Fighting With My Family Turns WWE’s Paige Into Rocky – And It Works

Warning: SPOILERS For Fighting With My Family

In Fighting With My Family, writer-director Stephen Merchant leans into many of the classic tropes of the Rocky films to tell the story of how Paige (Florence Pugh) became a WWE Superstar – and it works! Highlighting the similarities between the 18-year-old pro-wrestler from Norwich, England and the underdog fighter from Philadelphia helped turn Merchant’s film into a critically-acclaimed crowd-pleaser, and Paige into a new movie heroine.

It’s no surprise that Fighting With My Family evokes the spirit of Rocky Balboa; Sylvester Stallone’s creation is arguably the most influential sports film of all-time. The first Rocky won the 1977 Academy Award for Best Picture and not only spawned 5 sequels and the Creed soft reboots, but it has also inspired numerous films like The Karate Kid. The Rocky template of an outsider who chases after an impossible goal and overcomes seemingly impossible odds to win is a proven formula that usually leaves audiences cheering. It’s also fitting that Fighting With My Family is produced by Dwayne Johnson, who is one of the biggest WWE stars ever as The Rock (and before he took on the moniker of The Rock, Johnson’s ring name was Rocky Maivia).

Related: All 8 Rocky And Creed Movies Ranked

Of course, Paige’s story is uniquely her own and her rise to the top of WWE is because of her singular charisma, her in-ring prowess, and the fact that she has that “extra spark” that makes a WWE Superstar. However, Fighting With My Family still hits many familiar beats that fans of the Rocky franchise immediately recognize:

• This Page: How Paige And Rocky Both Get Once-In-A-Lifetime Opportunities
• Page 2: Fighting With My Family Is A Underog Rags-to-Riches Story

Like Rocky, Paige Gets A Once-In-A-Lifetime Shot At Her Dream

Paige grew up in a family of pro-wrestlers and she dreamed of making it to WWE, the biggest wrestling company in the world. She actually gets two opportunities to realize her dream: the first was when she was the only person to pass her WWE tryout. Unfortunately, her older brother Zak (Jack Lowden) didn’t get tapped by Hutch Morgan (Vince Vaughn), the WWE’s talent scout and trainer, but Hutch saw “a spark” in Paige that was missing from all of the other hopefuls, including Zak. Despite her initial hesitation to move to WWE’s developmental arm, NXT, in Orlando, Florida without Zak, Paige, of course, takes the golden opportunity to help out her family as well as herself.

Paige’s second big opportunity comes after she proves herself in NXT. When she’s backstage at WrestleMania 30 in New Orleans, The Rock invites her to his private suite specifically to give her the news that would change her life: Paige would not only debut on the WWE main roster live on Monday Night RAW the next night, but would also be winning the WWE Divas Championship from the dominant titleholder, A.J. Lee (Thea Trinidad). Paige even enters the empty arena before her match and takes it all in, just like Rocky did the night before his fight with Apollo. The film ends with Paige’s moment of triumph as she wins the championship and proclaims to the WWE fans that “This is my house now!” This was the fulfilment not only of her dream, but also of Zak’s and their entire family’s as well.

Paige’s story can’t help but echo Rocky Balboa’s, who was a no-name club fighter in South Philadelphia handpicked by Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). The heavyweight champion of the world needed a last-minute opponent for a fight to celebrate America’s Bi-Centennial. With no worthy ranked contenders, Creed hatched a plan to give a once-in-a-lifetime shot to a nobody to prove America was still the land of opportunity. Apollo chose Rocky simply because he liked Balboa’s nickname “The Italian Stallion”. Rocky didn’t defeat Apollo in their first fight but the underdog did prove his own self-worth by taking the champion to a 15-round split decision. Balboa was also interviewed after the fight but he screamed for his girlfriend Adrian (Talia Shire) instead of answering questions.

It was only in their Rocky II rematch that Rocky beat Apollo to become the heavyweight champion. However, Fighting With My Family doesn’t wait for a sequel to give Paige her big win; the film follows Paige’s real-life events where she defeated A.J. Lee and became champion in her first night in WWE.

Page 2: Fighting With My Family Is An Underdog’s Rags To Riches Story

Fighting With My Family Is A Rags To Riches Story

Both Paige and Rocky Balboa come from working-class backgrounds and their stories are about underprivileged outsiders who become world champions. Balboa comes of age in the grimy streets of 1970s South Philadelphia and Paige grew up as Saraya-Jade Bevis in Norwich, UK. When he wasn’t fighting in seedy clubs, Rocky made ends meet as a (reluctant) enforcer for a local mob boss, Tony Gazzo (Joe Spinell). He also trained in Mickey Goldmill’s (Burgess Meredith) Gym, which was a far cry from the WWE Performance Center, the state-of-the-art facility which was Paige’s NXT home base.

Unlike Rocky, whose father told him he would never amount to much, Paige was fortunate to grow up with a loving family that thought of her as their princess. Of course, her very unusual family ran their own local wrestling promotion, World Association of Wrestling, and regularly got in the ring and beat each other up. Paige didn’t engage in any criminal activity, unlike their half-brother Roy (James Burrows), who spent time in prison, but she and Zak helped train underprivileged teens to be wrestlers and kept them off the streets and away from the local drug dealers. However, Paige’s father “Rowdy” Ricky Knight (Nick Frost) is a reformed criminal (he spent time in prison “mostly for violence”) and her mother “Sweet” Saraya Knight (Lena Headey) had issues with drugs and mental illness. It was their shared love of professional wrestling that brought Ricky and Saraya together.

Related: Every WWE Cameo In Fighting With My Family

The Knights and their wrestling company were in regular financial peril and the family’s fortunes were riding on Paige’s WWE success, which was pressure that Paige keenly felt when she was alone 4,000 miles from home enduring NXT boot camp. Amusingly, the Knights cashed in on Paige’s WWE status and sold more tickets and merchandise (Paige Barbie dolls and posters) by leveraging her fame. Similarly, Rocky’s future brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young) also saw the opportunity to make money off the Italian Stallion’s fight with Apollo Creed and he arranged for his meat-packing company to advertise on Rocky’s ring robe.

Fighting With My Family Makes Paige An Underdog Worth Cheering For

Crucially, Paige becomes an inspiring heroine because she overcame immense odds to get to the top of her industry, just like Rocky. They are even similar in where they lived and how they were treated by people in their hometowns: Paige’s bedroom is adorned with posters of her WWE idols The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin, while Rocky had a poster of boxing icon Rocky Marciano in his apartment. Paige’s real name Saraya comes from her mother’s ring moniker, just like Rocky is named after Marciano. Paige and Rocky even dress similarly; both like to wear black leather jackets, and they are misunderstood and insulted by locals. Rocky gets made fun of and called “a bum” by people in his neighborhood and Paige is called a “freak” by other girls.

Both Paige and Rocky benefited from having tough but fair mentors. Hutch Morgan is essentially Paige’s version of Rocky’s manager, Mickey; they are both washed-up former pros in their sports who regretted never quite making it and Hutch is as hard on Paige as Mickey was a stern mentor to Rocky – but only because they saw great potential, and feared that their protégés teetered on throwing away their golden opportunities. At first, Rocky refused the fight with Apollo for fear of being humiliated. Similarly, Paige nearly walked away from NXT because training was too hard and she was homesick. They both had to find what Rocky III defined as the “Eye of the Tiger” to become champions, though Paige needed a Skype chat and nudge from Zak to give her the confidence to face A.J. Lee the same way Adrian would soothe Rocky’s self-doubt and spur him on to “win!”

In the end, Paige achieved her dreams by being “the first you” – she stopped doubting her abilities and trying to fit into a WWE Diva mold. She remained true to herself and it was her unique talent, singular wit, and charisma that brought her to the top of WWE. Fighting With My Family climaxes with Paige emerging as an inspirational underdog who overcame the odds to become a world champion – just like Rocky Balboa.

Next: The True Story of WWE’s Paige (And What Fighting With My Family Changed)