Rocky Balboa is a fictional boxer and the title protagonist of the Rocky film series, created by and played by Sylvester Stallone. He is a working-class Italian-American from the slums of Philadelphia who starts out as a club fighter and rises through grit and a refusal to quit. The first film came out in 1976.

He is known as the Italian Stallion and for going the distance. Before the ring he worked rough jobs around Philly, including as an enforcer for a local loan shark. The series follows him through marriage, fatherhood, widowhood and retirement, and in Rocky Balboa (2006) he runs a restaurant named Adrian's and comes back for a semi-