Rocky's Final Round; After 16 years, Sylvester Stallone is back in the ring, and that's no joke. The series-ending 'Rocky Balboa' is a surprisingly moving story of aging and redemption.

Byline: Sean Smith (With Jac Chebatoris)

Boy, did I get a beating," says Sylvester Stallone, sitting in the living room of his Italian-style villa high above Beverly Hills. A year ago the 60-year-old actor was in the ring being pummeled by a 37-year-old professional boxer for the climactic scene of "Rocky Balboa," the sixth and final installment of the franchise that launched Stallone's career. That kind of hammering can't be healthy. "The second knockdown in that scene was real. It doesn't hurt so much as it stuns you. You're lying facedown, going, 'I'm fine. Just let me stand here a minute'." He laughs. "I had to spend a couple of nights in a hyperbaric chamber to get oxygen back in me. It helps repair injuries quicker, but it kind of felt like Poe's 'Premature Burial'." He knows a thing or two about that.

If you've been in a theater when the trailer for "Rocky Balboa" plays, you've probably witnessed--or participated in--the rather unkind response: laughter, mixed with a few cheers. When Stallone announced he was doing this, 16 years after "Rocky V," comedians cracked jokes about Lipitor and Depends, and the consensus in Hollywood was that Stallone was grasping at faded glory. "A lot of people said, 'Just sit down, don't embarrass yourself'," Stallone says. "There is this incredible resistance to anyone who seems to want a second shot: 'You had your moment, now f--- off'." But there's a sweet…