Rocke Balboa

Rocky Balboa is the fictional boxer created by Sylvester Stallone in the 1976 film Rocky. The film tells the story of a down-and-out Philadelphia boxer who gets a long-shot title fight with heavyweight champion Apollo Creed. Rocky was a tremendous hit, winning the Academy Award as best picture and making Stallone a major Hollywood force. (The actor had been nearly unknown before writing the script and convincing producers to let him play the lead.) Rocky appeared in four numbered sequels, battling a series of pugilistic villains while winning and losing championships and fortunes: Rocky II (1978, featuring a rematch with Creed), Rocky III (1982, with Mr. T as opponent Clubber Lang), Rocky IV (1985, with Dolph Lundgren as Russian nemesis Ivan Drago), and Rocky V (1990, with Stallone's real-life son Sage as Rocky Balboa, Jr.). In 2006 Stallone brought the character back for a fifth sequel, Rocky Balboa, in which a much older Rocky comes out of retirement to fight an exhibition against a champion named Mason Dixon (played by real-life boxer Antonio Tarver).