Rocky is the undisputed champ of movies

With Saturday's junior welterweight "battle" between Jose Luis Castillo and Rolando Reyes turning out to be as exciting as watching two snakes mating, I thought I'd share with you something that is at least worthy of your opinion.

As a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, every year I'm asked to vote on boxers and those in the boxing game who will be elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame, in Canastota, N.Y.

With that already done (junior flyweight champions Humberto Gonzalez and Michael Carbajal were two of my picks which made it into the Hall this year), I've been asked to submit my vote on something a bit more light-hearted.

I was asked to choose my favorite modern boxing film and my favorite classic boxing film and was given six choices in each category.

Here they are for your perusal (feel free to e-mail me your favorites) and then I'll give you my selections and why I chose each.

(The descriptions of these films were supplied by the BWAA).

CLASSIC

"Body and Soul" (1947). John Garfield, Lili Palmer. A classic - widely regarded as Garfield's finest performance - that is part film noir, part morality play. Garfield was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor, and the movie won an Oscar for Best Film Editing.

"Champion" (1949). Kirk Douglas, Arthur Kennedy, Ruth Roman, Paul Stewart. Won the Oscar for Best Film Editing, with five other nominations, including one for Douglas for Best Actor. Douglas is the fighter who grabs the glory, but mistreats his disabled brother (Kennedy) and wife (Roman) on the way up.

"Gentleman Jim" (1942). Errol Flynn, Alexis Smith, Ward Bond. Flynn is mesmerizing as James J. Corbett, who, despite his humble origins, brought tactical boxing, grace and charm to a sport that was thought to be a haven for hooligans. The big finish is when Corbett goes against John. L. Sullivan (Bond) for the title.

"Requiem for a Heavyweight" (1962). Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney. The leads are all terrific in Rod Serling's tale of a broken-down heavyweight trying to hang on, an unprepared for life beyond boxing.

"The Harder They Fall" (1956). Humphrey Bogart, Rod Steiger, Jan Sterling. Thinly veiled account of the Primo Carnera story, with Bogey - in his last film role - cast as a cynical sportswriter-turned-press-agent.

"The Set-Up" (1949). Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias. Trial horse "Stoker" Thompson (Ryan) thinks he can still win, and he's pulling an upset when his frantic manager tells him mid-bout that the fix is in and he has to take a dive - or else.

MODERN

"Cinderella Man" (2005). Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, Paul Giamatti. Biopic of Depression-era heavyweight champion James J. Braddock, whose rise to the title was spurred by his desperate need to help his family.

"Fat City" (1972). Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges. Story of two boxers, one in professional and personal decline, the other a young hopeful starting out.

"Million Dollar Baby" (2004). Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman. Academy Awards for Best Picture, to Swank for Best Actress, to Freeman for Best Supporting Actor and to Eastwood for Best Director. A veteran trainer relents and agrees to train a woman boxer.

"Raging Bull" (1980). Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty. De Niro won the Best Actor Oscar for his compelling portrayal of warts-and-all middleweight champion Jake La Motta. The picture won another Academy Award, for Best Film Editing, and was nominated for six others. And even though it didn't win for Best Picture, it was selected by the American Film Institute as the best movie of the 1980s.

"Rocky" (1976). Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith. Philly pug Rocky Balboa proves he wasn't "just another bum from the neighborhood" by going the distance with invincible champ Apollo Creed. Spawned five sequels, but the original garnered Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (John G. Avildsen) and Best Film Editing.

"The Great White Hope" (1970). James Earl Jones, Jane Alexander. Thinly veiled biography of the first black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson, called Jack Jefferson here, and the racism he encountered during his early 20th-century reign.

THE CHOICES

For me, the classic was an easy choice - "Champion." It was the second boxing film I remember seeing (after Requiem for a Heavyweight) and it was the first time I remember ever feeling ambivalence.

Michael "Midge" Kelly (Douglas) displayed the single-minded ruthlessness I always imagined as a youth that it took to become a world champion. And he was a jerk. I watched this movie again as an aspiring teenaged boxer and what scared me was that I saw the same light and dark in myself. That was a theme that I would come to explore time and again and I attribute at least part of that to this movie.

Before giving my choice, I must first supply some brief commentary on the modern movies.

Most of the people I've spoken to who enjoy Million Dollar Baby know nothing about boxing and have never been to a gym. While I thoroughly enjoyed Swank's endearing portrayal of Maggie Fitzgerald - and I'll watch anything with Eastwood and Freeman - when it came to the boxing part, it was terrible.

Here's the best way to sum up the boxing element: Things That Would Never Happen in a Gym or a Boxing Ring. Period.

This eliminates MDB from consideration.

Cinderella Man was a good story, but its depiction of heavyweight Max Baer as a ruthless killer and a jerk was totally bogus. Baer regretted the death of ring opponent Frankie Campbell so much that he turned into a ring character.

And Ernie Schaff died in 1933, after facing Primo Carnera, not in 1932 after facing Baer, as the film alludes. If you have to distort facts to make a movie, don't bother.

Raging Bull is my favorite boxing movie because of De Niro's incredible acting. But again, facts were distorted, so this leaves...

Rocky gets my vote. So what if it was cheesy. So what if it has more sequels than Friday the 13th. Any movie, any piece of art, any piece of creativity that could get me out of bed early (a chore in itself) to chug down raw eggs (and then throw them up in a sink) gets my vote.

Rocky is tops. The movie has transcended art and become something that life imitates. The original is the ultimate underdog story. Great acting, great script. Rocky knocked off Champion and remains the undisputed champion of boxing films.