Who Should Rocky Face in a Rematch?

Who Should Rocky Face in a Rematch? | TVStoreOnline

Rocky’s Rematches

Throughout the Rocky saga, the titular character had many classic fights. Aside from the street fight with Tommy Gunn in Rocky V, I can’t think of any that we wouldn’t want to watch again. The one that would make the most sense for another go ‘round would be Clubber Lang. Now technically they already had a rematch, as Rocky lost his initial bout with Lang, but in reality, a rubber match between the two would be a big money fight. Many promoters would probably set up Balboa/Lang III immediately. Big money fights can sometimes be hard to come by after all. The most likely scenario however would probably be Lang gets a non-title fight against someone who he would likely walk through, and then takes on the Italian Stallion.

Rocky Balboa vs Clubber Lang: The Rematch

How would the third fight go? Honestly at that point it would be a pick ‘em. What was greatly exposed in their second fight, was Lang’s poor cardio. Clubber Lang was clearly someone who built his career on putting people away quickly and as a result, he never had to develop his heart and cardio. Heart is a characteristic that he didn’t seem to lack, after all, he did have the eye of the tiger. Even when Rocky was putting it on him in the rematch, he seemed to still be trying to win, but his body simply failed him. It happens to fighters in combat sports all of the time. No matter how strong a fighter’s will is, he or she needs a body to match.

The Iron Lungs of an Italian Stallion

Cardio is the easiest part of the fight game to fix, and realistically there isn’t any reason why Clubber Lang couldn’t. It’s much harder to do as Rocky did. Learning new mechanics and rediscovering your heart can both be difficult tasks to accomplish. Rocky essentially learned how to box to prepare for the rematch with Clubber. All Lang would need to do, is strengthen his lungs. Fighters frequently say that poor cardio is the one thing you don’t have any excuse for, and that’s because it’s the one part of the fight that you have absolute control over. You can’t determine how in-shape your opponent is, or how skilled your opponent may be, but you can control your own cardio. All you have to do is put in the work. That’s it. All a fighter has to do to get elite cardio is train as hard as he or she possibly can, and if a fighter can’t develop the mental strength to do that, then he or she is in the wrong line of work. If Clubber Lang developed the cardio he needed, it’s really hard to determine how the fight would go. Rocky definitely was out-classing him skill-wise, but he needed to wait until Lang got tired to mount real offense in the second fight. Rocky would probably have to avoid getting drawn into a pissing contest and just focus on countering Clubber’s bludgeoning style. One thing is for sure though, I’d watch that fight.