This Rocky’s Boxing Career on the Rocks

PHILADELPHIA —  Sylvester Stallone sure wouldn’t have played it that way.

Rocky Balboa fought in Philadelphia on Monday night. But he lost, in a bout so devoid of drama it was stopped by the referee in the fifth round.

The story of Jaime (Rocky) Balboa has little in common with the Philadelphia prizefighter Stallone played in the 1976 smash movie hit “Rocky” and its sequels.

For one thing, the real “Rocky” is a welterweight, not a heavyweight.

He didn’t train by slugging sides of beef in a Philly meat locker and slogging up the steps of the Art Museum or through the Italian Market on Ninth Street. And when he yells “Yo,” he means “I.”

The 27-year-old Balboa is a native of Mexico who’s now from San Antonio.

About the only parallel with the movie that launched Stallone’s career is that the real Rocky also was an underdog. The man who beat him, Meldrick Taylor, is an Olympic gold medalist and unbeaten junior welterweight champ of the International Boxing Federation.

Taylor, who is from the City of Brotherly Love, seemed to appreciate the irony. “I think it’s kind of sassy for Rocky Balboa to come to Philadelphia and challenge me,” said Taylor, who dominated the fight from the outset.

When Taylor connected with two lefts in the fifth round, not even Mickey the trainer or the lovely Adrian could have saved Balboa, who says he was known as Rocky before anyone ever heard of Sylvester Stallone.

“A long time ago when I’d get together with my friends and fight they said I hit real hard,” he said. “They started calling me Rocky.”