Carl Weathers, who died on Friday at the age of 76, was chosen by Stallone for his physical qualities and ability to appear arrogant. But before turning to cinema he was a real athlete. Not a boxer, of course…
To play the role of Apollo Creed, a trained actor, or a bodybuilder, if the reader prefers, could not be enough. For that role a real athlete was needed. Also because the choice was influenced by the script that Sylvester Stallone had “sucked” from reality, i.e. the chance that Muhammad Ali wanted to give to a white boxer not too well known like the corpulent Chuck Wepner, a cash-taker almost devoted to martyrdom, to fight for the title against the bigger. It was therefore necessary for the role of Rocky’s antagonist in the film, who in reality was the protagonist, paradoxically, that is, the real star, someone who in terms of musculature and brilliance surpassed Stallone who in the first film, if we remember correctly, was not yet he landed in bodybuilding, so much so that he earned the nickname “meatloaf” from the provocative Apollo.