25 Things I Learned from Watching the ‘Rocky’ Movie Series

25 Things I Learned from Watching the Rocky Movie Series

By Chris Gay

1) You can hold an internationally televised World Heavyweight Championship title fight in an empty arena and believe no one will notice, simply because you dimmed the lights.

2) There is a script writer who thinks Thunderlips is an intimidating name for a professional wrestler.

3) I would not want to be the fool that Mr. T pities for having the nerve to step into the ring with him.

4) It apparently is not astonishingly arrogant to hire a tuxedo-clad, five-piece band to continually play your own theme song to you while you train for a fight.

5) Spending a month’s worth of days punching the ribs of cattle carcasses with your unprotected fists will result in no injury to your hands whatsoever.

6) A 34-year old punch-drunk boxer can win a footrace against a chiseled, former NFL cornerback who is still in playing shape.

7) Chicago’s toughest fighter has no issue sporting a haircut that makes him look like a Pez dispenser every time his head snaps back from a punch.

8) There exists an actual thick, hardcover book listing the names, nicknames and statistics for every no-name, washed-up club fighter in eastern Pennsylvania.

9) An extremely shy, introverted “pet shop dame” can temporarily transform into the Knute Rockne of inspirational speakers whenever her uncertain husband has a chance to earn a huge payday.

10) Trained Paramedics will leave an elderly man lying on a locker room bench gasping for air, and provide no medical attention, until the end of a sporting event because the man says he wants to wait and see who wins.

11) At one-day old, you can have a thicker head of hair than Elvis Presley and Don King combined.

12) High-ranking government officials will publicly applaud a citizen of their country’s largest enemy-immediately after he completely embarrasses them on a worldwide stage-because he manages to slur a couple sentences worth of sentimentality.

13) The more vicious a beating a boxer takes, the more intelligent he seems to become afterward.

14) In the pre-internet age, a drunken loser with less intellect than a coffee mug can successfully re-program the generic, factory-installed voice of a multi-thousand dollar robot maid into one resembling a sultry nymphomaniac.

15) When realizing the man you consider a son is getting beaten within an inch of his life you’ll repeatedly scream “Throw in the towel!” at your fellow corner-man-who is standing there like a moron-instead of reaching out, grabbing the towel, and throwing it yourself.

16) It’s a good idea for a man, whose sole legitimate means of supporting himself depends squarely upon remaining healthy and intact, to jog multiple times around an ice hockey rink in street shoes.

17) Once a boxer becomes a multi-millionaire he will move his elderly manager into his mansion, but then draw the line at helping him finally upgrade a hearing aid that looks worse than a dollar store ear bud.

18) The final round of a Championship Title bout is apparently ninety seconds shorter than every round which precedes it.

19) The best way to avenge your friend and honor his memory is to fight the steroid-enhanced monster who destroyed him-and who also owns a foot of height and sixty pound weight advantage over you-for free, in his country, on Christmas Day.

20) The Pennsylvania Boxing Commission will sanction an internationally-covered heavyweight title fight between its sport’s current beloved champion, and an unknown, amateur fighter who is employed as a “leg-breaker for a cheap, second-rate loan shark.”

21) The Pennsylvania Boxing Commission will sanction a fight between the 24-year old World Heavyweight Champion and a 60-year old restaurateur, after being talked into it upon hearing the wise, sound words of the latter; the same man who once admitted to never using “condominiums” while sleeping around.

22) A punch-drunk boxer with no ability to pronounce even a single paragraph of monosyllabic words can, after reading a couple of dime store novels, transform himself into a suave, commercial pitchman with vocal skills and diction that Morgan Freeman might envy.

23) Apollo Creed’s boxing shorts are apparently ‘One-Size-Fits-All.’

24) After a life of poverty, if you earn a decent, one-time payday and then retire, the best things a man with no marketable skills whatsoever can do financially is spend the money on a posh house at first sight, and an expensive car he doesn’t know how to drive.

25) An ex-World Champ, who is relentlessly haunted by losing the Heavyweight Title, will spend months training the guy who took it from him so he can battle someone else, when it’s clear that his former adversary is so physically and mentally out of shape he could just fight him again and easily reclaim the Belt.

God. The Devil. The Bet. The Fate of Mankind in the Balance. Check out Chris Gay’s new theological, paranormal crime thriller, Ghost of a Chance.

What if a late 20th Century Jack the Ripper tearing apart a small Connecticut town was the result of a pancake shop bet between God and the devil? Imagine if Satan’s impact on the world in the new millennium hinged entirely on one police officer’s skill in hunting down a ruthless killer…hiding in plain sight. Detective Danny Seabrook is an unwitting pawn in a divine chess match with immeasurable consequences for all mankind. Set primarily in 1995, this action-packed suspense thriller features clever dialogue, humor and romance-with an ending you will never forget.

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‘Sherlock Holmes and the Final Reveal’ by Chris Gay

As the end draws near for long-retired Sherlock Holmes in Sussex Downs, he calls one last time for the company of his best friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson. What was meant to be four last days of camaraderie and reminiscing instead leads to the most shocking, explosive revelation both of the great detective’s career, and his life.

Sherlock Holmes and the Final Reveal is a Holmes tale like none other ever conceived. Fans of Baker Street’s legendary detective will be left with the insatiable need to contemplate its extraordinary conclusion forevermore.

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‘The Bachelor Cookbook: Edible Meals with a Side of Sarcasm’ by Chris Gay

The Bachelor Cookbook is the perfect (and likely only) addition to any guy’s collection of sarcastic culinary literature. If you’re between relationships and looking to make the most of whatever foodstuffs you’ve got until you meet that next special woman, then your prayers have been answered. Unless you’re an atheist; in which case coming across this book just means your luck was in today. For men looking for sustenance over style, I give you this spectacular cookbook. Well, I don’t “give it” to you, per se. You have to pay for it.

Featuring such taste-bud tempting recipes as:

Popcorn Salad

Meat on a Bed of Rice

Cheese and Crackers

Spaghetti Sandwich

Plus Miscellaneous Cookbook Humor, too!

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Chris Gay is an author, freelance writer, voice-over artist, broadcaster and actor. He writes and broadcasts a daily, minute radio humor spot in Hartford, Connecticut. He’s also written the paranormal, theological thriller novel Ghost of a Chance, the novella Sherlock Holmes and the Final Reveal, (an original, extraordinary short story on the great detective) and three humor books: And That’s the Way It Was…Give or Take: A Daily Dose of My Radio Writings, Shouldn’t Ice Cold Beer Be Frozen? My 365 Random Thoughts to Improve Your Life Not One Iota, and The Bachelor Cookbook: Edible Meals with a Side of Sarcasm. He’s been published nationally in Writer’s Digest and is currently writing his fourth, fifth and sixth humor books, Another Round of Ice Cold Beer: My 365 More Random Thoughts to Improve Your Life Not One Iota,  Something Witty this Way Comes and Politically Correct Movie Reviews. Also, he’s writing the Ghost of a Chance sequel Perdition’s Wrath, and has written and voiced radio commercials, authored both comedic and non-comedic freelance articles, scripts, press releases, website, media and technical content, done occasional radio color commentary for local sports, and acted in a couple of movies and plays. His website is chrisjgay.com, and his humor blog can be found at chrisgay.wordpress.com.

Twitter: @chrisgay13

Movies:

2012: Hope Springs (Barfly)

2009: Testimonies of a Quiet New England Town (Constable John Gilbert)

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