Introduction
In 1985 a movie was made that displayed the attitudes and fears that Americans had to the former Soviet Union.
Although the movie had some flaws it did closly represent the feelings of the era that was depicted.
This web page intends to annalize and give the proper credit this movie and its' actors deserve.
What makes this movie so great is that it captured our fears and hopes all at the same time.
In a way by watching this movie we were in our own way fighting against
our Russian advesaries. As far as the historical accuracy goes we must remember
that this is just a movie. As with all the ROCKY movies the boxing matches go on
far longer than they would in real life. In this movie we saw the Soviet Training system
as a finely regemented and scientific endevour. According to Soviet sports training books I have read
the kinds of training depicted in the movie may very well be acurate.
There are only two things that may be a strech. The first is the use of sparring partners by Drago.
The movie depicts Drago pummeling every one of his partners
sending them to the canvas spitting up blood. This of course dosn't happen in
real life-sparring partners are partners not punching bags.
The second thing about Drago's training that is questionable is his use of
steroids in the movie. Contrary to popular belief this was not a wide spread practice and in fact it was condemed
by the government. Any athlete who was caught doing steriods or any coach who distributed them were eliminated from the sports program.
Soviet scientists and trainers knew that the use of steroids only provided a quick boost in strenth, and that continued use of them would cause extensive injuries to the athlete.
In short the athlete would be injured so much that he would have been able
to train harder and acheive maximum performance without the drugs.
In the movie's defence though, the scene is realivant in the context that we all thought
the Soviets were taking superior drugs thus adding to our fear of them.
This movie definatly displayed our thoughts and emotions dealing with the Cold War right up to the very end. Our sentiments were captured exactly when after the fight rocky said, "Tonight you had two people killing eachother...but I guess that's better than 20 million". "If I can change and if you can change...everyone can change"... We changed.
