Supervillain, racer and whipping boys: what roles athletes play in movies

A few days ago, mixed martial arts fighter Georges St. Pierre ended his career. The former UFC champion in two weight categories already left mixed martial arts in 2013. While his gloves were “hanging on the nail” he tried on the role of a movie actor. His most famous work was the role of a negative character in the movie “First Avenger: Another War” – Georges Batroc.

Perhaps after the final end of his career, St. Pierre will continue to work in the movie.

The editorial staff of “Championship” offers you to remember other athletes who took part in the filming of feature films.

Slaughterhouse Rematch (2013)

Since we’re talking about fighters returning to the big sport, it’s worth remembering Peter Segal’s movie. Two boxers are about to resume their careers for a decisive fight, 30 years after their last fight. The movie starred Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro, both of whom have played boxers before, Stallone in the “Rocky” series and De Niro in “Raging Bull.” “Slaughterhouse Rematch” contains several references to both films.

In the movie there is a scene where the main characters attend a UFC tournament, there they have a conflict with one of the athletes. In the course of a short skirmish, Stallone’s hero sends his opponent into a knockout with one punch. Fans of martial arts can recognize in this character a recent opponent of Fedor Emelianenko – Chael Sonnen. The fight took place on October 14 and ended with a victory for the Russian athlete, Sonnen was knocked out again rather quickly.

But that’s not all, in the scene after the credits the manager, who organized the fight of the main characters, offers Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield to hold a “super fight” rematch at “Wembley”. They play out the ear-biting incident several times, but they never manage to come to an agreement.

This is not the first time Tyson has appeared in the same movie with Stallone, he also appeared in an episode of the movie “Rocky Balboa” (2006). In the story, Rocky’s opponent, played by boxer Antonio Tarver, gets into a verbal altercation with “Iron Mike” when he enters the ring.

Sylvester Stallone has invited boxers to appear in the next movie in the series as well.

Creed: Rocky’s Legacy (2015).

The protagonist of the movie is Adonis Creed, the son of Apollo Creed, a friend of Rocky Balboa who died in the ring in a fight with Ivan Drago in the plot of the fourth movie of the series. Adonis convinces Rocky, who has had nothing to do with the sport for a long time, to become his trainer.

The main opponent of Creed is played by professional boxer Tony Bellew, Russian boxing fans should remember that on November 10 last year he lost to Ukrainian Alexander Usik.

Also in the filming took part Andre Ward, who twice defeated Russian boxer Sergey Kovalev. According to the plot of the movie, he was supposed to meet in the ring with the hero Tony Bellew, but broke his arm during a scuffle at a press conference before the fight.

It is worth noting that he reappeared in the next part of the movie, where he entered the ring against the protagonist. The role of another opponent of Creed was played by Gabriel Rosado, Russian fans could remember him for the fight against the boxer from Kazakhstan – Gennady Golovkin.

Asterix at the Olympic Games (2008)

Another movie with lots of athletes in cameo roles. Asterix, Obelix and company take part in the Olympic Games. At first everything is simple, but suddenly it turns out that the potion that gives them strength is doping. In Russian sport something similar happened not so long ago. And the heroes have to compete fair and square.

During the wrestling competition, the participant from Rome is played by Australian wrestler Nathan Jones, the Romans call him their secret weapon. It’s easy to guess that they had no equal.

On the final day of the competition there were chariot races, and it was in this competition that the winner was to be revealed. One of the participants was the pilot of “Formula 1”, seven-time world champion – Michael Schumacher. Also the ex-director of the Ferrari Formula 1 team, now the head of the FIA (International Automobile Federation) – Jean Todt played a cameo role.

At the end of the movie episodic roles were given to French athletes: basketball player Tony Parker, tennis player Amelie Mauresmo and soccer player Zinedine Zidane.

And while we’re on the subject of French soccer players, it’s worth remembering another movie.

Cab 4 (2007)

According to the plot, a particularly dangerous criminal is delivered to the police station of Marseille, and Gibert’s subordinates only need to keep him until morning. But, as in all films of this series, they can’t cope with it on their own.

At the beginning of the movie, the creators beat the transfer of Djibril Cisse to Olympique Marseille. In the movie the transfer cost 60 million euros, in reality the club paid for the player much less – eight million euros.

Cisse could be remembered by Russian fans for his goals against CSKA Liverpool during the UEFA Super Cup match, against Zenit against Olympique Marseille in the UEFA Cup 1/8, as well as for his appearances for Kuban Krasnodar.

Coach (2018)

Russian movie about a national team footballer who received a one-year disqualification, decided to end his career. After the end of the period of disqualification, he began to work as head coach of a club from the FNL. Despite the failures that haunted the protagonist at the beginning of the journey, he manages to build a real team from a set of players.

About 200 professional soccer players were involved in the making of the movie, among them were Alan Gatagov and Dmitry Sychev.

Stone Head (2008)

Nikolai Valuev after the end of his career began to star in commercials, as well as in episodic roles in feature films. In 2008, he went further and played the lead role. A boxer who was in a car accident, suffered a serious head injury, because of which he began to have memory lapses. In the plot of the movie he will return to the ring.

Nikolai Valuev’s movie debut received the main prize of the film festival “Window to Europe” – “Golden Rook”.