“You’re gonna eat lightnin’ and you’re gonna crap thunder!” – Mickey
Mickey was the kind of trainer who could take a punk like Rocky Balboa and help him get a once-in-a-lifetime shot against the champ, Apollo Creed. Creed was cocksure, experienced, and a businessman. Rocky beat up on sides of beef at work, collected for loan sharks, and dated Michael Corleone’s sister.
“Stay in school and use your brain. Be a doctor, be a lawyer, carry a leather briefcase. Forget about sports as a profession. Sports make ya grunt and smell. See, be a thinker, not a stinker.” – Apollo Creed
Everybody thought for sure that Rocky would beat Creed. He didn’t. You had to wait ’til Rocky II for that. But Rocky went the distance. And why? Because he had the eye of the tiger.
The new Creed does not have the eye of the tiger. But maybe, with Rocky’s help …
Wait, wait, wait. Who is this “new Creed”? Let’s back up.
Apollo is dead. Remember? Ivan Drago broke him. That was back during the cold war when it was ok to shoe the Russians as cheating, steroid-injecting commies while Rocky ran uphill in the snow carrying firewood. But anyhow, Apollo is dead. This new Creed is Apollo’s grandson.
The younger Creed has grown up rich, never needing anything; never needing to get in the ring, for sure. But he’s got something. Maybe it ain’t the eye of the tiger, yet. But they’re gonna make a movie about him anyway.
NJ reports that director Ryan Coogler is in talks with Michael B. Jordan, of “The Wire” to play grandson Creed. And that Stallone will come back in as Balboa yet again. Where the whole thing goes from here is anyone’s guess. But any director worth his salt will put in training montages and an incessant rain of undefended back-and-forth haymakers in the ring.
It’s “Rocky” for the next generation. Or the one after that.
