Incredible Hulk: The Final Round (1978)
Reviewed by Geno McGahee
It’s hard to go wrong with Martin Kove. For those of you that don’t know who Martin Kove is, you will when I mention that he was the head of the Cobra Kai Dojo in THE KARATE KID. He was John Kreese…the guy that nearly got his revenge in the third entry of that series.
In “The Final Round,” Kove plays Henry “Rocky” Welsh, a wannabe fighter, but he is not getting the support of his girl, Mary (Fran Myers). She is against his boxing career and is pushing him into the car mechanic business. She will not be running to the ring the way that Adrian did with Rocky Balboa, after he went the distance with Apollo Creed. She would probably throw a wrench at him and say: “Fix a car you idiot bastard.”
Now David Banner (Bill Bixby), and I won’t get into the entire “why they changed his name from Bruce to David because Bruce was a gay man’s name.” Flat out, they didn’t want a gay Hulk. So David is just minding his business in the wrong side of town when he was jumped. He gets jumped more than anyone else in TV history. Well, he keeps the Hulk in his pants and is luckily saved by Rocky Welsh, who quickly invites him to come and stay at his apartment. “Didn’t you hear I’m not gay Hulk,” he says with a smile.
Against his instincts, he goes home with Rocky and his apartment looks remarkably similar to Balboa’s first apartment in the original ROCKY. Perhaps he lives with Balboa or he got his apartment after he left it. There, Rocky (not Balboa) offers David a job (not that sort) and he accepts. He begins working at the gym, and immediately does not care for the owner, Mr. Sariego (Al Ruscio). Sariego is a mobster and has dirty hands and has been giving packages to Rocky to drop off, and of course, it turns out to be drugs.
As Banner and Rocky walk with the package in hand, the same group of thugs harasses them and starts a fight, which ends with the Hulk kicking ass and the drugs smashed on the ground to the shock of Rocky. Wow, this Rocky is an idiot. What did he think he was delivering? His boss is an obvious mobster, has ties with boxing, and doesn’t tell him what’s in the box. It’s obvious drugs or something else illegal like snuff films. Either way, it has to be illegal. If it wasn’t, he would put it into the mail and send it. Why was Rocky so offended when he found out it was heroin?
Rocky confronts Sariego and says that he will not turn him in, but will no longer be a delivery boy for him either, which is taken quite well. Sariego not only understands his position, but is now offering him a fighter with top contender Bill Cole (Tony Brubaker), but boxing is a dirty sport and it will not be on the level. Rocky’s got a heart condition and Sariego is going to dope him going into the fight. If he fights too hard, heart attack city for the Cobra Kai Master.
It does seem that they did use some of the cinematography from the ROCKY flick, but certainly not the fight choreography. It was painful to watch Cole and Rocky “box” inside of the ring. It was a basic cat fight…and Cole was a top contender for the heavyweight title? Wow, the division must have been weaker than it is now.
So, the bout goes off as planned, but there is one slight snag. Banner overheard the plan and now they must kill him, but they decide not to do it immediately. They opt to hang him from a cage above the ring on fight night. Oh, that’s a much better idea. So he gets to watch the fight, get ripshit, and then Hulk up and stop the fight before tragedy happens.
Making matters worse, Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) heard of the Hulk beating up the thugs and now is in attendance on fight night, just on the off chance…the 1 in a million chance, that the Hulk will crash the boxing card. What are the odds? Well, he does, and he lands in the ring and the fat ass referee has the balls to walk up to him and say: “Get out of here.” The Hulk just tosses tubby across the ring and rightfully so. Hulk would have listened to Mills Lane I bet.
Cole, who couldn’t drop Rocky, attacks Hulk with punches, but gets launched out of the ring, right into McGee’s lap…Hulk’s way of sort of telling this annoying reporter to piss off. There are some strange close up shots of Hulk just making funny faces into the camera and they recruited Paul Micale, who played “Father Carmine” in ROCKY, to be a man in the crowd. I think it was meant to be funny, but I didn’t like Father Carmine in ROCKY and I like Micale as the guy in the crowd less. I wish the Hulk ripped off his arms and beat him to death with them.
In the end, as in all Hulk episodes, the good guys win. Rocky actually quits boxing and goes into mechanics. His girlfriend squashed his dream. “My family won’t accept a boxer,” I could picture her saying. “You either be a mechanic or start your own dojo.” “Maybe I will and maybe I will call it Cobra Kai.”
Overall, it’s a mediocre episode, but certainly watchable. Boxing fans will scratch their heads a little and quickly realize that the writer of this episode is not a boxing fan. Nevertheless, I do recommend it.
RSR Rating: 6.5/10. Hulk likes the Cobra Kai.