Rocky is one of the best, if not the best, sports movie franchises in history. Ignoring Rocky V, which, like the third Godfather movie, doesn’t exist, these films continue to inspire, motivate, and entertain generations of adoring fans. To this day, the highlight for many visitors to Philadelphia remains running up the famous steps of the city’s Museum of Art, recreating the most iconic training montage of all time.
But we all understand, at least, we used to understand, that Hollywood sports aren’t real. On our screens, we have seen Matt Damon as legendary South African rugby captain Francois Pienaar in Invictus, Will Smith as Muhammad Ali in Ali, and Chris Hemsworth as racing champion Chris Hunt in Rush. But could Matt Damon win the Rugby World Cup? Could Will Smith knock out George Foreman? Could Chris Hemsworth navigate Japan’s Fuji circuit in torrential rain to win a Formula One championship? No, of course not.
Because while so much of our culture is based on cosplaying talent, sport is the one exception you can’t just fake.
In Rocky Balboa, the sixth chapter of the Rocky franchise, Sylvester Stallone’s character comes out of retirement at 60 years old to go toe-to-toe in an exhibition match with the undefeated heavyweight world champion, Mason “The Line” Dixon. In 2006, this gave us the nostalgia injection we craved, but we also understood that an aging Stallone could never actually survive 10 rounds with a champion heavyweight boxer.
Why? No amount of bravado or pretense or marketing can defeat nature, nurture, and raw talent. Aging actors may be able to hide behind special effects, plastic surgery, and steroids, but real elite sport is the ultimate meritocracy: a ruthless test of ability.
After all, millions watch the World Cup, the Super Bowl, and the World Series precisely because it’s close to impossible to get there. The vast majority of us would never come close. We can’t dunk, hit a home run, or tackle Christian McCaffrey.
The local pickup game has a low turnout for a reason: LeBron James is busy.
But with the sorry excuse for a boxing fight between a YouTube star and a 58-year-old former heavyweight champion becoming an overnight cultural phenomenon, does it matter to people that sport is real anymore?
What we saw this weekend between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson was not real. Sure, it may have looked like a boxing fight, and sure, both fighters may have left with millions of dollars in their pockets. But just because it looked like a fight and sounded like a fight doesn’t mean it was one.
In reality, it was simply theater: a hype-driven extension of Hollywood’s profitable mixture of cosplaying actual talent with nostalgia porn that depends on our foolish belief that with enough effort, any of us could scale the heights of sporting prowess.
But elite sport is elite solely because so few are capable of it.
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You can turn back the clock in all other parts of our culture, but not in sports. But if we allow whatever Paul represents to become the new reality of elite sports, allowing it to become nothing but a shallow, click-driven entertainment spectacle that has no connection with talent or true competition, then we’re killing sport.
Soon, the true greats will fade into the background as we waste our energy on scripted performances by Paul and his next well-paid punching bag, brought to you exclusively by Netflix.
Ian Haworth is a columnist, speaker, and podcast host. You can find him on Substack and follow him on X at @ighaworth.