| REEL FACE: | REAL FACE: |
Miles Teller
Born: February 20, 1987 Birthplace: Downingtown, Pennsylvania, USA | Vinny Pazienza
Born: December 16, 1962 Birthplace: Cranston, Rhode Island, USA |
Aaron Eckhart
Born: March 12, 1968 Birthplace: Cupertino, California, USA | Kevin Rooney
Born: May 4, 1956 Birthplace: Staten Island, New York, USA |
Katey Sagal
Born: January 19, 1954 Birthplace: Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA | Louise Pazienza
Born: March 24, 1927 Birthplace: Cranston, Rhode Island, USA Death: May 16, 2002 |
Ciarán Hinds
Born: February 9, 1953 Birthplace: Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK | Angelo Pazienza
Born: May 24, 1919 Birthplace: Cranston, Providence, Rhode Island, USA Death: January 30, 2003 |
Ted Levine
Born: May 29, 1957 Birthplace: Bellaire, Ohio, USA | Lou Duva
Born: May 28, 1922 Birthplace: New York City, New York, USA |
Roy Souza
Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts, USA | Dr. Walter Cotter
Born: November 25, 1923 |
Yes. "I mimicked my life after him," said Vinny. "Muhammad Ali never got knocked out. Vinny Paz never got knocked out. I got up all the time." -Inside MMA
Yes. In fact-checking Bleed for This, we learned that the real Kevin Rooney struggled with both alcoholism and gambling. He is widely associated with being Mike Tyson's trainer. He was abruptly fired by Tyson in 1988 at the urging of boxing promoter Don King, who was trying to purge Tyson of all ties to his late trainer Cus D'Amato. Rumors that Tyson was partying more and training less might have also played a part in Rooney's ousting. However, Tyson's success in the ring was clearly hampered when he got rid of Rooney. -Telegraph.co.uk
Yes, the title fight against Roger Mayweather was held at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas with celebrities like Sylvester Stallone in the front row. "After that fight, I almost died, literally," says Vinny, who during that time period had been struggling to make weight for his fights (a struggle depicted in the movie). He collapsed in the dressing room after the fight and was rushed to the hospital with near-fatal dehydration. Vinny claims to have seen himself rising up through the clouds. "The nurse said to my father, 'Mr. Pazienza, we're losing your son.' And when she said that to him, he grabbed me and he started shakin' me violently. He said, 'Champ!' and I heard it like, 'Champ! I don't care you lost! Don't go there!' And BOOM I came out of it. And that's the only reason why we're here today." -Providence Journal
Yes. In January 1991, he lost $300,000 (about four-fifths of his money) in a Rhode Island banking scandal (The New York Times). The state credit unions, which weren't federally backed, were looted by a corrupt banker. Thousands of people were cleaned out, losing billions of dollars. This was prior to breaking his neck.
No. As reported by The New York Times in 1992, Vinny Pazienza was not wearing a seatbelt during the crash that left him with a broken neck and nearly ended his career in boxing. During that interview, Vinny took the reporter back to the scene of the crash and the reporter noticed that Vinny hadn't put his seatbelt on even then. His response, " 'Cause I'm crazy. I'm a fighter. I take punches. I don't think about accidents."
In the movie, after Vinny (Miles Teller) breaks his neck in a car accident and is outfitted with a metal Halo to hold his neck in place, trainer Kevin Rooney (Aaron Eckhart) tells him, "It's over. You gotta let go." Instead of giving up, this motivates Vinny to prove him wrong. This seems to be the case in real life too, as Rooney was indeed concerned Vinny could re-injure his neck again, or even die.
Yes. "The most excruciating pain of my life was when they took the screws out of my skull," says the real Vinny Pazienza. "It goes, 'Click!' And I go, 'Doc, you're goin' the wrong f***in' way!' Like, it felt like he was goin' in deeper, and he said, 'Vinny, I told you it was gonna hurt. When he did it I held on for dear life and that was it, and then this one, and then this one, and then this one. Ugly." Like in the Bleed for This movie, Vinny had refused anesthesia in real life too. -Inside MMA
Against doctors orders, he had supposedly begun to train just five days after doctors had screwed a Halo into his skull to hold his neck in place. The filmmakers thought that audiences would find this fact too hard to believe and decided to imply that roughly a month passes before he begins to train again (Jimmy Kimmel Live). However, it should be noted that a 1992 Baltimore Sun article supports the movie and quotes Vinny as saying, "I began working out a month after the accident." In any case, 13 months after breaking his neck in the car accident, Vinny returned to the ring and beat former world champion Luis Santana in a 10-round decision.
Yes. After recovering from the accident, he won the vacant IBO Middleweight World Title against Dan Sherry in 1993 and the vacant WBU Super Middleweight World Championship against Dana Rosenblatt in 1996. He also beat a past-his-prime Roberto Duran twice in twelve-round decisions in 1994 (watch the Vinny Pazienza vs. Roberto Duran fight) and 1995 to win the IBC World Super Middleweight Title. Roberto Duran's story was chronicled in the 2016 movie Hands of Stone starring Robert De Niro and Edgar Ramírez.
According to the Bleed for This true story, Vinny Paz estimates that he has had his nose broken at least 100 times, which is emphasized to some degree in the movie. -Daily Mail Online
After reading about the Vinny Pazienza true story vs. the movie above, listen to the fighter in the flesh by watching the Vinny Pazienza interviews, documentaries and fight videos below.