George Washington Duke

[laughs]

And in the midst of his press conference, where he's saying how great Russia was to him, we're getting the introduction of George Washington Duke, who is offering his challenger, Union Cane.

Okay.

This is the second movie in 1990 where a Cane is one of the main characters.

And the second character in this franchise named Duke.

[laughs] All right.

There's no question who George Washington Duke is based off of.

Matt, you and I have reviewed this actor.

That's Tommy Gunn, right? Yeah.

And George Washington Duke.

The only redeeming quality of that is the speech he gives his son about life's going to knock you down and you got to get back up.

That's the only part of that movie that's memorable.

But what they were saying is that the reason it's so bad is that they actually had two villains in the movie.

Yeah.

Because Tommy Gunn is a villain by the end and George Washington Duke is a villain.

And so there was no way for Rocky to legitimately take out the two villains.

But yeah, I want to get back to the other problem I have with Rocky V.

The thing that was both a risk on their part in deviating from formula but also didn't quite work, which is – George Washington Duke's plan from the beginning.

So we have two characters.

Rocky wanted to stay successful but refused to do anything but box.

It's like, well, I can't box.

Guess I have to be poor now.

And then George Washington Duke, who allegedly loves money, right? He's motivated by money.

He's in it for the money.

So, um.

We've mentioned a few times then, Tommy Morrison, a real-life boxer, very famous boxer at the time, plays Tommy Machine Gun, who is this novice fighter that seeks out Rocky and asks him to manage him, essentially, and then all goes well for quite some time until things inevitably go wrong and Tommy is lured over to the dark side by an evil promoter.

Yeah, Tommy Morrison was a really, really good fighter, really, wasn't he, in the 90s.

He beat George Foreman on points, which is probably the standout victory on his record in June 93, even obviously, though it was an elderly George Foreman.

But again, they make a choice and the choice is not great.

Okay.

The promoter, the evil promoter that basically spends his time trying to get Rocky back in the ring, doesn't he, essentially, because he hopes that's where the money is.

And when he realizes he can't get Rocky back in the ring, he sets about manipulating Tommy Gunn.

Get your mind off this fight that you weren't a part of at the end," even though you brought Tommy to that part.

And Tommy didn't thank Rocky, he thanked George Washington Duke.

And that's what's happened here.

So off Rocky goes.

In the next scene, George Washington Duke and Tommy at the press conference.

Okay.

[upbeat music] Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you the newest, the youngest heavyweight champion of all time, Tommy "The Machine" Gunn.

[audience applauding]

The Lions, they fought back.

I posted Rocky V, George Washington Duke, whatever.

They were getting their behinds.

They were like, fight back.