While there is some truth in what you say (the stair run in the musical, which is really a stair loping, is anticlimactic at best in itself), I don't think it is entirely true. Although I'm aware of the movie's big scenes, I've never actually seen more than about 2 minutes of it in my life. I still enjoyed the musical quite a bit.
(SPOILERS)
And I don't think that the praise for the final fight scene rests on knowing what's going to happen. For me at least, the fight scene was exciting because it felt like you were actually watching a boxing match, although that feeling is probably much stronger in certain seating areas than in others. And I would agree that it was difficult to tell who was ahead, but what mattered to Rocky (and therefore to the creators and theoretically to the audience) is not whether he was ahead because he did not think he had a chance of winning. What mattered was whether he stayed on his feet for 15 rounds, which meant to him that he was a legitimate contender and therefore of worth. And I think the show made it clear to me that he achieved that goal.
I would say, though, that the final decision being a split decision is somewhat of a miscalculation on the part of Stallone in the script, at least the way it is presented in the musical, because it means that Rocky is much better than he thinks he is. It changes the message slightly from Rocky's fighting through all 15 rounds being a moral victory for the "little guy" who was inevitably going to be defeated, to the boxing match being somewhat about confidence and self-esteem, since Rocky is so sure that he could never win but he was wrong about that. Googling tells me that the movie also ends with a split decision. How is this handled in the movie? Is it different from the way it is in the musical?
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