The Rewatchables - ‘Creed’ Live From Philly With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Episode Date: February 19, 2024Live from Philadelphia, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan revisit the first installment in the 'Rocky' spinoff franchise, ‘Creed,’ starring Michael B. Jordan,... Sylvester Stallone, and Tessa Thompson and directed by Ryan Coogler. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Who cares about your team winning the Super Bowl when your team could win the offseason?
My name is Danny Hyfitz and I host the Ringer NFL Draft Show with Danny Kelly, Ben Solack and Craig Horlebeck.
We cover trades, free agency, the draft, obviously.
We cover quarterbacks and there are a lot of good quarterbacks this year.
And the teams at the top of the draft, Washington, New England, Chicago, big teams with big histories.
Listen to the Ringer NFL draft show on Spotify.
This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly.
The all-in-one creative studio with AI-powered image and video generation.
Build for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast.
Because the asks aren't getting smaller.
And the timelines?
Ooh, yeah, still tight.
With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life.
Learn more at Adobe.com slash Firefly.
This episode is brought to you by Apple in 1810.
scroll long enough and you'll hear it all. Miracle diets, fitness trends, you name it.
But with iPhone and Apple Watch, you get meaningful insights from a very trusted source.
Your body. You can track sleep quality, cardio fitness, and more than unpack all the information in the health app on iPhone to get a picture of your overall health.
These health insights are developed with clinical experts from start to finish.
find out more at Apple.com
slash health.
Apple Watch is not a medical device
and should not be used as a substitute
for professional medical advice.
The rewatchables is brought to by
the Ringer podcast network
where you can find the Bill Simmons podcast.
You can find the watch with Chris Ryan.
You can find the big picture
with Sean Fantasy.
You can find higher learning
and Midnight Boys in the Ringervverse pod
with Van Lathen.
The four of us,
we're in Philadelphia a couple weeks
ago for the cold weather tour
we recorded Creed in front of a fantastic audience.
We had a great time.
We didn't realize later that week, Carl Weathers passed away,
and we would have absolutely talked about him for a while at the top of this podcast.
He's not in Creed, but his character of Apollo Creed had a huge impact on the movie,
obviously, as we dive into and definitely would have talked about his impact on pop culture
in America in the 80s and 90s.
Four Rocky movies, Happy Gilmore, Predator, Action Jackson, really, really a beloved guy.
And a huge part of my childhood and young adulthood and really all the way through.
Not that I'm in my 50s, but wanted to give a shout out to him.
Rest in peace, Carl Weathers.
Here is Creed.
I heard about a third fight between you and Apollo.
How do you know all this?
I'm a son.
I want you to train me.
Your father was special.
I don't know if you are.
See this guy here?
That's the toughest opponent you're ever going to face.
What's wrong?
Hey, hey, somebody out!
If I'm fighting, you fight.
Feed back to everything that's ever hurt you.
You belong to here.
Is this thing on?
Yeah.
Hello, Philadelphia.
Thanks for coming out tonight.
Thank you to the Home Depot.
I want to introduce to you
the one, the only Sean Fantasy.
the original Midnight boy
Van Lathen
either the king or the prince of Philadelphia
Chris Ryan
You're in Philly?
I am
It's a home crowd for Chris
It's like a home game for you
Home game
You're gonna get all the calls from Scott Foster
tonight, Jesus
That's right
CR, we're doing Creed tonight
which came out less than 10 years ago
Usually we like to
You know, at the rewatchables
We wait a little while
we look at it.
Let it marrony.
Pour it.
Yeah, pour a nice little glass of wine with it,
stare at the wine, stare at the bouquet.
Creed is just good right away.
It continued to be good.
CR.
Yeah.
Why is this such an iconic Philly movie?
I think it somehow just represents the attitude of the city itself,
of just this like grinding,
like you're sitting under this gray sky,
you're running through the streets,
you're doing your thing and you're just trying to like make it to the top of some
mountain. Even if it's not the mountain,
it's like you're just scratching and clawing
your way to a living, to
like some kind of happiness.
It's just an amazing depiction of like the city's
psyche in a character.
I'm seeing CR as a
Donis Creed right now.
Like the whole movie instead
CR is Donald's Creed.
That's right. In more
ways than you know, which we'll get into
and we discusses.
Van, what's your relationship with this movie?
I mean, when I first heard the premise, I
was going to be stupid as hell, right?
Because it doesn't sound
like it would make sense to do
the movie. There are too many questions at the outset.
You know, when did Apollo
have time? They knocked this bitch up.
All different types of shit like that.
But
the movie itself, I mean,
the movie itself, though,
was so
unbelievably good. I remember
sitting in there about 35 minutes
saying, I was like, yo, do these motherfuckers got me?
I think they got me.
And since then, like, it is aged insanely well.
Ryan Cougar coming out at that time.
Mike, it was like at the perfect time
for both of those guys in their careers as well.
How'd be you, Sean?
I came out at a weird time, actually,
for me and you and Chris,
which was between Grantland and the ringer.
And so I didn't have to see movies for work.
So I just saw it in a movie theater with everybody else.
And it was like three quarters full
and just grown men crying in the eyes.
eyes, just weeping, like falling to their knees and people standing and applauding.
And it was just a genuinely rousing experience.
And like you said, it's still that damn good 10 years later.
I was so nervous because, you know, Van, you have, what's your favorite franchise?
Marvel, Star Wars.
Like, if you had to go to, what is it?
Star Wars.
So this is, Rocky is my Star Wars.
Rocky's your Star Wars.
Rocky is my, I was next.
I was never a comic book guy.
I was never a Star Wars guy,
but Rocky,
Rocky 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Those were my movies.
And then Rocky 5,
I don't know if it was the most disappointing moment of my life,
but it's like in the top six.
It was just so upsetting,
and I just felt like they ruined the franchise.
What upset you about it?
It's terrible.
It made no sense compared to the other movies.
They made Rocky brain damage.
He ends with a street fight.
It was just,
so it was like,
all right, everybody gets a mulligan.
And then they came back in the mid-2000s
with Rocky Balboa,
which it's like, it's okay, right?
You're a little tough on Rocky Balbo.
Well, it's like Rocky karaoke.
They just kind of hit all the same beats.
You still had Starkey from the previous one.
Yeah.
So then they announced Creed,
and it's like, Stallone's not writing it,
but they got Coogler and they got MBJ.
And it was like, oh, that won't, maybe.
But I had my guard up.
And why did you have your guard up?
because cougler and mbj were doing it because i didn't what's what this is not
this movie called creed what what what's going on here i thought this by the way i thought this
by the way because you didn't let me answer oh go go please please i've just watched hollywood
fuck this up so many times and i was actually more nervous for them thinking oh man this is what
they're going to do after fru-vail they're going to try to save this rocky franchise and then i actually had
MBJ, he came over to my house through the podcast
before it came out, and he was so
passionate about how good it was in the whole...
No big deal. Yeah, it was a little name drop.
Yeah. I caught
him early. But he was
so passionate about it, and then I saw
the screener, and I was like, oh, my
God, they did it. They pulled it off, and it's even better
nine years later. I think also, Sean's point,
though, about the theatrical experience of this
was, like, it's like, Creed
and Top Gun Maverick, where
the two and the more recent movies were
where people were saluting the screen.
And it was just like,
this was basically like,
if you combine Field of Dreams with 300,
so that you can just cry about your dad
for like an hour and a half
and then punch a wall as hard as you can.
It was a more innocent time, too.
Like, if you go back to when this movie came out,
there were a few other quote-unquote franchise movies
that came out that same year.
It was Mad Max Fury Road.
It was Jurassic World.
which we make fun of now, but think back to when you first saw that.
And then it's Star Wars, The Force Awakens, and Creed.
And these four big franchise stories from our youths that were getting rebooted.
And they were all somewhere between good to amazing.
And we were not burnt out on IP.
And we were like, hey, maybe when we were 13, we were really cool.
And we were really smart.
And it's okay to be weeping in the aisles.
So I think that's a part of why we were so open to it.
They released it on the 40th anniversary of the first movie.
which I saw in the theater.
I was six years old.
And I did not understand the ending.
And we're walking out.
I'm like, did he win?
What just happened?
And had no idea that this movie was going to start the jogging craze.
Makes Stallone one of the biggest stars of my entire life.
Lead to Rocky 2, which I saw in the theater.
And I'm not kidding you, guys.
People were reacting to Rocky 2 in the theater.
Like, they were watching Game 7 of the NBA Finals or something.
People were standing up, screaming.
It was such a great experience.
And then Stallone became, you know,
one of the biggest stars,
probably the last 40 years.
Connie, it's a little downturn, gets old.
And this Sean turned out to be
the Stallone comeback movie.
And to the point where we thought
he was going to win the Oscar,
and then he didn't.
Do you want to talk about that now?
We should do it.
Let's do it now.
Because after watching it this time,
I'm like, it's kind of a highway robbery
that he doesn't get it.
You have to piss somebody off.
He pissed everything.
Yeah.
When you look at it right now, there's not a better story of,
because you don't get a chance to play the character of Rocky Balboa to come full circle
with a character over that many years as an actor.
It just doesn't happen that much.
It would be like if after Unforgiven, people were like, nice job, Clint.
Good.
Good one.
I think what, Sean, do you agree with the theory of the Golden Globes kind of killed it for him?
I think it's a little more.
complicated than that, but we can talk about that.
You mean just the fact that he failed to thank
Ryan Coogler and Michael Jordan in his speech?
He wins the gold. I change my mind. He didn't deserve it.
Slag gives this whole long speech
thanks a bunch of people and doesn't thank
Ryan Coogler and people got fucking mad.
And they should have been mad. He actually did come
back out on stage during the commercial
break of the Globes is a true story and came back
to the microphone and thank them
because he knew how much he had screwed
up by not that. He thanked WME like
three times in this speech. And
and didn't thank Coogler in the NNHAT.
He was thinking like mailroom guys.
He was like, and then there's Alan in the mail room.
But I do think it's like...
There's Adam who works with Alan in the mail room.
I do think it was deeper than that though,
which is that it's not that he pissed off one person.
It's that he pissed off a lot of people.
It's that he was historically a very, very hard person to work with.
And he didn't win at...
You're talking about Van or Slice?
Well, one of your key inspirations.
Well, when I think about it now,
because when I first looked at it,
when I first saw it, I was mad,
because I was like, damn, you ain't going to forgive these motherfuckers, you know,
or thank these motherfuckers.
But now think about it.
Think about if you're him.
Why would I thank you for you making my shit?
This is like when I make the higher learning.
It's really because, like, you guys know I never, ever, ever, ever bring up race.
It's not one something that I do.
But this is actually one time where it's more old motherfucking shit than just like,
because it's like, you know, I invented these motherfuckers.
They should be thanking me or else there would be no free, you know?
so he blew it and then he didn't get the Oscar,
but I really do think that it was,
there wasn't,
wasn't as nefarious as people made it out to me.
He became the third actor in Oscar history
to get nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.
The other two.
For playing the same part.
For playing the same part, my bet.
Al Pacino for Michael Corleone
and Tyler Perry for Medea.
No, that's wrong.
You just turned the race back up.
No, my bad.
Yeah.
I had that wrong.
It was on the side of the white guy.
I would just...
Every time you try to do it, bring you back.
It was Barry Fitzgerald as father Fitzgibbon and going my way in the 40s.
Yeah.
So anyway, he lost to...
Let's not shit on going my way, okay?
That's a beautiful story of Irish faith.
Is that true?
Yeah, of course it's true.
Okay.
He lost to C.R's guy, Mark Rylance.
Yeah.
That was really pulling for Rylance there.
Bridges Spies.
That category also had Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Slice Stallone, and our guy, Mark Ruffalo.
They do.
More, I think worse for me than Stallone not getting nominated was Creed not getting nominated for Best Picture.
That's the one that, looking back, it was Spotlight One, Big Short, Bridges Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max Piro Road,
Martian, the Revenant, and Room.
I'm pretty sure Creed was better than
Room. I kind of liked Room,
but... It was between this and Room
for this show.
Yeah, I don't know if you guys are coming out for Room.
Can I make a special request?
Can Room be the last rewatchables?
Solo CR Pops. I'll put it down there.
Wait, we got to go back to Slice.
Sean, you have a thing you love to call the
I'm ready to love this guy again movie?
Do I?
I'm attributing it to you.
Bert Reynolds and Boogie Nights.
Trevolta and Pulp Fiction,
when stars that become white hot
and it kind of fades
and then they have a little comeback
and you're watching them
and you're going,
God, I love this guy.
This was I think was the biggest
piece of the sly and rock
because he stripped it down.
He wasn't like,
he wasn't doing any of that stuff.
It's a really good portrayal.
I totally agree.
I mean, very similar echo
in the Bert Reynolds situation
where a lot of people thought
he would win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Bougie Nights
and didn't win in part because a lot of people
kind of thought he was an asshole.
But, you know, Sly just didn't do enough roles like this.
Like this version, this older Rockie.
Copland. Copeland was another one of them.
Yeah, but he just, he's a very good actor.
And he never challenged himself in the 90s.
He was always taking on action parts that minimized his ability to,
honestly, to a moat.
But when you watch this movie, you see how gifted he is.
I think there's something about this movie that speaks directly to that.
too. As Rocky
went on, the films became more
about an expression of his physicality.
He got super
swole, totally natural, I bet.
He got super swollen, right?
And even Rocky Balboa.
Rocky Balboa is a guy who loves
boxing, who's like, I want to mix it up with
the best guy out there right now. So whether there's Roy
Jones or Antonio Tarver, let me get
out there and do it. This movie is actually stripped
from all of that. You see
Rocky at his weakest, right?
And the whole series just charts his career.
Right.
And so, like, in this film, it's all about what the character has actually learned and those scars.
And he actually turned the role on his head, which was pretty fucking awesome to see.
The thing that makes this movie work probably is the fact that in some ways he didn't have as much creative authorship over it.
I'm sure he had a lot to do with the way those scenes were put together or whatever.
But this is the Rocky movie.
He does it right.
And he jumps back in for Creed 2 and gets a co-writing credit.
But it takes a lot of humility, I think, to just be like, all right, like, the only way that this is going to happen is if these guys make the movie.
And he kind of, like, lets himself go and throws it all into his performance.
And I think it's actually, like, a pretty vulnerable performance in that way.
C.R., can you do the Stallone Philly thing for us?
The Stallone Philly thing?
Like, why is he important to Philadelphia?
Yeah, like, where does he rank?
What is his relationship with the city over the last 45 years?
I don't know.
Give it to us.
Let's hear it.
I think that Stallone, can I be completely honest with you?
I think Stallone is like yours, like, I'm a little bit older than you guys, so I get it like this.
Like, Rocky is just like a step too old for me.
Like I love Rocky.
I love those movies.
But the Stallone Philly iconography, like I grew up right by the art museum.
I've seen that statue more times than I've seen like anything in my life.
But there's this like weird relationship with it where it's just like it became like the export of Philadelphia for a while was was Rocky.
You know what I mean?
It was him.
But do you associate with him with Philadelphia necessarily?
Wait, what should have been the main export then?
Let's dive into this.
Aaron McKee?
Yeah.
Aaron McKee and Eric Snow.
That's right.
The Jermere Nelson Delante will have St. Joe's team that got jobs.
Yeah.
Let's talk about Googler.
Just real quick.
You know Philly got real boxers.
You know what I'm saying?
I just want to make sure I'll say that.
Shout out, because they got real.
You're going to be a real.
Bernard Hopkins could be the mother brother.
You know, they got...
Well, the Philly Fighter thing
was, like, one of the biggest pieces of the identity.
You just hear that, you know exactly what it is.
Like, a fake white boy.
Like, when it's like the dopest box in town
in all of America, you know what I mean?
They got real...
Detroit has a case.
For, like, over Philadelphia?
No.
I guess so.
I guess they do.
I guess they do.
New York has a case, too.
So Coogler does Fruitvale with Michael B
and takes this over.
And a big thing for him was the father's son.
theme, which I think is one of the reasons this movie indoors.
Not to get super-duper serious, but this is an emotional movie, man.
I've seen it a bunch of times, and each time you get choked up, it becomes like the male
steel magnolias, basically.
There's very few male movies where you're just like, oh, man, this one gets me every
time.
Pollan, some get a little dusty in here.
Cougar lost his dad right before the filming, and then, you know, and then, you know, and
And Stallone had lost his son about a year before,
which they end up working into the movie,
which we'll talk about later.
But want to talk father-son?
You want to talk father-sons with me?
Yeah.
With all of you.
No, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's Googler superpower
is finding these big, obvious stories that we think we know
with characters that we think we understand
and injecting humanity and personal experience
and making them feel real.
There's a moment at the end of the movie,
right before the 12th round starts,
when Rocky and Adonis,
Rocky's talking to Adonis
about how he never thanked
his father.
And he says, I love you to him.
And it's the last thing that Rocky says to him
before he knocks down Conlin.
And it's just, it's like there's a machine
that makes tears happen inside of you
whenever that scene plays.
It's remarkable whatever it is that they're doing.
And that's just great writing, great filmmaking,
great acting, you know?
And he was 29 when he made this movie, Coogler.
29.
So it's amazing.
Like whenever you're looking at one of these boxing movies,
the fighting in the movie is always, you know, an allegory for something that's always like what you're fighting for, right?
Even the original Rocky, at the end of the movie, when he loses the fight, he gains Adrian, right?
He's like, Adrian, Adrian.
So really the fight is for him to access the power of his life.
It's for love.
It's for all of this.
In this movie, Adonis is fighting for his father.
He's fighting to be a son.
He's fighting to be a part of a family.
Like, that's the only reason why he's doing it.
He doesn't have to do it.
He doesn't share the same hardship.
He's fighting for an identity, and that identity is of a son.
He gets a father in Rocky.
That's very, very important.
But at the same time, Rocky gives him his father back,
because there was a part of Apollo Creed that no way.
one could give Adonis but for Rocky because Rocky knew Apollo in a very specific way.
So when you look at the movie like that, it's about this kid who's going through this
incredible journey to have that connection that everybody is supposed to have and you know
that you want.
And there's like the whole idea of like you're fighting your dad for like the most of your
life.
Like this idea that you're both trying to become your father but also fight against and resist
that image in your head.
And it's basically played out in a couple of scenes throughout the movie.
Most crucially, like, when Rocky comes to see him in jail.
And that's when Adonis kind of finally breaks it.
But he refuses to let him in until, like, really until the fight.
It's also the line that he says that his most critical is not just that it's a father
and a son.
It's a father and an illegitimate son.
And he says to prove that I wasn't a mistake, which is a really powerful idea of a person
just not feeling like he's fully a creed.
The idea of what does it mean to be a creed is what's driving the movie.
But to your point, he did that Black Panther too, where he basically,
takes a Marvel movie and makes it about these two brothers, right?
Like, it's, yeah.
I think one of the things that amazes me about this movie is it builds toward him saying,
I got to prove it that I'm not a mistake, right?
Which is the most distinct way to explain the plot of the movie,
but they deliver it in a way where you're like, oh, my God.
Like, it's just like a haymaker.
He's so good in it.
This is, would you say this is the best he's been in a movie van?
Michael B. Jordan?
Yeah.
Yeah, I think the, the, the, the only,
only killmonger is got to be right there as well just because killmonger is such a force of
nature that he overshadows god rest his soul our beautiful brother some of our beautiful brother i see
not all y'all but but he takes that movie from chadwick bozeman so that would be the only
thing but this is the most affecting performance by him for sure chris it's without remorse for you
right it is yeah i'm a big tom clancy guy well there's another thing that that that
hasn't aged that well with MBJ because he's so famous now.
But, you know, he was Wallace.
And then he was on Friday Night Lights.
And then he was on parenthood.
And it's like, oh, man, I'm rooped for the...
Every time I saw him, I was like, oh, I'm rooting for this guy.
Hope he makes it because I love the wire.
And then Fruitvale happened and became a star, but he still had him proven he could carry
a movie that was actually going to make money.
And then Creed comes out.
Now it makes sense.
But back then, we didn't know and he was able to do it.
Sean, are you disappointed that cool?
Googler hasn't made more movies.
I mean, the era that we romanticize where people are cranking them out, you know,
making eight, ten movies a decade.
And he's been two in the last nine years.
Yeah.
I mean, I think when we first talked about the movie, he was clear that he's part of a
generation of millennial directors, for lack of a better word, that's like Damien Chiselle,
Greta Gerwig, the Safeties, all these exciting young filmmakers.
I guess maybe Barry Jenkins and Jordan Peeler, part of that class too.
It's a pretty good class, by the way.
Amazing. It's very exciting to like movies now and have those filmmakers,
but he's made since this movie two Black Panther movies.
I like both of those movies.
I really like the first Black Panther movie.
I wish he did more.
He will do more.
He's going to do more.
Hopefully more with MBJ.
That whole generation, the movies you were referring to that came around this time,
even with Jurassic World,
they were just sucking up indie directors from that world
and just putting them right into franchises on their second movie.
I was going to ask you guys,
do you think that it's the best,
jump from Sundance movie to big franchise movie ever.
Wow. Great question. I mean, as a next movie, it's
yeah. It's right. It's got to be, right? Because if you, if it doesn't, it seems like some
shit that they come up when they was fucking around on Fruitvale, right? Like they shoot
dice between takes, hey, let me take something, it'll be hard, bro.
It'll be hard if we picked up the Apollo Creasor with that motherfucker, grandson and
some shit like that. Like the only, the only other one that I can think of is Linkley are going
from Slacker to days.
But Daze was in a blockbuster.
Yeah, it was.
You know, it's like a cult movie, but it's not like a blockbuster movie.
You know one thing about Coogler, though?
It's like, to you guys' point, he really does, he takes all of these movies and puts a lot of himself into them.
Like a lot.
Fruitville is the story of Oscar Grant.
That's from where he's from.
This is a very direct story about fathers and sons.
And then even with Black Panther, Black Panther goes straight from, Baba, tell me about, like, where we come from, directly.
Oakland, 1990.
He puts a lot of this, and it might not be as easy to crank them out that much if they're that personal to you.
He's not adapting a ton of stuff.
He might be a little bit more of the reclusive, introspective artist than the guy who gives it, who floods the block all the time.
Yeah, because one of the things I love about Creed is there's pieces of it that almost feel like an indie movie.
But then all of a sudden, we're in the ring for two rounds with one of the great sports scenes anyone's ever filmed.
But then you'll have these scenes where they're just lying upside down.
him and his girlfriend.
You're like,
oh, this easily could have been
a Sundance movie too.
I wish he made more stuff.
$40 million budget for this made $175
million.
Spawned two sequels.
I like Creed 2.
We were just talking in the car over here.
Creed 3 should have been Creed 2.
I think that
that would have been a better second movie.
That story is more compelling.
And then you could save Drago for 3.
You made the good point that Cree 3,
which is about somebody from
Adonis' past coming back
looking for a piece
of his fame and success
is a very common thing
that happens in the second movie.
And that would have happened, like, right when he popped, kind of.
I like Creed 2 more when I saw it
than when it's like on now.
I'm like, oh, Creed 2.
Because, you know,
it's stupid, right?
It's like, it's not that the movie's bad,
but fighting Drago's son
might be a little too on the note.
You know whose idea that was?
Whose idea was that?
Sylvester Stallone.
See?
He cartooned it again, so that's a little too on the nose.
But Cree 3, I actually dug, you know what I mean?
I liked it, too.
Yeah, I dug it.
I thought it had a lot of twists in terms to it that I wasn't expected.
Okay.
Let's do the categories.
You didn't like Cree 3?
The boxing in Cree 3 is good.
Was it necessary?
Was the boxing necessary?
No, Creed 3.
A little bit. Was Creed 3 necessary?
Is it necessary that we're all here tonight?
No, but it's fun.
Was it necessary that you got your heartbroken by Rocky 5?
I saw in the Sagertown Mall.
Went to visit my buddy Jim Grady for the weekend who was going to Colgate.
I specifically went so we could go see Rocky 5.
And we reacted like the Detroit Lions fans last.
weekend after the Sunday
God damn.
Are there Lions fans here?
What are you?
Do you remember what you did after Rocky 5?
What did you and Jim do?
We got drunk.
Yeah.
If you thought HBO's
Euphoria was intense in high school,
saddle up.
Season 3 of Euphoria
picks up five years later
and life looks very different.
Hello, Rue.
You owe me money.
No matter what they're chasing,
money, love, or redemption,
no one can escape their fate.
The problem is,
If you make a deal with the devil, there's no turning back.
Don't miss the third season of Euphoria, starring two-time Emmy winners in data.
Now streaming on HBO and HBO Max with new episodes every Sunday.
The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul Predicts.
Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, and misses.
Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner.
Sign up for Fandual Predicts
and predict it from the couch.
Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC,
a registered futures commission merchant.
18 plus.
Trading derivatives involve significant risk
and may not be suitable for all investors.
Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools.
All right, the categories.
On the rewatchables,
we like to go through categories
and break the movie down.
First one is most rewatchable scene.
I love the opening credits with Little Adidas.
You got to love that.
The credit.
credits like the no i'm sorry the opening oh okay the opening with the little boy i it shouldn't work as
well as it does and it's great when your father died i was angry for so long i hurt myself
pushed family away i don't have no father what did you say i said i don't have no father
that's not true he passed before you were born but you had a father you know he was my husband
Adonis, I would like it very much
if you would come and stay with me.
And I like seeing Felicia Rashad.
It has to work.
Like that's one of the...
It should have gone badly.
It's the one of the old...
If that scene doesn't work, the movie,
it has to work.
You have to understand
the entire reason why he feels the way he feels.
Yeah, when his fist unclenches.
Yeah.
Has a great hammer moment too.
With the, you know, what's the name?
And then we see the title of the movie,
Bam.
Donnie goes to see Rocky.
in Adriens, unless you want to put
the Andre Ward scene as the most rewatchable.
Oh. Oh, you pick who's next with the car key bet?
Yeah. You put that in? I don't like seeing Donnie get beaten up,
but... That scene was... I know it's a good scene, but it makes me sad.
Because that happens, like, you're in there, because you know how I'll be boxing the shit.
And just like, the moment that you think you're a man,
like, some 147-pound Mexican jumps in the ring with you...
and just beat you black-a-boots.
That happens just like that.
Yeah.
Do you get car keys a lot?
You want to what, my 2010
Ford of Corr Kostor?
You got the same.
Next scene, Donnie goes to see Rocky
in the Adrian's restaurant.
This was taken from the 10th round
in the first fight, right?
Good call.
How'd you know that?
I heard about a third fight
between you and Apollo.
Behind closed doors.
That's true?
How'd you hear about that?
Who won?
It's kind of a secret.
What'd you say your name was?
Done.
Okay.
Well, then the girl said you wanted to talk about something?
Yeah, I want to talk to you about training me.
Training.
I don't do that stuff no more.
Sorry, back there.
Listen, he's getting kind of late, kid, so I'm going to close up.
How good was he?
Follow, yeah, he's great.
It's perfect.
Ain't nobody ever better.
So how'd you beat him?
Time beat him. Time, you know, takes everybody out.
It's undefeated.
Anyway, I got a lock up.
So when Mickey died, he came and talked to you, right?
Talked you out of quitting.
Took you to LA.
Trained you.
Brought you back.
I remember the first time I saw this movie,
I was like, honestly, blown away.
It's like an incredible format.
There's so much going on.
And Sly trying to figure out, like, wait a second, why does it?
Wait a second. Why does this kid know this stuff?
How does he know there was a third fight?
Why does he know I didn't call Creed's wife and him just putting the chest thing together?
Him looking at the photo. He's like, oh, it's 10th round.
It's just great. It's just a great four minutes.
Time takes everybody out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That to me was when I first saw it, that was the thing that was like a splinter in my brain.
Because you led to believe that Rocky Balboa is like the greatest heavyweight champion of all time.
They have to redo the mythology.
Rocky has to downplay himself and big up Apollo Creed
that your dad's a perfect fighter.
Tom beat him, not me.
Like, you have to believe that Rocky can beat anybody at the beginning.
They just turn the whole thing on his ass.
Well, there's a little bit of what we were talking about backstage,
which is your Kurt Cobain theory,
that Apollo dies young.
And Rocky lives in newest 70s.
See, now I have to explain the Kirk Cobain theory.
I was just saying Justin Timberlard,
I can't speak.
Justin Timberlake
might have been better off
just than like in 2012.
Oh my God.
Just got kidnapped by UFO or something.
I can't believe.
It was just a theory.
Just a theory.
Maybe the last 12 years, if he goes out in 2012,
we're like, that guy was amazing.
You think he would be regarded as
Kirk Cobain if he died?
Kirk Cobain of this generation.
My point is that Apollo died young,
so he gets to be remembered as more legendary.
It doesn't feel that way.
They do build the mythology in the series, though, that this guy was.
Like, Ali, he was one of the best.
He was the best one of the best.
I love the, I didn't beat him, time beat him.
It's so good.
But then at the end of the scene, we think we find out who won the third fight,
which was one of the great unanswerable questions of any sports movie.
They have this ding, ding, and they have the fight at the end of Rocky 3,
and we never know who won.
And Rocky says, Apollo won.
I don't, I'm not positive, I believe it.
You don't believe it.
I don't know how to feel.
You think that their mentorship is founded on lies?
No, I, you know, this Apollo's illegitimate kid shows up at his restaurant and is clearly lost and wants him to train him.
And then he's like, hey, who won the fight?
Is he going to be like, oh, I knocked your dad out in round two?
Like, no.
You got a glass jaw like your pops.
Yeah.
Don't get in the ring.
So I don't know.
The scene is so much funnier if it goes like that, though.
It's like, who was there a part?
I beat the shit out of him.
I broke his orbital bone.
It was amazing.
I don't know what,
what do you think happened,
Van?
You think he,
you think he was lying
or do you think he was serious?
I think he,
I think there's probably a large part
of your identity that you can't believe
that Apollo can ever do,
I mean.
So I think that's probably why you have,
that's why you have trouble with it.
But it,
I think that Apollo probably won,
but I have some thoughts later on
about what,
happen after they fought.
So, yeah.
Later on, why don't you just do it?
All right, save it.
Yeah.
Next scene.
It's a short one, but
so Donnie moves into
to Polly's old room.
Thank God.
Thank God it.
That's no, no Polly.
And...
Why do we see the robot butler in that room?
Yeah, where was the robot was in the closet?
And Rockie says,
Paulie was my best friend, even though he
wasn't so friendly.
This is the nicest thing anyone's ever said about Polly.
But then Donnie sees the picture,
and it's a picture of Sly and his son,
that Sly's actual son, and the son had just died,
I think, when they were pre-production in the movie.
And if you watch, like, Sly's, like,
really, like, barely keeping it together in the scene.
It's like this rare example of, like, real life
and the movie just kind of blending together.
It's really good.
And in the research that said,
Cougler was pushing hard to put the picture in and slide didn't want to do it.
And he's like, let's use it.
Let's use it and convince them.
The next scene is one of the great sports movie scenes of all time.
A two-round fight with Leo and Donnie that they film in one shot.
Deep breath, deep breath.
Look at me.
I like what you're doing out there.
All right?
You're a little tight.
You're going to loosen up.
All right?
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to do your left under the radar.
And there's never, come up with this shovel hook.
You're going to see an opening, put it right on his chin.
That'll drop him.
I'll be...
A piece in, seconds out.
Your old man did that to me.
It worked.
I'll piece in.
Seconds.
And there are no tricks.
What's the cinematographer?
Maurice Alberti.
Who did the wrestler and did some other stuff.
And then peaked with this.
A lot of independent movies in the 90s, yeah.
And they shot 13 takes of this scene.
And they used the 11th.
And holy shit, Sean.
It's like the culmination of 75 years of boxing movies.
It's everything that they figured out in Robert Rosson movies in the 50s that, you know,
Scorsese figured out with Raging Bull that we saw in the 2000s.
It's like it took a long time to get to a place where you could choreograph what it feels like to be in the ring.
But it is the closest that I think you can get to what it feels like to being in the ring for a round with a fighter, two rounds, really, with the fighter.
I think that like the Tijuana stuff is actually the moment when like you're watching this movie where you're like,
oh shit this is for real
like this is a real boxing movie but this
scene is like the proof
that Michael B. Jordan can do it.
Like there's no cuts you're just like in it with him
and you're like this guy's like a I believe
that he is Adonis that I believe that he is doing this.
And in many ways it's the most
if you're thinking about
Fruitvale station to Creed
the biggest questions you're going to have
about Coogler's ability
is whether or not he's going to be able to get that stuff
right and he gets it right to such a degree
he's just like you know next level
talent. All the boxing in this is absolutely top-notch.
It's a really, so you're, you should frame it maybe in the history of Rocky movies, too,
because I feel like the final fight is a Rocky movie, but that sequence is not a Rocky movie.
It feels more like real boxing. It's more tie-ups, counter-punching, not these big
swinging strides and huge uppercuts. It's what a match really more often looks like because
of the framework, but in the Rocky movies, doesn't always look that way.
Yeah, it's funny when the first rocket came out
and it got credit for how good the boxing scenes were
and then you go back and you watch
and it's like the wide shots,
you can see all the seats that are empty
because they couldn't afford enough extras.
He misses some of the punches
and for the time it was good,
but it has not held up great.
And I think they got better as it went along.
I actually thought the Rocky Balboa movie in the 2000s
was pretty realistic with Antonio Tarver.
This went to a whole other level.
I think it's the best ever filmed
And also I love, you know, the way they use the camera where it cuts the Stallone and he's like,
now, do it now.
And then it cuts back and then catch both punches.
And then the guy goes down and stays with MBJ.
And he's looking over at Stallone.
It's like, we got one, rock.
We got one.
It's just like, I don't know how they did it.
It's like a classic, wait, how the fuck did they do this?
Which is like, one of the sweet spots with any movie like this.
Next one.
This is right in the heart of Philly.
the good luck baby creed scene
it's short
but donnie gets into a fight
with tone trump
hey man why don't you come over here and grab this pick on you real quick for the green
yeah that's cool
come on man you know you're busy man
welcome to my city chan
that is a buddy
hey good looking baby creed
don't call me that
don't call you that don't call you what
you just called me baby creed
don't call me that
hey fam big this I was showing you love man you ain't got to come
off like that. Yeah, that's cool. That's all love.
I know it's cool. You definitely know it's cool.
Now, you're talking to me. You're talking real tough, you feel me?
I've got to talk to your little pretty boy boyfriend, man.
You get a VIP pass next to your pop talking to me like that.
Do you want to do this now, Van?
Well, I was just texting with him because I was asking him to come up here.
I was going to have him just bun rush the whole fucking scene.
So I was like, yo, what's up? Yeah. I mean,
yo, man, it's pretty, it's pretty obvious if you watch the scene
that prior to Adonnas coming around
that tone Trump was fucking on Bianca.
It's like pretty, am I wrong for thinking this?
That hadn't occurred to me, no.
No, I'm not trying to be, like, quaker about it.
I just really hadn't occurred to me.
You're joking.
Of course.
I really literally, I got, yeah.
He does.
That scene is just the most Philly fight.
It's just like two guys who suddenly take offense
to each other for no reason whatsoever.
And you're just like, wait, why is this
light, middle, heavyweight champion?
punching this rapper in the face.
But there is a reason, though.
At a neo-soul concert.
There is a reason, though, because he sees her,
and he's like, he hits over a couple of things.
How are you doing? First of all, the way he's talking to her, man.
Talk to my girl in a different way.
You know what I mean? And he's like,
yo, it's what you don't know nobody no more.
And then the way she comes back at him,
there's some history there, and then there's something else that happens.
He says to him, she goes,
you better tell him what time it is,
because I know you.
know what time it is.
She's been around them. She didn't polish them gats up,
brus. You know what I'm saying? She didn't
clean the nine. She knows what's
going on. Am I wrong for thinking
this? Why do you keep looking at me?
Because you, because you,
I feel like there's
history. Is there not history between them?
So, I would say it's one of two things.
Either there is history or there's
a history of him flirting with her and trying
to make a history.
But it's one of the two. She clearly has
some sort of background with him.
But it might not have consummated it.
You don't think so.
I thought he crossed the line.
I don't know.
I think, and he did.
He definitely crossed the line.
In the world of Creed, is there a file somewhere where tone Trump has a verse on a Bianca song?
Definitely.
Hold on.
I just thought of something.
Yo, I know why she's losing her hearing.
She didn't heard the nine bus sing many times.
It's residual from the nine plus.
Is that a metaphor?
No, she didn't have.
And now her shit is losing.
Shout out to her, man.
It's a great sound effect.
Is this part of everything you were hoping to be so far?
Is being called Baby Creed insulting?
I think he's ready to be insulted by absolutely anything at that point.
Yeah.
You can make a case either way.
Hey, did you see the Sixers win last day?
You'd be like, fuck, are you saying about the Sixers?
I don't know what.
With 10 and 72.
Not a problem.
Not the night to bring up the Sixers, Chris.
Hey, don't turn on me.
I'm trying to protect you guys.
You should see Bill's direct deposit
just hit Cominga's account.
Kamika did not take
enough shit for that.
It was like he did like a flying
Sean Michael's elbow on him, basically.
Next one is the jailhouse combo.
When Slides basically
apologizing for what he had said earlier, which
was not a rewatchable scene, but we're going to talk about
later. And he does that you hate
me, that's what it is. Or maybe you're mad
with somebody who ain't here and can't defend himself.
You're still caught in the shadow. You've got
to move. It's a really good Stallone monologue
doubling as the Oscar speech. Yeah, it's
the same as the mirror training scene
where he's just like, that's the guy you've got to fight.
Yeah, it's good.
I don't think you're doing enough Stallone tonight.
You should do a little more Stallone voice.
You know, it's a long night. I'm trying
to pace myself.
The training scene with bikes and ATVs.
God damn it, do I get fired up?
It's so good.
I would like the raw cut of Michael B. Jordan without the music,
just going like this and just doing this at a window.
It's really good.
I like how it's very 2015-ish.
It feels adjacent to the 70s, rocky training stuff that we all grew up with,
but it's different.
So there's great context for this,
which is you may recall as Philadelphians
that in 2015,
Drake and Meek Mill were beefing.
Wow.
And Drake was very successful at the time as he is now,
but Meek Mill tweeted that Drake does not write his own reps.
Quinn Miller.
And then Drake put out like three songs in a row
that were just very successful.
And everybody's like, ah, Drake won.
Drake wins again.
And then this movie came out and that scene happened.
and everybody was like, fuck Drake.
Meek Mill is the man.
Do you think that the billboard charts
reflect that everybody was like, fuck Drake?
Not in this room.
Yeah, I know.
Some people wake up in the morning
and they have like a protein shake
and then they get UV rays
and then they like do their morning workouts
and I just watch the YouTube clip of this.
I watch all the bikes coming out by them
and he just keeps sprinting this day of the bikes.
It's fucking incredible.
Also Wednesday,
Kid Cuddy Pursuit Happiness Award
for best noodle drop.
Absolutely luck.
Every sports movie that works and is a Hall of Famer has to have a chill scene.
I always call it where you just get like little goosebumps.
This movie has a couple of them, but that's like a total chill scene.
That's really good.
I love the press conference, the lead up to the fight against Pretty Boy, Ricky Hanlon,
you know he's going to start shit.
And then he calls him, you're a false creed.
You're a false creed.
Ooh.
Gets the trunks from Ma.
gets Rock's pre-fight speech
comes out to Pock,
Hail Mary.
The Conlin entrance.
All of it's really good.
You know what has another scene that I really liked?
What?
Him shadowing his father when he's watching film.
Oh, in the beginning, yeah.
That is just,
that's another thing.
There's so many scenes in the movie
are just emblematic of the entire film.
He's watching him. He wants to be him.
He's there. He's not quite there.
him shadowing his fault.
I love that scene.
It stuck out to me a lot
when I was watching it on this rewatch.
Then the entire fight's rewatchable.
I mean, you can split in two parts.
Round two is great.
I love Sly when he does it.
Hey, hey, hey, hey.
It's you against you.
That's how.
Usually, Steve Sly's advice.
The opponent doesn't matter.
You're the opponent.
But then when, when Creed gets popped
in round 11 and then goes to the corner,
the corner tapping his head in the back.
We get the I gotta prove it
That I'm not a mistake
I should have stopped this
By your father
I'm stopping this one now
Don't okay
Let me finish
I gotta prove it
Prove what
I'm not a mistake
Look at me
I never got a chance
To take a power
For helping me out
After Mickey died
But it's nothing
Compared to what you've done
You taught me how to fight again
And I'm gonna go home
And I'm gonna fight this thing
But if I fight I want you to fight too
I want you to go across this ring
And knock that sound
little bitch down. Can you do it?
Say it.
I'm going to knock that son of a bitch down.
I know you are. You know why? Because you're a creed
and I love you kid.
You're a creed. I love you kid.
Fucking great.
And then the Rocky theme.
They were holding it. They were holding it.
They were holding it. Yeah. They were getting blue balls.
You're going to play it. You're going to play it.
Give it to me. Rocky theme.
They finally do it.
They're going to play the theme, Jim.
Come on.
They're holding it.
And then in classic rocky fashion,
we had to have just a ridiculous ending that I loved,
where he knocks him out and we run out of time
and either he gets up or the fight's over.
I have some thoughts about that later.
You want to do that now?
No.
Okay.
And then last scene, the last scene on the steps.
Right, the old man?
Yeah.
Nice view.
If you look hard enough, you can see you.
whole life from here.
How does it look?
Not bad at all.
Not bad at all.
Which is really nice.
Yeah.
What do you have for most rewatchable, CR?
It's by far the
Meek Mill training montage and
running up the street. It can't be anything else.
I do have some addition.
An addition is the
Bianca and
Donnie going out for their first
date when they go get cheese steaks and then they have
a conversation. I had that under the category
of most Philly thing about this
movie.
It was like, is this movie
filming enough?
What about a cheesecake date?
Yeah.
That also won the Big Guna Burger Word.
Finn, what do you have for most rewatchable scene?
Him shadow boxing with his dad
and also just the training montage.
I mean, that's the
mascot scene of the movie.
I also feel like the recreation of
24-7 is incredible
of stuntman versus
pretty Ricky Conlin. I was like, I want to see this
fight now. I was really invested
in that storyline, too. I think we've talked about this
before, but what do you think
Leav Schreiber's quote is?
Because, like, could we
just get Leav Schreiber to do 24-7
for anything?
If we had, like, $25,000?
Would you just be like, Chris Ryan
gets up in the morning and checks Twitter?
It's a long day.
Can I tell you something?
And now he's on hoops.
I really lost a little bit of respect for him.
I don't know if anybody's room.
No, I know what you're going to say.
When he was at Hard Knocks?
When he was on Hard Knocks and he showed up,
And he got off the helicopter and he fanned out over Aaron Rogers.
He crossed the beams, man.
And I was like, you're a Lee F. Schreiber.
Get off the camera right now.
And it shows him respect.
It's just a football player.
You married football sequences all day long.
I thought that was embarrassing.
You say, I'm a Jet fan.
You say fuck him or flacco?
It's kind of the same thing.
Next category is Woodside.
Oh, I have most rewatched by the, the, the, the, the,
Training scene.
Yeah, I mean, come on.
Woodsage the best.
I love all the subtle homages to the Rocky series that they do.
Just sprinkled through like, oh, that reminded me of that part of Rocky One chasing the chickens.
They got like a million of those.
Can I tell my favorite of those?
Yeah.
In the final scene, Kellerman is doing the color.
And he says, just like Balboa, he's going to the body.
But just like Creed, he's trying to go upstairs.
Which is exactly what the fight is at the end of the first ride.
Yeah.
What do you have for what stage is best, Chris?
I think I have like, actually, this is like a small scene,
but I love Rocky's resistance to training Creed for like the first third of the movie.
And I thought like all of those scenes were really great,
but especially at the van when he's helping unload all the restaurant food and stuff like that
and bring all the groceries in.
But when he finally comes to the gym, he's just like, I don't know what I'm doing here.
You know?
It's just his, it actually is like a really effective hurdle for them to get over.
It really makes them movie really effective.
You got one, Van?
Yeah.
Emotionally manipulating women as age the best.
Let me tell you when this happens.
So he's outside of her door, right?
And he's bamming on her door.
He's banging on her door.
He's trying to get her to open the door.
She's not going to open the door.
And what does he do?
Rocky's sick.
To her credit though, it's not like she's like, oh, come on in then.
She opens the door, you know?
It's like, baby, baby, blah, blah.
It's like, you know damn well my father never loved me.
Now we can start the conversation.
So when I saw that, I was like, ah, my nicked.
Sean, you mentioned the 24-7.
That's true.
You're saying you like picked up some lessons from that?
No, I'm like, I'm like, we can have the same teachers.
You know what I mean? You can't leave no bullets in the gun when you're outside the door.
You know what I'm saying?
You got to shoot them all.
You mentioned the 24-7.
Try to move on.
I also love that there's a Creed Balboa Supercut 2 on YouTube.
Some of the media touches in this are just really smart.
But the 24-7, I agree with Sean.
It's absolutely perfect.
Like they could have, I was ready to watch six episodes of that.
I love the giant Mickey Mighty Mix
Jim poster that they have, that big blue one.
I want that for my house.
All the Coogler camera touches.
All the little stuff, especially like the upside down,
the kiss part and the cheesecake,
how he's filming them in the booths.
And he's filming each one and like a side of the booth.
Andre Ward.
Is this the peak Andre Ward?
Ward van?
Yeah, so we're talking
2015.
Didn't he win a gold medal?
I'm saying like as a boxer.
This is...
He retired undefeated.
Yeah.
But I mean,
he won all three belts
in two different weights classes.
But was this one he was at his best
or was that in like 2010?
I can't remember.
I think it's more like in 2010.
He had two back to back fights
against Sergey
Sergei Kovalev and both the fights
were kind of controversial,
but that was the guy he had to dispatch.
So that would have been around the same.
Did he knock out Kovalev in the first one though?
He didn't know.
Well,
The first one was a disputed decision.
The second one was a knockout, was a knockout,
but people thought that the fight was stopped after Kovalev didn't fire back,
but people thought that some of those shots were loved.
But this was probably around the time that he might have been the biggest deal,
because those fights were just happening, yeah, or they were going to happen.
Well, here's a good one stage the best.
Wood Harris as Duke's son.
Wood Harris, who ordered
Wallace's death
in the wire
as Avon Barksdale
and is now
the one who won't train
Donnie Creed
in Creed
stroke of genius
this is just
this is you're just playing for me
at this point
you're just mixing my worlds
and I absolutely love it
it's like the number one reason
to make a sequel
is get more Wood Harris
is just we gotta get this guy back in here
great Wood Harris
here's at what's age the best
last alone was 69 years old
when this film was released,
which was the same age
as Burgess Meredith
and Rocky One.
What?
How about that?
That motherfucker looked
175
and he was a day old.
Are you kidding me?
Yeah.
I like Donnie Colin Rock Unk.
I thought that was,
that was,
just immediately jumps in on it.
He had some hard years.
Burgess Meredith.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, he looked that way
in 1954, though.
Yeah.
Like,
it's like if he really hithered away.
Because he was in the Twilight Zone.
Yeah.
He was also a lot of the
world one of the great episodes.
He was in the Twilight Zone.
Yeah, he was on something.
He was, yeah, it's like, he looked 275 in.
Yeah, yes.
Everyone spoke back then, though.
It was like, you were 60.
A lot.
That's not why, just Meredith looked like.
Marlboro Reds.
I let Conlon's trainer just in general, I think, is really good in this.
Graham McTavish.
And doing the whole, if he changes his name, we have a fight.
Just master chess move.
What do you think of the, uh,
The 24 jacket, MBJ has.
I mean, the Nike thing.
Yeah, that.
I'll buy it.
I literally buy the jacket.
Was that like a limited edition one?
Or what was that?
It's Kobe Philly?
Oh.
This was what I was wondering.
Let's dive into this, everybody.
But Donnie is from California and Donnie's from L.A.
So it makes sense that he would, he would I-Ly's Kobe.
Laura Marion.
Yeah.
So this is good.
You know, when MBJ came to my heart,
house.
We did a pod.
He told a whole story that's on that podcast about Stallone said you got to take one in the fight scene.
It's like, what does that mean?
It's like, you got to take one.
You got to actually take a real punch.
That's part of the tradition.
I took a punch in every movie we did.
Carl Weathers did.
Mr. T. did.
Dolph Lundgren did.
You got to take one.
So they filmed that.
All guys, I would want to build my future career around.
So when he gets knocked down the 11th round,
that was when he took the punch.
And he gets clocked and they show it.
And he said he saw stars and the whole thing.
Did he say you had to take one at the end of the pot?
So anyway, the tradition got kept alive.
And then any other one stage the best?
Because I have two more.
You guys have anything else?
No, I think everybody, you guys got them all.
I mean, I would just say that the fights and the Leo the Lion fight is just,
it's age the best.
Yeah.
I mean, Winkler Shardoff taking a chance on 29-year-old Ryan Coogler to make an Apollo Creed's son movie is, in retrospect, a crazy risk.
Yeah, what a fantastic point.
Yeah.
Like, the pitch must have been crazy.
Like, what a fantastic point.
So, Bianca, I have as a what's age the best because I grew up with these sports movie girlfriends that they were always, like, poorly written.
or they always existed to just like throw cold water on our hero
or just kind of like Adrian standing at the top of the staircase and Rocky 4.
You can't win!
He's like, cool, I'm going to fight this guy.
Thanks for the support.
Literally, literally, we could give her the rose from Titanic Treatment if we wanted to.
I'm in Russia.
I was about to call her out of name.
I'm in Russia.
You, what are you telling me?
I need you, baby.
This is the whole thing.
It's me and you.
You don't know that your brother
about to fuck off all my money
in the next movie.
Yeah.
I have to put up with your loser brother.
Yeah, I got to pull up with your loser brother.
I took you out of Philly.
You were going to have a fish,
what the hell are you doing?
I hate it so much.
It's so annoying and bothers them.
Well, she shows up eventually
and then plays a pivotal role
when he's lifting the giant log
seat thing with her, Polly,
dude. Now, here's the thing.
Rocky was in Russia. You know, it was
a lot of Brigitte Nilsons over there. He'd have been
wronged. He'd have been like,
I slide to the side. Let me see what's up.
Anyway, I appreciate that, Bianco.
Bianco is a real character that they actually
tried to put some effort in and had some
had some things to her. We will talk about her
Philly accent in a different category, though.
And then
Tony Belize.
as pretty Ricky Conlin,
a real fighter who ended up winning a title
a little bit later.
But he's in a bunch of categories,
but for the most part,
I thought he did a pretty good job acting.
He did a good job acting,
and it's also like just complete Everton propaganda
on the part of Stallone,
who's a huge Everton fan.
Yeah.
You didn't like that?
I was fine with it, but I noted it.
Okay.
Yeah.
PTI leading in the A block
with a boxing match.
How many times does that happen in the history of PTI?
Is this a nitpick?
No, it's a, what's age the worst?
Like, it's like, PTI.
We're not even in which age the worst yet.
Why are you jumping categories on me?
It bothers us.
You just ripping corn eyes on for no reason.
And they should get paid too, just like Leif Schreiber.
Chris, what do you got for Great Shot Gordo for the most cinematic shot?
I have two that I thought were.
The Leo the Lion woner, like the whole tracking shot throughout that first fight.
and I actually love the first intro shot of Creed in Tijuana,
like taping up his,
taping up his hands.
I like the ATVs in slow motion.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
I want to add those too.
I got the walkout.
Do you think Gordon Willis would have done anything differently with those ATVs?
Probably wouldn't have thought of the slow-mo.
The Mighty Mixed gym I had for the scene stealing location, too.
All right, so the Vincent Chase Award for,
are we sure this character was actually good at his job,
named after Vincent Chase, the star of entourage who couldn't act.
I am giving this to Tone Trump.
Get him on the phone.
Repeatedly calls a professional boxer Baby Creed,
hits on his girlfriend in front of him.
Oh, you don't know North Philly.
Says, welcome to my city champ.
Every single thing he says is provocative.
And then leads to you're going to get a VIP pass next to your pops talking to me like that.
That is aggressive.
That one cuts a little close.
And then guess what?
He got punched right in the face.
This is cultural.
I tell him.
He don't give a fuck about all of that.
Like, if he just says he doesn't care.
And really, he threatened his life right there.
You know, you take the shot, whatever.
But, like, he really would not care.
What's his job?
He's a rapper.
So I feel like he's spitting.
Like, I feel like he's good at his job, right?
Yeah.
His job is to just start a fight before his own show
With a professional boxer?
Oh, excuse me.
Adonis started to fight.
Adonis got emotional for no reason whatsoever.
He looked at him and said,
I'm trying to show you love whatever.
And then at that point, that whole thing is Adonis's fight.
I got to be honest with you.
Adonis is very emotional.
And he's emotional for three free movies.
Like he is.
Adonis is very emotional.
Who else would you give?
If he doesn't get it, who gets Vincent J?
This is really easy.
It's the ring doctor in the Conlin fight
who has a.
future as an independent neurologist for the NFL.
Tap, tap, tap.
All right, you're all good.
He gives a look like he knows the cuttman.
He knows that's happening.
He knows.
He lets him go back out there.
He looks, oh my God.
It's so funny to his coolers, like, just in case you guys think he can see at all, he can't.
It's blacked out.
They're just like, tap, tap, tap.
That's good.
I like it.
The Butch's girlfriend,
Front award for the weak link of the film.
I don't like when Rocky turns on Donnie for like three minutes there and he says,
we're not a real family.
That was just an our heads kid.
It's just out of nowhere and it's mean.
And I just don't.
He doesn't want to let him get close.
Just like he was close to Adrian though.
It does make sense.
He's like, if I let you in, this is going to hurt you like it hurt me.
But Rocky was for every single Rocky movie was just like a nice guy.
I think he's being a nice guy in that scene.
In a way.
What do you think, Sean?
I mean, he's an embittered part of his life.
He's all alone.
Everyone has left him, right?
He's at a really sad state.
So he's raging.
You know, I get it.
You get, because you're a Jets fan, you get it?
Ben, you like it or he didn't like it?
What?
You like it or he didn't like it?
I like, it was fine.
You know, I mean, Rocky just abandoned his restaurant to train this dude he just met.
So like, so like, so anything.
Do you think Rocky is cooking?
I don't know what's going on at the restaurant,
but like we don't even see nothing.
It happens at the restaurant.
Like, Rocky just leaves the restaurant
so he could turn his back on anybody at any time.
You think the food is any good in that restaurant?
At Adriens?
Yeah.
Yeah, what is it?
Like, just like basic Italians, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, I think the idea is that Rocky comes out.
You take a picture.
He signs a thing for you.
You have your pasta with clams.
What would you get Gaba Gable?
So it's like I got food poisoning last night.
Adrian's type of restaurant.
I'm still pukeing.
What's age the worst?
The age stuff, we just got to do this now.
So we know that Apollo dies in 1985
because the Christmas fight
with Drago and Balboa
where Rocky went to Russia and fought for no money
in Rocky 4. Which is the most impromwell
in the history of sports movies. No money.
Don't even donate to the charity.
just let Russia profit from it.
So,
even if it's summer
1985 for Creed dying
at Drago's hands,
then that means Donnie's born in
1986, which makes him 29
at the time
of this movie. Does that add up for you, Chris?
It does not, but it's not the only thing
in this film that somewhat doesn't add up, so it's okay.
Is it possible that Adonis' mother
is a black Russian?
No, because,
Wow
This is the type of bullshit I like to hear
I think they should have
I really went there and found the one
motherfucker that they got
I think they could
They should probably said it in 2010
Because I feel like Cree
Donnie in this movie is like 25
My only question is how do we know that that fight
took place in 1985
The movie came out in 1985
But how do we know that that fight
took place in 1985?
So you're saying it took place in the future?
Well, I'm saying, I'm saying maybe it took place in 84?
No, maybe it took place in 88.
Is Creed definitively set in 2015?
No.
I guess not.
But the kind of music that Bianca plays was, like, becoming popular, like 2014-15.
So that would be the hint.
All right.
Chris, you want to talk about Bianca's Philly accent?
I think it's not the accent as much as the vocabulary.
When this first came out and she said Johns, I was like, holy shit, I feel so seen.
This is happening in a major mainstream film.
And now, every time I see it since then, I think Johns has become so popularized and shared throughout the world that like it kind of grates a little bit.
There's also the specificity of cheese steak orders.
This is obviously very hotly debated on the internet.
I don't know.
Do people just, do you guys think that Bianca's cheese steak order?
is Philly accurate.
So that seems like something they could have gotten right really easily by asking a Philadelphia.
Chris, you were right there.
All they had to do was calling you.
I don't know.
So what was the right cheese steak order?
What did she do wrong?
I really want to know more about this.
It's usually Whitwiz, right?
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, and she's just like cheese and mayo.
It's just kind of, it just seems kind of like she's throwing ideas out there.
Can I say something real quick?
So I will say that the filmmakers were probably confused
because if you ask 10 different people from Philly,
they say 10 different fucking things.
If you ask them where to go like, hey, like,
so last night I'm on the old Twittersphere
and I'm like, where should I, you know, I'm not going to,
so this is what happened.
I told Bill this earlier.
I was going to go out and explore Philly at night last night
and people were like, don't do that, you will be killed.
And so I actually door dashed the,
the cheese steak last night.
And every single...
I like that I went out, but you didn't.
Like, I went out by myself to get dinner.
But we asked different people.
We did.
We had different risks.
Your info might be better than mine.
Right.
So, like, and so when I asked different people,
and different people were not only telling me
where to get the cheesecake,
cheese steak from, different people were telling me
what I had to have on it.
Yes.
So I ended up being fucking cheesecake confused.
Cheese steak confused.
I don't know what to do.
You were Justin Timberlocked.
I was just in the cheese case.
Yeah.
I got it from Iskubibbles.
Hey.
But see, it's like only one third of the crowd did that.
You know, it's just like...
So, Morwood's age the worst.
So Rocky admits that he'd never called
Apollo's widow ever again
after he gave the speech at the funeral.
Oh, my God.
What the fuck, Brock?
I know he had brain damage for, like,
15 years and then it went away, but
could have, like, checked in.
You're looking at me? Like,
I'm not Rocky's like... I'm just upset.
I think, like, guy like that,
probably big hands, not really
good at texting.
So he's just like,
Hey, Marian, just checking in. How are you doing?
Will you call Eileen when I die?
Like, after I'm dead, will you call
and be like, what's going on? How's it going?
Just so you know, I'll be taking over the big picture
as when's planned out.
Some of Rocky's choices,
I mean, he turns his money over to Rocky 5, he turns his money over to a guy that Polly knows.
It's like, oh, Polly's got a guy.
So dumb.
First of all, isn't Rocky guilty, though?
Doesn't he feel guilty that maybe he, I mean, he essentially killed Apollo?
Listen, Rocky 100% killed Apollo.
She's upset about it.
That's what I'm talking about, sister.
She's pissed at your determination here, Bill.
She says the reason he's guilty.
He isn't called because he's guilty, right?
Because he murdered a.
Apollo? He feels bad.
He didn't stop the fight.
Throw the damn town.
I'm aware.
Checking with the widow.
Hey, how you doing?
Merry Christmas.
Do you think you should send cards that's just like,
everything's going well at the restaurant?
Just got a new chicken parmesan.
Ed Rendell came in.
We took pictures.
You watch on the Supriottos?
Pretty good.
Another one's age the worst.
This movie's, it's like,
12 minutes too long, but I also wouldn't cut
in it.
12 minutes, motherfucker?
20 minutes?
I get the movie's too long thing
is your bit.
Yeah.
12 minutes?
It slows down a little bit in the middle, a little bit.
What's 12 you want to yank, Bill?
I don't know.
I just said, I don't know where to...
You're the one who wants to take killers of the flower moon
and shoot in the sun.
It's not just this.
He had a bit of a debate backstage.
Yeah, we had it.
Got uncomfortable.
You missed that, we should do...
Did it get uncomfortable?
Not for me.
Not for me.
No, Sean loves that.
You said you went to sit yourself on the line.
As the Embed meniscus terror news hit,
these guys had like a 10-minute argument
about Killers of the Flower Moon versus the Flash.
And I was just like, this is...
None of this is fake.
This is who we really often have.
And I was on Twitter,
Twitter searching LeBron trade,
because it feels like,
yeah, you guys get in LeBron?
Do you
Do you
Do you want them
C.R. LeBron
You want him here?
Bring Butler back?
Bring Jimmy back?
Is that what you're saying?
That would be fun.
See, Jimmy was the perfect Philly guy.
He was.
They really fucked that up.
Bring Simmons back.
No.
This is going to cause a riot.
Any other, what stage is the worst for you guys?
Yeah, just in general, you don't see a lot of printing out resignation letters and handing them to your boss anymore.
It's like overly formal by Donnie.
It's like, you can put this in an email, man.
Yeah.
You just got your cubicle.
We're not going to put up a plaque.
And I was wondering, we haven't talked about this.
It's not like, it's a, I guess, somewhat delicate subject.
Do you guys like Donnie dumping out before the fight?
No.
Yeah.
It's like one of those things in the movie
You're like, it's humanizing
And then I'm like, I don't need to see this
Every time I watch Creed
Disagree
Good
It's weird because it's not like him and Bianca
Had been together for three years
Exactly, yes
Oh, he scares her
She leaves
Yeah
She gets right out of the room
She knows it's coming
Also one last thing is just
Donnie when
Bianca and him are having the fight on the street
Which is actually a great scene
The argument that they're having
On the sidewalk
he's like 100% honesty from here on out
and that does not play out over the course of the sequels.
Yeah.
He lies to her several times.
One other small thing.
Boxing?
Boxing at right now in the culture of America.
Oh, it's just a what's age the worst?
Yeah.
Interesting is I think it's...
I mean, it's obviously it's aged poorly since Rocky came out.
You could argue that over the last couple of years
it's on the small upswing?
I feel like it's as small as it's been in a hundred years.
That's definitely true.
That's no doubt true.
I mean, it used to be, like, I could ask you guys right now.
I mean, it used to be that, like, the heavyweight champion in the world was the most popular athlete in the world.
So, you know, but I wonder if they remade this in 2024 would it be MMA and not boxing.
But they try MMA movies, and I'll be honest with you, for some reason.
No, Warrior's amazing.
No, Warrior is Rocky M&A.
But it's just not, it's a good movie, but it's just, it doesn't capture people.
Will you be watching Roadhouse with Connor McGregor?
I definitely will.
I'm excited.
It doesn't capture people as much as boxing still does.
It seems like boxing still has a better story to it.
This episode is brought to by Pure Michigan.
In Grand Rapids, every moment feels like a scene worth replaying.
Every riverside stroll, every slow afternoon sipping small batch brews,
every guitar riff drifting out of the city's brand new amphitheater.
This is a place where everything feels cinematic.
like you've stepped into a highlight reel that's yours to explore.
Ranked as the number one city on the rise from LinkedIn,
Grand Rapids invites you to find a rhythm all your own.
Season after season in Pure Michigan.
Find your season at experience gr.com.
This episode is brought to by Brooks Running.
Sometimes in the film world, we see performances on screen
that are so mind-blowing you think someone somewhere is bending the rules.
Like when one actor plays twins or nails a really difficult accent,
The glycerin flex from Brooks is that phenomenon in shoe form.
It provides a flexible cushion ride that's made to move with you.
With the breathable upper, your shoe feels like a distraction-free second skin.
It's the ultimate blend between human movement and tech.
So if you want to experience the best parts of your performance, flex the rules.
And the new glycerin flex, shop the glycerin flex at brooksrunning.com.
Was there a better title for this movie?
I'm going to say no.
Absolutely not.
All right, it's time.
The Stephen A. Smith hottest take a word.
Where we each say a take that we may or may not believe.
CR, start us off.
Should this movie be called Wheeler?
Don't we just skip the fact that Conlin breaks this guy's jaw?
And he doesn't get his shot at the title.
And there's no retribution for Conlin because he's already going to jail for his gun charge in Everton.
So I just feel like there's like a whole like what's Wheeler's like attitude about
the fact that this kid
slingshots into like the public consciousness
and he's like all I've got is my gold medal
and a broken jaw.
That could have been the sequel.
Yeah. I mean, for sure.
What do you got, Van?
So I thought about this when I watched it this time.
Oh, no.
Put your seatbelts on, everybody.
It's my hottest take.
I think that Rocky and Apollo
fucked after the third fight.
I thought I had like a hot take too.
I think when I look at the movie
through a West Hollywood perspective,
I see different things.
You know, like there's something between Donnie and Rocky
to where there's a thing.
He's like, who won the third fight?
He won. Yeah, he won.
There's something else.
Why wouldn't you call for 30 years?
Why don't you want to talk to this man's wife?
Broken hearts, yeah.
So it's not.
I'm just, I'm just, there's something else.
These guys beating the hell out of each other,
running on the beach together.
I went back and I watched the scene,
there's something happening, baby.
So this is not about Rocky becoming Adonis' father.
It's about him becoming his mother.
His mother.
Exactly.
Now you're with me.
I watch it now and I'm like,
there's something that's different.
And guess what, guys?
I know, it's okay.
I'm fucking with it.
I'm here.
for. So that's what I'm saying. That's my
hottest take. I think there's something else at work
there. You got applause.
Just let me know.
Just let's tell you something right now.
Sean, do we even try to follow that? Or just move on?
I thought this was good, but I guess it's not.
I think, I don't
Creed should have won at the end.
Like, they should have let him win.
And honestly, Rocky should have won at the end of
Rocky. And I know that this is part of the mythology now.
And then we thought it was such a bold choice
The moral victory, yeah.
But I'm rewatching Creed and I'm like, just fucking let this guy win.
Like, why?
Wouldn't it have felt even better if he had won?
I honestly sometimes forget that it's, that he loses because it basically plays it like he wins.
You know what I mean?
Right.
It sets up the sequel.
But that's the only reason why.
And doesn't that feel cynical?
My hottest take is not as good as Vance.
I think this is the best reboot of a movie franchise ever.
You know, I was asking this.
I don't think anyone's done it better in more ways, like, using the history of the movie,
keeping a character integral to it, reinventing it, making it feel modern.
I don't think it's been done better.
The only thing I was thinking, I had it written down, best legacy sequel of all time.
The only thing I would say is, Blaylor in 2049, and then also fucking, I've got the year wrong,
also Top Gun Maverick.
That's the only two that I was thinking about.
like Top Gun
wasn't a franchise.
There was one movie
and then it's basically a sequel.
They made six Rocky movies.
Cobra Kai.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Yeah.
Batman?
You know what the mics?
Oh, the Nolan Batman's?
Batman's.
The Nolan Batman's?
Yeah, maybe.
Which Batman?
There's like 30 reboots of Batman.
They're something like Dark Night, I guess.
Y'all just saying shit.
Ever since the cheese steaks.
Ever since the cheese steaks,
it's like Jerry Springer in here, yeah.
Casting What Ifs?
So I don't think there's been enough time
with this movie yet
because part of casting What Ifs
after like 15 years, it's like,
oh, Omar Epps was almost Creed
and they start making shit up.
We don't have anything yet
except for...
Merrill Streep was up for Bianca,
but couldn't do it.
So you never know
to believe.
The only thing,
the reason
Felicia Rashad
was in this
was because Apollo's
wife was played
by Sylvia Emil,
she actually died.
Pass away, yeah.
Yeah.
So that's why they had to recast.
The Ruffalo Hannah Rubinick,
Partridge.
People.
Overacting a word.
They're calling me lady.
I love MBJ in this movie,
but when he's in the basement
and he's like,
I'm going to fight Rickahehan.
I'm going to find Rick of Haaland.
He dials it up a little bit there.
Yeah.
Yeah?
The only other one I got is Kellerman.
You know, take it down a notch.
Jeez, hasn't he taken enough shit the last year?
Now you've turned on him, too?
I like Kellerman.
It was just like, he's doing maximum Keller.
You're Stephen A. Smith.
The hottest take could have been fuck Max Kellerman.
Yeah, that's right.
It wouldn't have been Adon and Apollo fucked Rocky.
But it would have been close.
It would have been better than we were.
That was a great way.
Best That Guy Award, Leo's dad, what's his name?
It's Richie Costor.
From Black Hat.
Is he not of that guy?
He is the that guy.
The craziest thing about that actor, who's in True Detective as well for the second season,
is that that guy is from England.
What?
That guy is definitely from Philly.
Yeah.
That's some of the best acting I've ever seen.
That and Graham McTavish, who plays a dwarf and The Hobbit.
Yeah.
And I'm sure it has many other credits, yeah.
This will be fun.
The Danny McBride Award for Excelling at Playing Yourself,
our nominees, Wilbon and Cornheiser.
Jim Lampley and Max Kellerman or Tone Trump.
Or Shriver.
Oh, or Liam Schreiber.
So I'm going to give it to Tone Trump.
But at the same time,
I felt like Cornhizer and I feel like I just threw it in there.
Oh, I think it's Loban and Cornhizer.
That is like an actual PTI segment.
Yeah.
Yeah.
is getting mad.
Right.
Yeah.
No, it's great.
All right.
Dion Waiter's a word for best he check.
Cornerizer, Wobon, eligible.
Leo's dad.
When Rubon is like, we all make mistakes.
Sometimes you fuck a black woman in Russia, you know?
It happens.
In Russia.
What's what's talking about it?
Tone Trump?
Who do you have for Deon Waders?
I got Richard Koster.
For Dion?
Yeah, Leo's dad?
Yeah.
Okay.
I got Wood Harris.
Wood Harris comes in for one second and cuts this motherfucker
his whole life of three.
Like, he's in there,
shut up, Creed.
Go back to L.A.
Rich boy?
What happens?
If Wood Harris, like, trains,
like, don't you think Wood Harris
is sitting in, like,
just tatters when he sees
what happens to Creed?
Well, I mean, he comes back.
I know, yeah.
So, yeah, but he's just in the scene
for one deal, and he's it up.
Is Ricky Conlin eligible for that?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, he's in the movie a lot, though.
He's like, my dad walked on the docks.
Yeah.
Your dad is Creedy.
It's an incredible scouts accent.
It's good.
I liked it. Thanks.
Skipping recasting couch.
Am I in a comedy club?
Yeah.
New category just for the live shows.
Not sure if you guys are aware of this.
What would Tony Romo's director's
commentary for this movie sound like?
Chris, you want to take a crack?
They're going to fuck on the couch, Jim.
Rock's in the other room.
But she can hear it.
What a tour for Romo.
Yeah.
It's been great for him.
Rocky's got cancer, Jim.
This is going to be tough.
This is a huge disease.
Refusing treatment, Jim,
the Bromia Hall Choice.
Got a new chemo, Jim.
Half-ass Philly Internet research.
Victor's Cafe in South Philadelphia
is our location for Adriens.
Mighty Mix Gym is on Front Street.
The place that Adonis and Bianca go to eat
is a well-known place for cheese steaks called Max.
You guys know all this shit.
Half-ass internet research, just a couple.
At one point, Donnerner,
wears a shirt that says,
why do I want to fight
because I can't sing and dance,
which is an homage to the ice skating date
and Rocky One.
Stallone was the one who wanted
MBJ to wear the flag trunks.
That was him being magnanimous.
The gravestone
for Polly Pinino,
born in November,
1940, died February 2012.
Not sure if you guys caught that.
Probably not a lot of people
at the funeral, I'm guessing, for Polly.
One robot.
One of the least ridiculous.
be characters.
A grave digger and a robot.
Or a robot gravedigger, you know, if you wanted to...
A mostly horrible guy who Rocky just would not give up on.
MBJ gained 24 pounds of muscle and learned to box.
And then our guy who played Ricky Conlin, Tani Ballou,
he won the WC Cruiserweight title.
Oh, he is a fantastic final.
Like eight months after this movie came out by Keo in the third round.
It's a good YouTube clip.
All right. Apex Mountain.
Ryan Cougler, no.
No.
MBJ?
Maybe.
Probably.
What's the alternative?
I'd say yes.
It would be, the alternative would probably be Black Panther.
It's this.
Yeah.
Coming out of Creed, it's like he could make any movie once.
Tessa Thomas?
Tessa Thomas?
No.
No, I wouldn't say so.
What is it for her?
Not this.
What is it then?
I just don't feel like this is her deal.
Not her best work.
Valkyrie?
What would you think it's like?
Could be Valkyry?
Valky. I just feel like she's had more
significant things than this. Chris, was
Apex Mountain for Johns?
In cinema history, yes.
Okay. How about our guy
Tony Blue? Probably winning the title.
I'm going to say it's better.
Stallone, no.
Honestly, I had never heard of Tony Blue
other than this movie, so maybe it is this movie.
Oh, he's like great
cruiser, like you said, cruise away.
He had a great fight with
Usik, like a really, really
great fighter, like a one of the best.
This was my apex mountain
for Polly, because I never like Polly.
HBO 24-7?
Hmm.
Yeah.
Could be.
I mean, they have some really great episodes of it, but yeah, this is, you know.
Considering Creed's going to be watched for the next 40 years,
and I don't even know if 24-7's on anymore.
HBO Boxing, done.
All right, Chris.
Philly movies?
So you asked Chris to come up with a Mount Rushmore for Philly movies, so here we go.
Let's do this, because I spend a lot of time.
Let's like Chris cook.
Get out of the kitchen, everybody.
I think every, I think my number one is locked up.
I'll go in descending order.
I'll go six cents
Rocky
Blowout
Trading places
And then there's
There's the number one with a bullet
And it's Super Bowl 52
Where are you
When he texted me
He was like come up with a Mount Rushmore
For Philly movies
He's like I fucking got a Mount Rushmore
God damn it
Well we won six
Apex Mount for Tone Trump
God
I think this podcast has been Apex
out for Toll Trump. Shout out to my man, Tull Trump.
Toll Trump did a lot of stuff in the community.
It's probably not.
You know, he's...
All right. How about Max and Lampley?
God, they call so many great fights, but I don't know.
Yeah, I don't think it is. Any other Apex Mountains?
This is Apex Poundton for Creed movies.
It's also the Apex for real boxers in movies.
Oh.
You have Tony in this one. You have
Gabriel Rosado in this one.
You have, yeah, you have Andre Ward.
You have so many actual real boxers in the film.
It's the Apex Mountain for that.
They get good performances out of all of them.
All right, we're going to pick some Nets.
What was Adonis doing with his business job from like age 23 to 29?
What was the job?
I had this for unanswerable questions.
Would you let Adonis Creed manage your wealth?
Because it's like he's working at like a financials.
services company, right?
Donnie, I was trying to get a hold of you.
Where were you?
I had that stock.
Oh, man, I was in Tijuana.
Again.
I have a broken cheekbone.
Just kind of unexplained.
You want to pursue this, Sean?
I mean, if you think about it,
I would want my stocks
to be treated by a guy named Don Johnson.
Don Johnson.
Don Johnson.
I mean, Don Johnson.
I'm sure he's Don.
He's Don.
It's Don.
I have a bunch. Chris, what do you have for picking nits? Oh, I'll save mine.
So, midway through the movie, Rocky and Donnie are walking down the street, and Adonis
kind of out of nowhere does a Marlon Brando godfather imitation, but Talia Shire is in Godfather.
Oh, a beam cross. Wow.
A little stream cross there. We kind of break the seal.
So she can't be in Godfather and in the Rocky movies.
you're the same person
who likes oceans 12
sure
like I'm yes
Van what do you got
this motherfucker just don't have
enough fights man
it's just not going to happen
like he just don't have
enough ring time
yeah you know
going down there
and doing this thing down there
I know his daddy
was creating everything
but this guy's getting
his brain rattled
he's getting fucked up
he just don't have
that's the biggest
nitpick about the movie
even though Francis and Gano
kind of made it reality
but like that's a
biggest, he just don't have enough fights. He getting killed.
Yeah, my nitpick is about
boxing in Tijuana. How does that work? You just go down there and you're like,
I'd like to box.
I'd like to have 15 fights.
Actually, strangely, yes.
Like, dudes in the gym be like, yo, man,
I'm going down to Tijuana this weekend.
Like, you pay somebody five or ten thousand and some dude will jump out of a
cab into a ring and give you a third round knockout.
It's facts.
This is something you did?
No, never.
Ring her podcast?
Should we start covering Tijuana Bocene?
Tijuana Nights?
I have a nitpick.
Sly recovers from cancer
and flies to Europe like three minutes later.
It's like the tubes are still coming out of his arms
and he's just on a cross-country flight
ready to train a boxer.
Everything just happens really fast in this movie.
What?
Bianca's in the locker room with them pre-fight.
They weren't dating, then they were dating,
and then all of a sudden she's back right before the fight,
and then she's just in the locker room?
I know one person in Philadelphia.
Would you like to come watch me box?
And you think she shows up and it's like, wow,
this is a very like a VV-V-V-I-P pass.
Like, I'm in the locker room.
Ricky Conlin is just out of shape in the big fight.
But he's about to go to jail.
He's got a gut?
Yeah.
Like, what's going on?
Yeah.
This is a HBO fight.
Yeah.
He's got a glass jaw, too.
Took a shot, went down.
Ricky Conlin, overrated?
Overrated.
And then my last one is just the makeup guy for Donnie's left eye.
It's like, it's like where his cheek is?
Yeah.
I just don't know why they did it that way.
It always bothers me.
What else do you have, Van?
Man, he just changed his last name, said, fuck his mama.
You know what I mean?
Like, he had his mama's last name the whole time.
He changed it for the fight.
I was just kind of like...
He went Creed Johnson Johnson,
Johnson, Creed, some hyphen it.
Did he?
Yeah, because both names are on the shorts.
Oh.
I didn't pick up that part.
I was like if it was
Creed hyphen Johnson.
Yeah, that would be the movie.
Creed Johnson.
Any other picking nits?
At the end of the fight
after the result
and Conlin's like, wear that name with pride,
do you really think Donnie would be like,
respect, thanks.
Like, they've exchanged some
harsh words with each other.
Yeah, boxing's weird.
They always forgive each other at the end of the fight.
But he looked at him and said,
you're the future of this division.
Like, what?
That don't be that cool.
How long is his stretch?
Like, how long was he serving?
Seven years?
Yeah.
For one gun?
It's England, though.
England as a normal country and then also,
yeah.
Yeah.
It was the only gun in England.
Yeah.
He had the one gun.
It's like an old revolver that he found.
Next category is sequel prequel prestige TV all black cast are untouchable
The Rocky series checks all the boxes
Unbelievable we rarely get that one
Have I told you about my movie? My movie idea for this
What is it? Okay so here's the way I look at it
All right so you never just have one bastard
All right
Like that's that's actually the title of Vann's upcoming book
Yeah my memoir
So you never just have one bastard right
If you have one, you normally have like Sean Kemp, five, six, and then motherfuckers, right?
So my idea is Adonis Creed is the Nick Fury of assembling the team.
Of bastards.
Oh.
All of Creed's bastards, right?
Inglorious bastards.
In glorious bastards.
And so you think about the scene, I'm going to say to scene.
In interior, boxing gym.
There's a young man sitting down, Terrell.
He just went 10 tough rounds.
Out of the shadows,
Adonis Creed steps in like Nick Fury.
Son, you've just stepped into a world
and you have no idea how deep it goes.
It's three girls.
It's two boys,
the Creed bastard boxing team.
Whole limited series.
Are you watching that bill?
It's incredible.
I'm in.
This is a movie that had a sequel.
Yeah.
Two sequels.
A couple of them.
And more to come.
Just one Oscar, who gets it?
This is a tough one for me.
Probably Stallone.
Cougler.
I think Cougler.
But Cougar would have to beat
some crazy people in that category they are.
It's like a 10% chance at best
that this movie was going to be good.
Like, in almost anybody else's hands,
this movie would have sucked.
Everybody who doubt it would be good
before we sat down to see it.
All right, you changed my mind.
Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins,
Danny Treo,
Catherine Hahn.
Steve Buscemi, Sam Jackson, J.T. Walsh, Michael K. Williams, Byron Mayo, Harling Mays,
Tony Roombie, or Philip Baker Hall.
What do you got, CR?
What if Wayne Jenkins was present during the original training, like in the little backyard?
He was like, God!
The Indian Red Zawainay Award would happen the next day?
well, unfortunately, we know.
It was Creed, too.
Probably unanswerable questions.
Can I ask one for the crowd here?
Yeah.
So let's just say this is taking place in 15, right?
Eagles go six and nine, last chip season.
10 and 72 Sixers season.
Would Creed save your life?
Like, would Creed honestly give you a reason to get up in the morning?
If this fucking kid came out of nowhere that was fighting,
It would be the biggest silly sports story of the year.
It would just be like unreal.
This isn't related to my CR take about this movie,
which is that Creed does the reverse CR,
which is that he goes from Los Angeles to Philly to Liverpool.
Oh, which is what your family has done over the art of time.
Bizarro CR.
Where the fuck was Rocky Jr. during the chemo?
Vancouver.
His dad is getting chemo.
His cancer.
He's like,
ah, you know, the Canucks have a big series
coming up, Dad.
Can we FaceTime?
Asshole.
Fight's an expensive gym!
You think it was like a mild
of intimately? Like, he couldn't, he was
busy with this as us or something? He could have made
a cameo.
Did Tone Trump
delete the picture of him and Donnie after the fight, or
Keep it.
Because they did take the picture.
Did he put it on the gram?
I have no clue.
I should really call him, man.
I think he puts on the phone.
I should FaceTime him right now.
Did he put it in a folder along with the photos of him and Bianca?
Is Adonis Creed the most successful outcome of the process, Chris?
Same era, 2015.
It's about to be January 6th up in here.
What?
It was the same time.
It was when you had Robert Coventon.
and no?
Any other
in answerables?
How much money
does Marianne have?
How?
The only thing we know is she lives in a giant
dark house that has no lights on ever.
So like did Adonis grow up rich?
I think it did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But that's what Ricky says.
He doesn't know shit.
Well, I mean, but let's just say
like everybody seems to think
that he's come from privilege, right?
Like, he's come from like a pretty good balance.
I mean, she had the big house
and stuff. I mean, I guess
Apollo made a lot of money and then he...
But he had all those bastards that you were talking about,
you know? Yeah. He had to pay for all them.
But I mean, obviously they wouldn't cost them no money.
Oh, yeah, maybe she took Rocky's money.
What's the best double-feature choice with this movie?
I go Field of Dreams.
Dix Town.
Dix Town.
Dix Town. Honey World Palmer.
I like Fat City.
I'm going Rocky for
first, Rocky 5, Rocky 6 never happened.
We go right to Creed.
Okay.
It's perfect. It works out great.
What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie?
It's obviously the trunks.
I mean, the answer is always the trunks in the Rocky movie.
I would like that giant metal weight that they press on his face to make the swelling go down.
Just to have it on Sundays?
Yeah, just to see what else we could get up to with that.
Yeah.
I like the Mighty Mixed Jim's poster, too.
You like anything you would have taken, Sean?
That Mustang.
That was I was going to say
The Mustang is cold.
Coach Finstock will wear for Best Life lesson.
Don't let someone make you feel like you were a mistake,
which is a pretty great theme.
And then who won the movie?
Well, that's the only lesson we can't.
That was the best lesson.
The best one?
Well, mine is obviously hit it raw.
Don't wear condoms.
Because if Apollo had done that, you don't have a movie.
We were ending with Field of the Dreams
and don't let anyone tell you your mistake.
He wasn't a mistake.
He lived out his legacy.
Who won the movie?
I have Cougler.
I do too.
What do you have C.R.
I have Stallone.
It's probably got to be Stallone for me.
Colone?
All right, that means the audience decides.
Stallone?
Cougler or Stallone?
That sounds like Stallone.
Kind of split decision.
All right, everybody got out your pieces of paper.
Write down your answers.
Yeah, well, someone will come around and collect them.
I'll come around and collect them up later.
All right, we're done with the podcast.
I have a Philly question, though.
So who's in pole position now of the four teams?
Who's most popular?
Phillies are one?
Phillies won, Eagles two?
Eagles one.
Can we do a crowd noise to see who's...
All right, how many people say Eagles?
You're at hell.
And how many people say Phillies?
Wow.
See, I didn't know this.
Sierra never tells me anything.
Have they put that felon Chase Utley in prison yet?
And Bryce is the guy right now?
All right.
Those are my Philly questions.
Hey, we loved coming to see you guys.
Thanks for coming out.
Hope you had a great time.
Thank you, Philly.
And thanks to the Home Depot as well.
Good to see you guys.
All right, that's it for the podcast.
It is produced by Craig Horlebeck.
As always, if you want to watch the entire episodes
that we did on the cold weather tour, you can do it at YouTube.com slash Bill Simmons.
We have a bunch of old rewatchables episodes on there as well and some clips and all kinds of things.
So go check that out.
Coming back next week with probably the last live podcast unless we end up, I don't know,
getting frisky and just doing a new one.
So we will see you in a week.
