Fight Preparation Stories: Ruslan Provodnikov & Cinderella Man Quote Spotlight

"After a big lunch, Ruslan watches the film Cinderella Man, a ritual he practices before every fight."

~Captioned in HBO's "2 Days" episode on Ruslan Provodnikov, chronicling the two days leading up to the Mike Alvarado match.

This has been airing, as Provodnikov gets another chance to show off his devastating style against a slicker styled and lesser known Chris Algieri this Saturday night. I thought I'd spotlight this quote. Of course, Cinderella Man is a film much maligned by old-time boxing fans-as much as it was praised as a great mainstream film- for its unrealistic but dramatically useful portrayal of beloved heavyweight champion Max Baer. Baer came off in the film as a dull bad guy, as opposed to the ebullient, affable, comedic real life figure he was, in order to be the big, bad obstacle for protagonist Jimmy Braddock.

In short, he was a tool in the film. Take that as literal or slang. Either fits. It's unfortunate that the Baer portrayal is a sticking point, because if you take that away, I think you've got an entertaining bit of boxing schmaltz and if you can't like it because of that one issue, you probably at least wanted to like it. Either way, apparently, one of this generation's best action fighters uses it to mentally prepare himself. "The Siberian Rocky" watches a boxing film before all of his fights, and that film is Cinderella Man. If that's not ironic, I don't know what is!



Work that bag,
Basement Gym Boxing



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