Rocky Balboa, the tank-town ham-and-egger who got his miracle shot at the heavyweight championship of the world nearly 30 years ago, is back.

Insert stirring Rocky theme music here.

The new film is due to begin shooting in Philadelphia and Las Vegas next year, when writer-director-star Sylvester Stallone will turn 60.

According to a movie-trade publication, the story will focus on an aging Rocky who is reluctant to get back into the ring but winds up trying to remember something of the sweet science just to compete, not necessarily win.

Who’s his opponent? Jake LaMotta?

Maybe Pennsylvania resident for nearly the past 50 years, Larry Holmes. But last we heard, Holmes was looking for a bout with George Foreman, no doubt to be aired on the Home Shopping Network.

The first (and best) Rocky film came out 1976 and was, as they say in the trades, a boffo hit. The story of the underdog, in this case a club pug, rising to the top to fight the reigning champ, Apollo Creed, and then putting on a heckuva gutsy battle is a classic. I remember discussing it with some co-workers back in the newsroom in those days. The most cynical of the lot admitted he had a lump in his throat at the end of the movie. So did I. OK, it wasn’t Gone with the Wind, but it managed to cop the Oscar for best picture that year.

Sadly, things went downhill from there, and we got cold-cocked with four pretty cheesy sequels. Rocky should have canned his cornerman for lousy advice. In brief, Rocky comes out of the championship bout losing a split decision, but the movie left you in limbo for a bit.

Famous lines: Apollo says at the end of the slugfest, “Ain’t gonna be no rematch,” to which a bloodied Rocky answers, “don’t want one.”

But it happened, of course, in Rocky II, pretty lame except for the double-knockdown at the end when Rocky struggles up on wobbly legs and is declared winner.

Rocky, getting pummeled by Mr. T in Rocky III, quips, “it’s not so bad,” and eventually wins. In Rocky IV he defends America, and the memory of Apollo Creed, by outslugging the cold-hearted Commie Russkie, Ivan Drago. I didn’t see Rocky V, where he supposedly took on the trainer’s role after the fight with Drago left him with slight brain damage.

Maybe that’s the reason for Rocky VI — Rocky’s punch drunk — or movie moguls are hitting below the belt again. This is just the movies, of course. In real life, Stallone made $23,000 for the original Rocky. He made $20 million for his last, forgettable, film.

But now the Eye of the Tiger has been fitted with trifocals, and the wags are already weighing in on whether this remake will hit the canvas early.

The between-rounds card girls: Eartha Kitt and Carol Channing. The fight will be brought to you by AARP with individual rounds sponsored by the likes of Depends, Fiber One, Viagra, Miracle Ear, NutraJoint, Porto-Oxygen, Metamucil and the Greatest Hits of Patti Page.

The new Rocky theme should be Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young.”

But I admit that being about the same age as the star of the film I have some of the same “dream-dies-hard,” fantasies. There are occasional mornings when we actually swear we’ve “still got it.” (We don’t.) But 60 is the new 40, or so I’ve been told, and we tend to turn a cauliflower ear to naysayers and believe we still have a haymaker or two left in us.

So I won’t take too many jabs at Rocky VI, yet. I’m too busy shadowboxing with Father Time and trying to counter life’s blitz of one-two punches on a daily basis.

Rocky is about grit and character and not being ready to throw in the towel.

He’s just an old lion trying to go the distance when most of us would settle for a standing eight count.

Getting old doesn’t pull any punches.