{"id":12628,"date":"2006-10-08T14:52:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-08T18:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/?p=12628"},"modified":"2021-04-23T15:00:21","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T19:00:21","slug":"stallonezone-exclusive-szoner-joseph-vaglicas-philly-loves-rocky-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/2006\/10\/08\/stallonezone-exclusive-szoner-joseph-vaglicas-philly-loves-rocky-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"STALLONEZONE EXCLUSIVE: SZoner, Joseph Vaglica’s “Philly Loves Rocky” Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

\\My name is Joseph Vaglica<\/b>. I\u2019m a big\u00a0Rocky\/Sylvester Stallone<\/b>\u00a0fan. I recently attended the\u00a0\u201cPhilly Loves Rocky Week\u201d<\/b>\u00a0celebration. Here\u2019s my story\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I traveled to\u00a0Philadelphia<\/b>\u00a0all the way from\u00a0Edgewater, Florida<\/b>. I couldn\u2019t get the entire week off work so I decided to go for two days:\u00a0Thursday<\/b>\u00a0for the\u00a0Rocky and Adrian look alike contest<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0Friday<\/b>\u00a0for the\u00a0statue rededication<\/b>. There were some problems in my plans. In order to get\u00a0Friday<\/b>\u00a0off I needed to find someone to cover my shift. I also was unsure if I wanted to spend the\u00a0$360.00<\/b>\u00a0it would cost to fly to\u00a0Philly\u00a0<\/b>for only two days. I really needed a sign to tell me if I should go or not. While in the men\u2019s shirt department at\u00a0Target\u00a0<\/b>I saw the sign I was looking for! It was a shirt with\u00a0Rocky<\/b>\u00a0on top of the steps of the\u00a0art museum<\/b>\u00a0facing\u00a0Philly<\/b>\u00a0wearing the outfit that I had planned on wearing in the look alike contest. I instantly had goosebumps.<\/p>\n

I arrived in\u00a0Philly<\/b>\u00a0at\u00a010:00 Thursday<\/b>\u00a0morning and rented a car. I got to\u00a0Love Park<\/b>\u00a0in my costume all ready to enter the look alike contest and discovered that the contest was already set and the\u00a0five finalists were pre-selected<\/b>\u00a0(which was not explained in the article that I saw on the internet).<\/p>\n

I was upset and discouraged. I told the organizers that I had just flown in from\u00a0Florida<\/b>. I guess I hit a nerve when I talked to a city representative because he began to spread my story to all the press. The contest officials felt bad and were also amazed at how dedicated I was to jump on a plane with such short notice. They decided to put me in the contest as an\u00a0unofficial finalist<\/b>! This was the best thing that could have happened because after the contest the city representative invited me to the press box on\u00a0Friday<\/b>\u00a0for the\u00a0Rocky statue Rededication<\/b>! The catch was that I had to be dressed as\u00a0Rocky<\/b>. I excitedly agreed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Than I started to walk back to the car as lots of people said I looked good. I walked passed a booth that had a raffle for the new\u00a0Jakks Pacific<\/b>\u00a0limited edition\u00a0Rocky<\/b>\u00a0action figure. The representative at the booth said that the outfit looked good and he invited me to a\u00a0Rocky figure promotion<\/b>! I went to the promotion dressed as\u00a0Rocky<\/b>\u00a0and after it was over they gave me 4 of the limited edition action figures!<\/p>\n

The next day was the\u00a0statue rededication<\/b>\u00a0which didn\u2019t start until\u00a06:00<\/b>. I walked around the art museum and met new friends (Joy, Mike, Steven, Abe, and John<\/b>). About two hours before the rededication I had an\u00a0interview<\/b>\u00a0with\u00a0Channel 6 news<\/b>. They also videoed me running up the stairs and jumping up and throwing punches at the top of the steps like\u00a0Rocky<\/b>. Then I had another interview inside the press area.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Finally\u00a0Sly<\/b>\u00a0came down from top of the museum to the statue. It was unbelievable! I had never seen\u00a0Sly<\/b>\u00a0in person and it was my goal to meet him. I have to admit that I was a little nervous videoing the ceremony . After the rededication I went to\u00a0Sly<\/b>\u2019s party! I was able to get his autograph and\u00a0Frank<\/b>\u2019s. I also got a picture with\u00a0Frank<\/b>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What a great story! Your dedication paid off big time. Thanks for sharing! –\u00a0Craig<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\\My name is Joseph Vaglica. I\u2019m a big\u00a0Rocky\/Sylvester Stallone\u00a0fan. I recently attended the\u00a0\u201cPhilly Loves Rocky Week\u201d\u00a0celebration. Here\u2019s my story\u2026 I traveled to\u00a0Philadelphia\u00a0all the way from\u00a0Edgewater, Florida. I couldn\u2019t get the entire week off work so I decided to go for two days:\u00a0Thursday\u00a0for the\u00a0Rocky and Adrian look alike contest\u00a0and\u00a0Friday\u00a0for the\u00a0statue rededication. There were some problems in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,17,9,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-75","category-frank-stallone","category-rocky","category-sly-fan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3r2Pe-3hG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12629,"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12628\/revisions\/12629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallonezone.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}