She is a Soviet gold-medal swimmer who is the ex-wife and spokeswoman to Soviet captain Ivan Drago. Compared to Ivan himself, she is more despicable as she abandoned him after he lost to Rocky Balboa, and later appeared to have gone unchanged when interacting with her own estranged son Viktor.
After suffering a series of strokes, but before dying, Mary Anne talks with Adonis and then talks to Apollo. She is angry that he left her but tells Apollo that he brought her a son named Adonis, and this allowed her to forgive him (it is unclear if this is for his dying or his infidelity or both).
Ludmilla Drago is the ex-wife of Ivan Drago and the mother of Viktor Drago, with her also returning in Creed II. After the events of Rocky IV, Ludmilla divorced the disgraced Russian boxer, leaving the lives of Ivan and Viktor. However, Ludmilla returned in Creed II, hoping to see Viktor's victory over Adonis.
After his loss to Rocky, Drago was disgraced by the USSR and Ludmilla left him to raise their son, Viktor, on his own. Following the end of the Cold War, Drago was forced to move to Ukraine, where he lived a modest life while relentlessly training Viktor to be an even more formidable boxer than he was.
He seems to be a very pitiless and cold-hearted person as shown when he comments on Apollo Creed's death: "If he dies, he dies", indicating that Ivan feels no remorse (deep regret or guilt for a wrong committed) for his actions.
After Creed defeats Drago in Moscow, Drago embraces his former rival, and the two become friends, later helping Creed train against his next opponent, Damian Anderson.
But when he can't stop his hands from shaking after the fight with Drago, doctors confirm that all the fights and blows to the head have taken their toll on Rocky; he has suffered brain damage and is told to stop fighting if he wants to continue living.
Rocky considers accepting the fight with Cane, but Adrian urges him to see a doctor. Rocky has suffered from brain damage caused by the head-trauma he received at the hands of Ivan Drago.. Because of his injuries, Rocky is forced to officially retire from boxing.
Though he infamously uttered the words "I must break you" to Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa, as Russian death-puncher Ivan Drago, Dolph Lundgren has no plans to break the legacy of Stallone's beloved boxer franchise.
He aims to regain that respect through his son, turning him into an angrier version of his younger self. Crucially, both generations are powered by the departure of Ludmilla Drago, Ivan's ex-wife, after his loss; they believe that, if they win the Heavyweight title, they'll also get her back.
With Rocky, Duke and Paulie in his corner, Apollo was overly confident that he could dispense of Drago with ease. However, Apollo was not ready for the extreme size and strength of the Russian. After taunting the Russian and landing a number of ineffectual punches, Creed was pummelled badly in the first round.
In Creed III, Bianca and Michael B. Jordan's character Adonis 'Donnie' Creed are now parents to a deaf daughter named Amara, played by young deaf actress Mila Davis-Kent, meaning they both had to learn more ASL.
Despite being the face of the Rocky franchise, Stallone chose not to appear in Creed III due to creative differences with producer Irwin Winkler as well as with Jordan, although he is still a producer on the film. According to Stallone, the film had a much darker tone that he didn't agree with.
Sylvester Stallone told Dolph Lundgren during the making of Rocky IV to really hit him — the result was the star being hospitalized in the intensive care unit for nine days. The classic installment in the iconic boxing series turns 35 on Friday.
Ivan Drago: Drago was a Soviet boxer who was trained to be a killing machine. He was incredibly strong and had a powerful punch. Rocky faced Drago in a 15-round fight in Rocky IV, and it was one of the most brutal fights in boxing history.
Sticking just with boxing, Balboa's style was based chiefly on two real life boxers — namely the great Rocky Marciano & a lesser known boxer named Chuck Wepner (top right vs Ali).
Rocky IV (1985) - Rocky IV also fudges the timeline by making it seem like it starts right after Rocky III but the movie then jumps forward to 1985 when Ivan Drago arrives in the U.S. Apollo was killed by Drago and Rocky defeated the Russian in a fight held in Moscow on Christmas 1985 when Rocky was 38 or 39.
Stallone wanted to capture a realistic scene and Lundgren agreed that they would engage in legitimate sparring. One particularly forceful punch to Stallone's chest slammed his heart against his breastbone, causing the heart to swell.
It also showed he's far from a monster, especially when he throws in the towel to end the fight between Adonis and Viktor, as the latter is bound to lose but refuses to stop.
Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu) returns to Creed III after serving as the primary challenger to Adonis in the preceding film. Notably, this isn't just a one-off cameo, either. Viktor and Adonis are quickly established to have buried the bad blood between their families, even becoming friends and sparring partners.
Even though the character is presented as the villain of Rocky IV, the film actually subtly shows that Ivan Drago was simply a victim of his environment. The Rocky franchise is known for its larger-than-life characters and its outlandish action, and perhaps no movie better encapsulates that idea than Rocky IV.
