Our POW [Picture of the Week] is a nice shot of Sly and Link Hogthrob from “The Muppet Show.” The photo comes to us from SZoner, Dede Richard Boyd’s personal collection. Click on the pic to see a bigger version.
- Craig
Category: TV
StalloneZone Exclusive: Bill Pruitt’s Rocky & “The Contender’s” Peter Manfredo!
SZoner, Bill Pruitt checked in with the attached pics and this:
Hi Craig,
Here’s the new re-make of an old caricature I did. This oil on canvas is 30″x39″. “SLY” is hidden somewhere in it as usual.
Also, enclosed is a pic from last weekend with Peter Manfredo who is in town with his dad. He is training with Freddie Roach for a fight on Oct. 14th in Providence, RI and will be aired on ESPN. Thanks a lot.
– Bill
As always, thanks to Bill for sharing his talents with us! Check out Bill’s web site with brand new art posted regularly! – Craig
“The Contender” is a Winner!
| Larry Stewart, in his August 11, 2006 column for the LA Times. com says that The Contender has become a winner! Here are some excerpts: * “Boxing is in a slump… * “There is one boxing format, however, that is suddenly showing signs of success — “The Contender.” * The reality series has been revamped from its first season on NBC and is now on ESPN Tuesday nights at 7.” * “Through four weeks, it is averaging a 1.2 rating and each show is reaching an average of 1.1 million homes. That represents a 33% increase for the same time slot last year.” * “ESPN is the perfect home for the show,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-founder of DreamWorks and one of the creators of “The Contender.” * “The lead producer is Mark Burnett, creator of the “Survivor” series. Last year Sylvester Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard were co-hosts, but Stallone is now busy filming another “Rocky” movie, leaving Leonard as the lone host.” * “The series started four weeks ago with 16 fighters and is now down to 12. Each show provides an inside look at the fighters and their families and friends and concludes with a five-round fight. The losers go home until only two are left. The live finale will take place Sept. 26 at the Staples Center, with the winner getting $500,000.” * “The boxers, culled from a nationwide search, are all professionals with winning records, and all in the 148-pound weight class.” For Larry Stewart’s full article click HERE – Craig |
The Contender in Entertainment Weekly
|
The June 9, 2006 issue of Entertainment Weekly looks at “67 Shows You Can’t Miss.” Here’s a few quotes about The Contender: * NBC is a very wide audience; ESPN is a sports audience. * It’s probably the correct home for The Contender. * They are without the hosting skills of Sylvester Stallone, who was busy filming Rocky Balboa (the actor will stay on as exec producer). * That emotion is, of course, compounded by observing the boxers’ parents, wives and children sit ringside as they they fight – a concept that comes from the master himself. “Stallone advised me correctly,” says (Mark) Burnett, “that Adrian was the key element in Rocky.” * These kids are noble warriors. The Contender returns July 18th at 10pm on ESPN – Craig |
Sly Makes Quick Reps in Flex for March
Ernest “Jazzman” Resendes checks in with the scan above from the March issue of Flex.
Thanks to Jazzman! – Craig
Sly Signs Bike for Charity
On September 7th, Sylvester Stallone appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to sign a Harley-Davidson touring motorcycle that had been donated to assist with a fund-raising effort for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Sly to Play for British TV
Sylvester Stallone will join Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones on a team headed by US Open winner Mark O’Meara to play against an all-star Europeon team.
The competition will play out on a new golf TV show called All Stars Cup which will air on the British digital network Sky One on August 29th.
There’s no word yet if the show will play in the US.
For more details click HERE.
– Craig
Sly Announces Contender Finale
Sly Stallone announced Peter Manfredo Jr. will fight Sergio Mora for the $1 million prize Tuesday night at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The Manfredo-Mora fight is scheduled for seven rounds and will be shown live on NBC.
– Craig
Sly to Appear on “Larry King Live”
Sly Stallone was in LA on May 6, 2005 to tape an interview hosted by Larry King. The interview is set to air on CNN’s ‘Larry King Live’ May 14, 2005. Stallone will discuss his career, his new reality series, The Contender, his venture into health foods and supplements (‘Stallone High Protein Pudding’) and more.
– Craig
Can Stallone Save “The Contender”?
Can Stallone Save The Contender?
by Mary Murphy From TVGuide.com
With less than championship ratings, NBC’s The Contender is definitely on the ropes. Unwilling to admit defeat, cohosts Sylvester Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard rushed this week to create a one-hour special that will air just before Sunday night’s regularly scheduled episode. On Thursday afternoon, these two tough superstars, both significantly dressed in black, met TVGuide.com for an exclusive interview at a Los Angeles boxing club.
TVGuide.com: Despite your star power and a tremendous amount of on-air promotion, The Contender has not lived up to expectations in the ratings. Why?
Sylvester Stallone: Other networks were dropping nuclear weapons on us. They were trying to see if we had the legs to survive.
Sugar Ray Leonard: Based upon what we have been up against, with the other networks doing everything they can to break us down, we stayed strong.
Stallone: [Fox’s] The Next Great Champ put a negative spin on boxing, which is a subject that was dubious to start off with. No one really knew or cared about boxing anymore, so we were really starting off from ground zero. But it is building momentum, not just here but in England, where we moved into first place in our time slot. And we are going to be opening in Germany, Australia, Italy and Spain. So the idea of this American dream still translates. The Rocky philosophy still resonates. So I think it’s really going to catch on. I really do.
TVG: Is that why you’re doing the extra hour? What are you doing in it?
Stallone: We decided to do this three days ago. [NBC-Universal president] Jeff Zucker is taking Dateline off the air this Sunday [to make room for our] hour special. So from 7 pm to 9 pm/ET will be The Contender. It will be me interviewing the wives, showing a different aspect, and then Sugar Ray and I will be recapping the four wonderful battles in the ring. We will sit there with the four winners and analyze what they did. You are going to meet them up close and personal.
Leonard: We are going to recap the first four episodes to let people catch up. There are some very dramatic moments, [like] the big shock in the first episode, when Alfonso Gomez decided to fight the most celebrated boxer of the competition, and it blew everybody away. And then in the third episode the fight with [Ishe Smith and] Ahmed Kadour [who lost]. They hated Ahmed. He walked around like he was God’s gift to the earth and to women. And last week [featured] the heartbreaking fight with Najai Turpin [who later committed suicide].
TVG: This show has been an uphill battle all the way. Why continue to fight so hard?
Stallone: We really love this show. And strangers were coming up to us in the street and recapping it. Then the studio executives caught all the chat on the Internet and it was so positive, they thought they were really getting something at the grass-roots level. The odd thing is, this is how the first Rocky started off. [Producers] Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff took this canister of film to people’s homes and created a buzz — because nobody wanted to see an unknown in a boxing film that was done for under $1 million. We couldn’t even get distribution. It was hard. So we did the same with The Contender. We said, “Let’s flog it. Let’s work it.”
TVG: So The Contender will not be pulled from the network’s schedule?
Stallone: NBC is not giving up. We are going to the end with a fight at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. I am even thinking about ways to do a second season, which would be dramatically different from the first.
– Craig