Growing up in the 80s, I’m shamed to admit that most of what I knew about the USSR I learned from Rocky IV. That is to say, the US was full of plucky underdogs and the USSR was a giant, boxer-creating machine.
As an adult, though, I’m guessing the reality was basically the opposite. We now know that the USSR wasn’t as wealthy or scientifically advanced as we feared. While the communist propaganda machine may have had the benefit of being able to pluck a great boxing talent from obscurity and compel him to fight for the good of Mother Russia, the cold, high-tech training facility that they took him to was probably no better equipped than the locker room for the Dallas Cowboys. In terms of access to trainers/training equipment, leisure time to spend training, and the amount of money changing hands in the boxing industry, the US was, I’m guessing, about the furthest thing from an underdog that you could find at the time.
That reality wouldn’t have resulted in a movie I’d end up watching a dozen times, though.
I was 6 when Rocky IV came out, so I’m looking for opinions from older folks. Does Rocky IV accurately portray America’s view of the USSR in the mid-80s? Or did it just present an alternate reality that Americans wanted to believe, but deep down knew wasn’t true? Or are my assumptions wrong.
Yes, I know it’s a stupid movie and I shouldn’t take it too seriously. Carry on.
My wife grew up in the USSR. According to her, and people I’ve gotten to know through her, the Soviet government did spend huge sums of money on things that they considered important for international prestige. That included things like training Olympic athletes. Those athletes didn’t need “leisure time” to train, as they were supported and funded by the state. Where their government fell down was on things like being able to reliably provide basic consumer goods to the public. So, your average citizen of the USSR led a pretty grubby life, but somebody the state considered important for international prestige would have had access to the best the USSR could produce or purchase.
True, but did people think that “the best the USSR could produce or purchase” was any better than what the NFL had? With all of his fame and money, there really wasn’t any reason Rocky needed to do some low-budget training out in the woods. He could have either put up his own money and/or leveraged his fame to get some sponsorships and find any number of training facilities that rivaled the ones shown in the movie.
Even going by the movie, the USSR wasn’t a boxer-creating machine. Drago was considered the under dog by the americans going into his fight with Apollo. He was thought of as a young upstart and Apollo was sure he’d win the fight without a problem.
But yes, the USSR did throw lots of money at top athletes. His training room was probably close to an NFL teams (I’d assume at least).
True, but like JXJohns said, he wanted to get away to clear his head of what had happened. And I also think that it was sort of moving to a different level of training.
The only time the US competed with Russia was at the Olympics. Russian atheletes were not permitted to turn pro. However, Russian amateur atheletes were generally people who had a nominal job in the government or military and in actuality trained full time like a professional. Whereas in the US amateur atheletes were people who were training before pursuing a career and once they turned pro and started to be paid were then banned from the olympics. This was not true in track and field at that time but in boxing, basketball, and hockey US amateurs were competing against Russian professionals. This made them underdogs in the eyes of many americans.
The system in Russia was also used throughout the world: top athletes were given no-show government jobs and spend their time training. Jean-Claude Killy, for instance, official worked as a customs inspector, but probably never looked at a stranger’s luggage in his life.
The Communist countries – especially Russia and East Germany – use athletics as a propaganda tool. This was true from the time they were allowed to compete in the Olympics. As such, their top athletes were given special treatment.