Rocky III, Err... I Mean The Three Rockys



I watched Rocky III for the first time some nights ago. The music running through the film was "Eye of the Tiger" by the rock group, Survivor, a great choice.

The "Eye of the Tiger" is an interesting concept in martial arts. It is when a fighter goes to the next level of perception while in the ring. His view shifts from the view of fighting someone across from him to a birds-eye view. The fighter looks down at both himself and his opponent. It is as if you were playing a video game and your view point changed to over your head.

But the movie didn't deal with the actual point-of-view shift. I first read of the phenomenon when the New York Times covered a scientific study of it over a decade ago.

What the study didn't say was how it comes about.

Enter Charlie Campanelli, the boxer. He was, when I met him, in his 90's and had been for many years both retired and a consultant to all the big name boxers. He was what your would call "A real character" and he looked exactly like Rocky's trainer, played by Burgess Meredith, maybe just older and somehow harder, rock like.

He would preach to Muhammed Ali, or some other boxer, not to look at the opponent's hands. Look at his feet. You can't throw a decent left punch unless your left foot starts to the rear. Of course, same with the right.

I realized that when you do this, you start to shift your viewpoint to overhead.

Everyone listened to Mr. Campanelli except for one boxer, Rocky Marciano. He didn't have to. He was so enormously strong that he would just punch the opponents arms until that opponent couldn't hold them up any more to defend himself. Then came the knockout.

How strong was Marciano? Well, to illustrate. It takes a lot of energy out of you to throw punches and it will tire you out. Ali defeated the hard punching Foreman by his rope-a-dope method of leaning on the ropes and letting Foreman punch at his body for four bells. Then Ali knocked out the tired Foreman in the fifth.

Marciano must have been strong. Charlie Campanelli said he was. Campanelli also said some other interesting things when my friend Howie asked him at two different times, "Who's the greatest fighter in the world?"

The first time he said that the greatest fighter was someone who never stepped into the ring. Yoda said the flip of the coin with "Great Warrior... Wars don't make one great." (I just quoted Yoda?)

The second time he chided Howie, "You can't tell how strong someone is by looking at him. He could be the world's greatest fighter."

Well, I didn't think so. He was pointing at this skinny guy, me. But Campanelli was right, you can't tell.

If you were counting, what happened to the third Rocky in my title? Someone once sent me a postcard of Rocky and Bullwinkle. It was funny, Stallone and Bullwinkle. I'll leave you with that.