And then, in true boxing movie tradition, he’s saved by the love of a good woman (Amy Smart).

“Prison beat me up more than any fighter ever could have,” he laments. He also lands in prison on a drugs and gun possession charge. Wepner’s wife leaves him, he has a falling out with his brother and he completely blows an audition to play a role written especially for him in Rocky II. Regarding the latter humiliation, he tells us (in one of the film’s few, possibly intentionally funny lines), “You don’t know the true meaning of rock bottom until you let an overweight European pick you up like a baby and throw you to the ground.”īy this point, any remaining viewers may have their own definition of hitting rock bottom, but the desultory tale continues. His fighting career hit the skids, and he was reduced to such publicity stunts as wrestling a bear and fighting Andre the Giant. He lost himself in drugs and sex, losing his wife (an effective Taryn Manning) in the process. His newfound celebrity, especially after Sylvester Stallone credited him for inspiring the character of Rocky, went to Wepner’s head.

I was a somebody.” You half expect him to launch into a monologue from On the Waterfront, like Robert De Niro’s Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. Or, as he puts it here, “I wasn’t a nobody now. He didn’t win the bout, but he famously went the distance and achieved instant fame. Wepner got his big break when he landed a 1975 title shot against Muhammad Ali and managed to knock the champ down.

Chuck wepner