Chuck

1

My name is Chuck Wepner.

You don't know me.

Well, you do know me,

but you don't know you know me.

Once upon a time, I was

the heavyweight champ of New Jersey.

They called me the Bayonne Bleeder.

I always hated that name,

but for some reason, it stuck.

Hoboken had Sinatra, Bayonne had me.

Chuck f***in' Wepner!

I swear, this might be

the proudest day in my entire life.

It's like Christmas and All Saints' Day

rolled into one.

John, you know who this guy is?

Yeah, I know who Arty is.

Did you know Arty invented

the wet T-shirt contest?

- What?

- I sh*t you not.

No, Arty Stock, no wet nip. Period.

That was you?

Hey, I was just trying to sell some booze

without getting shut down,

if you know what I mean.

That's genius right there,

that's what that is.

Hey, no, Champ. You...

- What?

- You're a legend.

To legends.

I made a name for myself

by doing a lot of crazy sh*t.

Not all of it's true, but this part is.

In this corner, the former

New Jersey heavyweight champion,

the man who went 15 rounds

with Muhammad Ali, okay?

The pride of Bayonne, Chuck Wepner!

And in this corner,

you know him from his

Hollywood movie, Paint Your Wagon,

his many Tonight Show appearances,

he's undefeated in 1,303 bouts.

It's Victor!

- All right, nothing to the face, okay?

- Did you tell him that?

No face.

Let's go!

For me, it was always about

putting on a show.

Even when I was a kid, growing up in Bayonne,

me and my brother Don

were a couple of real clowns.

I was not really a fighter,

but this was Bayonne.

One way or another,

you were gonna end up fighting.

In 1954, Malphy Esposito stole my basketball.

I didn't wanna do anything,

but he whacked me pretty good.

I may not be the greatest fighter

of all time, but what I learned that day...

Chuck.

...is that I had a gift. I was special.

When you stop any guy in the street

and you ask him

who Chuck Wepner was, he'll tell ya,

"That guy could take a punch."

For a guy who wasn't really a fighter,

I was doing pretty good.

By 1974, I was flying up

the heavyweight ranks

and primed for a shot at the title

against "Big George" Foreman.

The only guy who stood in my way

was Terry Hinke, the Stormin' Mormon.

- Hey, Bleeder!

- What?

Let it go. Let it go. Let it go!

Sh*t. Bad?

Come on AI, let me see the cut.

Looks pretty bad.

All right, get the f*** out of this corner,

and don't bother me

while I'm working, all right?

Whatever we had to do, we did.

Al and I had an agreement, always

move forward and never stop the fight.

AI, let the doc see the cut.

Sure, have a look there.

- Yeah, he's good. He's good.

- Thanks, Doc.

They called Al "The Butcher,"

but it wasn't just him.

I wouldn't stop, either.

Besides, it wasn't his fault I bled so much.

I cannot close this f***in' cut.

It's time to send

this f***in' Mormon back to Utah.

- Are you with me?

- Yeah.

- All right, let's do it.

- Go.

You're on, Chuck. You're on. Hit him.

And the winner by knockout,

in two minutes and 18 seconds

of the 11th round,

and still the North American and

New Jersey heavyweight champion,

Chuck Wepner!

Hey, baby.

Daddy, were you boxing again?

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I was.

Is that why your face looks so funny?

No, sweetheart.

Daddy's face always looks funny.

The other guy was just trying to

spruce it up for me a bit.

Come here, give me some sugar.

Come on, Kimby. It's 8:00.

You gotta eat your breakfast. Go. Go, go, go.

Bye, Daddy.

Come here, let me look at you.

I'm all right.

Come here, baby.

- Let me see.

- It's my ribs.

Chuck, you look terrible.

I'll be as handsome as ever a couple of days.

Here, gimme some of that.

Yeah.

And a little bit of that!

Chuck, no. Come on,

I have to get Kimberly to school.

Plus, I'm still mad at you.

- Will you stop with that, please?

- No!

It's one of Arty's girls. I swear to God,

I never put a hand on her.

It's not your hands I'm worried about.

- I wrote you another poem.

- You can keep your poems.

It's a good one.

Put it on the fridge for you.

Yeah?

- Come on, let me put it in.

- No!

- Just the tip.

- Chuck! No!

- Yeah, come on!

- Chuck, come on! I have 15 minutes...

F***!

...to drop her off and get to work!

God. I'm late.

"My One and Only.

"You alone are in my heart

"From break of day till evening start

"All the while I think of you

"And the lucky day that made us two."

I wrote Phyll poems all the time.

Left them around for her, you know?

How you doin'? Chuck Wepner.

Life treating you good?

There was another fighter,

name of Frankie Suppone,

owned the liquor route.

He was retiring, said I had a good

personality and I should take his route.

I'd make a good liquor salesman.

How you doin'? Chuck Wepner.

Let me ask you something, you like Dewar's?

I figured, what the hell?

I may be ranked eighth in the world,

but I still need a freakin' job.

Before that,

I was a bouncer for a couple of years,

then a debt collector for Frank Giglio.

I was never good at roughing guys up.

Too nice.

Felt sorry for them, you know?

Besides, who wants to hang out

with a leg breaker

when you could be rubbing elbows with

the heavyweight champ of New Jersey?

Hey, Champ! Nice fight with Hinke last night.

- Thanks, Joe.

- You really creamed his Mormon ass.

Hey, hey. Bayonne makes,

the world takes, baby.

You got it, brother.

- Hello, hello, hello.

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