This is Creed director Ryan Cooglers favorite movie.

Or at least one of his favorite I don't remember the exact words he used when I read about it in an interview of his. He loves it and me being a new fan of his decided to check it out myself. What's pretty fun is I see some direct inspirations he took from this and used in Creed.

One of the songs during the first major training sequence of Creed, Bridging the gap plays which is featured in here when Malik starts to really take off in his accumulation of power and influence in a montage scene.

Another feature I believe Coogler lifted was the act of the character title. In Creed a very visually cool feature that also serves as some exposition are these title sequences that pop up when major boxer characters are introduced. In this film characters names and certain other pieces of information were presented to the audience with title and a freeze frame.

I am sure there are even more influences I hadn't picked up. Pretty fun to see them though. IF anyone else has seen both films (both of which I think are great) please fill me in on more of these if you have noticed them.

"Cool will get ya dead." -Former NBA Power Forward, Karl Malone