A giant without grace. Thanks for contacting us. Word had gotten out that Wepner was supposedly the inspiration for “Rocky.” He lied to friends, saying that he had been paid for his life rights. Dillin and Wu signed a contract that stipulated Dillin would pay Wu $40,000 for the supplies needed to construct the statue. A week later he had already sold the scenario and won the main role. But it never did. 3,704, This story has been shared 3,198 times. Three times per week, he is pumping weights, and he is commenting classical box-fights for TV. Stallone — who’s favorably portrayed in “Chuck” by actor Morgan Spector — even helped the producers finagle a deal for some potentially pricey fight scenes. Chuck Wepner has fought some of the biggest names in professional boxing: Ali. But taking on those powerhouses was nothing compared to the time he fought a bear… Please do the same and don't copy any of our He will see the movie in a local theatre. It took six months to mold the clay. ‘Rocky’ got the Oscar for best film. “If Sylvester Stallone wants me for a movie, he knows where to find me,” he said. He had lived up dutifully to the American ideal – as well as the cliché – and had withstood as underdog the almost unbeatable superpower. By the end of the fight, my body was beet red.”, Their rematch went no better: “That bear charged me again, stood on his hind legs and threw me out of the ring,” said Wepner, now 78. Sculptor Zhen Wu works on the statue of Chuck Wepner. "I wanted to show the power he found in himself, so he could face Muhammad Ali. His pride of the “two successes that have formed me” is clearly visible. Indeed, while Wepner won 35 of his 51 pro bouts, he also had some viciously bloody losses — including a 10th-round TKO by Sonny Liston that left him needing more than 70 stitches in his face. Get the latest odds on all the top sports. See more photos of the statue of Chuck Wepner that is still a work in progress. “I am as fit as a teenager,” he says and calls his wife Linda, a voluptuous Italian with peroxide-blond hair. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. Born in Shanghai, China in 1953, Wu immigrated to the United States in 1980 and bought a home and ground-floor studio on Kennedy Boulevard about 18 years ago. More people may know the true story now, since "Chuck," a film starring Liev Schreiber as the boxer, premiered in May 2017 to favorable reviews. “He got it through a lot of hard work of his own, he’s clever and a great author.” The telephone rings. A quip about male genitalia followed, and that’s how it all started. Chuck Wepner, left, and Bruce Dillin, talk about the premiere of "Chuck" in 2017. Don King had organized the legendary ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ in October 1974, the fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in what was then known as Zaire. The PAL in 2015 held an unveiling ceremony for the concept of the future statue. He has no desire to be a pensioner. “As of now, nobody will laugh about Wepner,” wrote a sports columnist in the New York Times. It's one of the most famous scenes in cinema history. The scene is a work of fiction, but the man who inspired the “Rocky” series often made a similar run up the stairs of Stephen R. Gregg Hudson County Park in Bayonne as he trained for the biggest match of his boxing career: a title shot against Muhammad Ali. This is the place where Wepner once closed down his training program. A pending court case could have harmed the festivities around the première, to which Wepner was not invited. With “Rocky Balboa” he is launching the sixth and presumably last episode of the film-series that has grossed over 3 billion dollars worldwide, into the cinemas. Don King embraced him.