Rocky Could Have Been Ricky

It could have happened this way.

The year is 1976. A down-on-his-luck Irish-American heavyweight named Ricky Sullivan, played by Ryan O’Neal, lives in a cheap apartment in Boston, taking fights for short money when he’s not strong-arming delinquent debtors for the local loan shark. Ricky has a slob of a friend, named Seamus, and a crush on Seamus’ dowdy sister, Maureen, who disguises her potential beauty under layers of Kelly green sweaters. The future seems none too bright for all concerned. But the scheduled opponent for the undefeated black heavyweight champion, Gemini Freed, unexpectedly falls out, and the champ tells his promoter to find a “lily white unknown” to fill in. The decision is to offer the dream shot to Ricky, whose nickname is the “Irish Intimidator.” He’s a prohibitive underdog, but he doesn’t want to be doomed to a life as “just another lad from the neighborhood,” so he enlists the aid of crusty old trainer Mickey Fitzgerald. The climactic fight takes place at the Boston Garden, but Ricky has enough heart to fill in the gaps where he is talent-deficient, and, besides, Maureen is back in the dressing room, waiting and praying. The bout enters the 15th and final round, champ and challenger each bruised and bleeding, the outcome very much in doubt, and … well, you get the idea.

This Friday night, at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Sylvester Stallone will receive an award for “lifetime cinematic achievement in boxing” at the 81st annual Boxing Writers Association of America Awards Dinner. It’s the first time such an award has been presented, and quite likely the last. As a rule of thumbless gloves, boxing movies generally do not lend themselves to multiple sequels encompassing a longer time span than Archie Moore’s career.

Sly, of course, authored the screenplay that eventually found its way into theaters as Rocky, about a South Philadelphia pug whose tale pretty much is reflective of what Ricky’s would have been had studio executives had their way. O’Neal, who had starred in a forgettable 1979 fight film called The Main Event with Barbra Streisand, was the suits’ first choice to play the character created by Stallone. The guess here is that Rocky – uh, Ricky – would have had to undergo an ethnic makeover to make the character work for O’Neal. But Stallone, whose most visible film role to that point had been as a leather-jacketed ’50s tough guy in 1974’s The Lords of Flatbush, refused to sell Rocky to Hollywood unless he got to play the lead. His obstinance paid off and, well, superstardom sometimes is made of this.

As hard as it is to imagine O’Neal in the Stallone role, or for a Celtic jig to be on the soundtrack in place of “Gonna Fly Now,” unforgettable movies often are as much the result of blind luck as of talent, inspiration and vision. We all know now Ronald Reagan was the first choice to play the part that went to Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, that Tom Selleck was at the top of the list to star in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and that Sean Connery really wanted to become the movies’ next Tarzan but couldn’t because he had committed to do some spy flick about a suave guy named James Bond.

The mind boggles had things not worked out as they did. Instead of “Here’s looking at you, kid,” would we have had The Gipper sighing at some scripted remark by Ingrid Bergman and saying, “There you go again”? Would Selleck have seemed as natural in a rumpled fedora and snapping a bullwhip as he was in flowered shirts and laying rubber with the red Ferrari in Magnum P.I.? And would we have accepted a loinclothed Connery as being licensed to kill … crocodiles?

On the premise that other well-received boxing movies might have suffered the unfortunate fate that surely would have befallen Rocky had not Stallone held his ground, let us try to visualize what might have been had matters been turned over to less visionary directors and casting directors.

Enraging Bull: In an attempt to demonstrate his ability to stretch artistically, Pauly Shore buys the rights to the life story of middleweight champion Jake La Motta and casts himself as the lead. Revealing his range as an actor, Shore mugs shamelessly for the camera on his way to the title. He mugs shamelessly for the camera during his championship reign. He mugs shamelessly for the camera while being pummeled by Sugar Ray Robinson. And, oh, yeah, he mugs shamelessly for the camera while incarcerated.

Cindefella Man: Made many years earlier than the 2005 version starring Russell Crowe, Jerry Lewis sketches Depression Era heavyweight-champion-to-be James J. Braddock as a rubber-faced lug who gets himself into all sorts of misadventures that, with the aid of cackling fairy godmother Phyllis Diller, turn out favorably. Lewis mugs shamelessly for the camera as he seeks shift work on the docks. He mugs shamelessly during the boxing sequences. He mugs shamelessly during his title bout with Max “Yogi” Bear. Can Braddock make it to the end of the final round, which begins after the stroke of midnight? Co-starring Don Knotts as the nervous manager.

Any Which Million-Dollar Baby: Clint Eastwood stars as an aging, former bare-knuckled street brawler who agrees to train an orangutan named Clyde for a shot at the title held by Nicolay Valuev, who is much taller but only slightly less hairy.

Fatter City: James Toney and Butterbean strike up a friendship while training at the same gym, which, not coincidentally, is located across the street from a Krispy Kreme shop. They are forced to slug it out for real one day when the counterman tells them he’s down to his last half-dozen chocolate-glazed doughnuts with rainbow sprinkles.

Body and Soulful: Rap impresario James Prince boogies into the boxing business as a manager and quickly becomes a force to be reckoned by promising fighters recording contracts and an unlimited supply of baggy pants. Cast of hundreds includes everyone whose made-up name sounds like a real word but is misspelled, or includes some reference to “Ice.”

Gentleman Gym: Documentary about New York gym owner Bruce Silverglade’s profitable white-collar boxing program, where certified public accountants, stockbrokers and corporate lawyers spar with pillow-sized gloves and attempt to talk smack.

Somebody Up There Dislikes Me: True story of lovable loser Bruce “The Mouse” Strauss, who observed the end of many of his bouts while reclining on the canvas and giving thanks that the guys standing over him didn’t punch any harder than they did.

The Mane Event: O’Neal sits this one out, but the hairdressers for Lennox Lewis, Shannon Briggs, Ras-I Bramble, Anthony “The Messenger” Thompson and other particulary hirsute fighters describe the tension that comes not only from creating those coiffures, but making them comparatively punch-proof.

The Harder They Stall: Promoters, managers and fighters allow lucrative bouts to go unmade in the mistaken belief that better-paying gigs lie somewhere over the horizon, if they just continue to wait.

Ray, Cue ’ Em: A Heavyweight: The concept successfully pitched to studio execs is Requiem for a Heavyweight meets The Hustler. Jackie Gleason stars as Minnesota Tubby, a retired fight manager whose mastery with the cue stick enables him to keep making money off his former star attraction, a heavyweight named Ray who, at Gleason’s urging, sinks his life savings into a pool hall where the fat man hangs out and waits for unsuspecting marks to come in.

The Get-Up: Hector Camacho, Jorge Paez and “Prince” Naseem Hamed spend more time fretting about their outlandish ring attire than they do in training. All are torn between the prospect of winning world championships, or nominations for Best Costume Design. Soundtrack by the Village People.

When We Were King’s: Follow the rollicking adventures of Mike Tyson, Tim Witherspoon, Hasim Rahman and other former members of Don King’s promotional stable.