdog sports films, with the first two and the sixth films standing out as legitimate prestige pictures. Ask me any day of the week and my mind would constantly change with those three being which is the best Rocky film. For better or worse, the series goes a little bit off the rails with the third, fourth and fifth films, but even those are entertaining rides in their own unique way. Additionally, I want to try and crank out all six films in two months by the time I run my second ever full marathon to keep motivating me with all of Rocky's infamous training montages by my side.

With that intro out of the way, let us get on to the debut film of the series, 1976's Rocky (trailer). I jotted down a bunch of notes as I relived this, so I am just going to try and mix things up a bit differently here by trying to rapid fire hit all these bullet points on why I loved this film so much. Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) starts off the film barely scraping by in his journeyman boxing career in preliminary bouts at a local church in Philadelphia. To make money on the side he is a money collector for a loan shark by the name of Gazzo (Joe Spinell). I completely forgot that Rocky chain smoked for the first film until he got serious in his training!

It is almost impossible to not fall in love with the Rocky character right off the bat. Stallone nails all idiosyncrasies of the character from his heavy New England accent, to having a certain little swagger with the way he walks bouncing a handball that combines to make him irresistibly endearing. The same bar Rocky revisits in Rocky Balboa, Lucky Seven Tavern, is in here as is a scene featuring a then 12-year old girl by the name of Marie who goes on to be one of the main supporting actors in Rocky Balboa 30 years later.

Rocky's true love is for Adrian (Talia Shire), who works at the local pet shop he keeps frequenting in order to win her over. Adrian is the sister to Rocky's friend Paulie (Burt Young) who has a very hot and cold relationship with Rocky and Adrian throughout the film, and I cannot help but get a chuckle now whenever he erupts in one of his vintage tirades. Watching Rocky and Adrian's relationship grow throughout the film is an entertaining journey, where Rocky attempts to woo her by taking her on an ice skating date, and helps her overcome her shyness and by standing up for herself against Paulie in another powerful scene.

While Rocky is getting his love life in check, the boxing champion of the world, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) is scrambling to find a last minute replacement for his big fight on the country's bicentennial celebration. The top contender had to bow out with injury, and the rest of the ranked contenders are also unavailable so Creed decides to promote the fight with the novelty of America being the land of opportunity by fighting against a hometown underdog. Carl Weathers is fantastic as the smooth talking Apollo Creed, as the film essentially plays him up as their own version of Muhummad Ali. The way he pitched the last second underdog fight replacement sounds ridiculous on paper, but the way Weathers makes the Apollo character deliver it makes it sound like a grand idea to everyone in the room. Naturally, that underdog winds up being Rocky Balboa.

With the assistance of his trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith) and several awe-inspiring training montages, Rocky Balboa gets in the best shape of his life to take on Apollo Creed. Bill Conti's legendary original score makes the training montages and the big fight stand out exponentially more. The build up to the final fight is surreal as both fighters go through their pre-fight rituals I could not help but get my emotions all riled up again all these years later knowing that these two are about to tear up the ring in an epic encounter. All things considered with this being a low budget film from 1976, the camera work and cinematography of the fight still holds up fairly well nearly 40 years later. I am not even going to link to the awesome final fight scene, you will just have to watch the film to experience it for yourselves. Ultimately, Balboa accomplishes his dream of going the full 15 rounds with Apollo and going punch-for-punch with him in a close fight that went to the scorecards and had a very climatic final couple of rounds to take in. As the judges' final scores were announced, Rocky and Adrian shared a final embrace in the ring to close out a film that already had my spirits running high throughout its last act.

The original Rocky DVD I owned had a decent amount of extra features for its 25th anniversary release, but if memory serves right it seemed MGM was releasing a new special edition of this film every couple of years, and this BluRay appears to collect all the extra features from them, and probably tacks on a couple of new extras of its own. There are three commentaries on here, and I bounced around all three throughout the film. The first is just Stallone by his lonesome, and he has lots of nonstop production facts, but he seems a little too laid back especially during the film's more powerful moments. The second commentary is with boxing legends Lou Duva and Bert Sugar and these two were a riot to listen to as they get really into certain parts of the film and relate it to their past exploits in the sport, and also go on some random, but amusing tangents. The last commentary is with seven cast and crew members, but each person is individually spliced away from previously recorded interviews and inserted during the scenes they are talking about. It is a little awkward to listen to initially, but has a nice way of providing nonstop, uninterrupted commentary throughout. Many thanks to MGM for providing separate captions for the commentary tracks as well as the rest of the extra features.

The primary behind-the-scenes extra feature is a three part documentary that lasts 76 minutes titled, In the Ring, that interviews all the major cast and crew members. It covers the origins of the Rocky script, how each major cast member landed their role and dissects the production of the pivotal scenes from the film. It is a good history lesson of the movie, and if you only had time to check out one extra feature, In the Ring is the perfect place to start. There are about a dozen other behind-the-scenes features on here that average around ten minutes in length, and most of them are worth going out of your way to see, but if I were to recommend only three I would suggest checking out Opponents, which profiles and interviews all the Balboa antagonists (save Mr. T, he ain't got time for no jibba-jabba) throughout the first five films. Steadicam: Then and Now is a look into the then breakthrough steadicam technology and how Rocky capitalized on it being the second film to make use of it. Finally, Staccato: Composer's Notebook with Bill Conti is an in depth interview with Bill Conti on how he came up with all his unforgettable tracks for the film's score. There are still plenty more extras I can go on forever about, and I took notes on every single extra feature on the Rocky disc alone, and minus the commentaries, there are a whopping four hours of extra behind-the-scenes features to indulge.

Rocky is a historic movie you owe yourself to watch if you have not already. There is a reason it is one of the few sports movies to be nominated, let alone win the Oscar for Best Picture. It was the catalyst for all the other underdog sports movies after it, but it is still one of the best with many great feel-good and powerful moments throughout. I cannot help but love its message that you can do anything as long as you put your mind to it. These are the reasons why I have the film's poster on my wall. For Rocky fanatics, you will love that this looks as good as it can possibly be in HD, and you will get a lot out of the four hours of extra features included. Please join me again in a couple weeks as I dive into the next film.