Unlike the first fight, Apollo has trained heavily. In order to protect his vulnerable eye, Rocky opts to fight right-handed rather than his natural southpaw, but this leaves him at a major disadvantage, as he is knocked down twice by Creed and outclassed for much of the fight.
Tom Reimann writes that Apollo in Rocky IV is so "desperate to cling to his former glory that he makes it his personal mission to publicly embarrass Drago, a man who has done absolutely nothing to offend Apollo beyond merely existing."
However, casting that aside reveals that Apollo was punch-for-punch the superior fighter. While still in their professional careers, Rocky and Apollo faced off three times– twice official bouts and once off the record. Apollo came out on top two out of the three times.
Upon reviewing the local boxers in Philadelphia, Creed is drawn to a club fighter named Rocky Balboa because Balboa is Italian and has a catchy nickname, "The Italian Stallion". Apollo also explains his choice by saying: "Who discovered America? An Italian, right?
Fame and complacency soon cause Balboa to lose his title to young thug Clubber Lang ( Mr. T ), who inadvertently causes the death of Rocky's beloved trainer, Mickey (Burgess Meredith), before their first championship bout.
Why Apollo Creed is the Greatest - Rocky Explained/Character Analysis
Who did Clubber Lang killed?
Fame and complacency soon cause Balboa to lose his title to young thug Clubber Lang ( Mr. T ), who inadvertently causes the death of Rocky's beloved trainer, Mickey (Burgess Meredith), before their first championship bout.
The fight would be one for the history books, and it would surely be close, but in the end Apollo Creed's superior skill as a boxer would win out over Clubber Lang's superior strength.
Apollo picks Rocky mostly because he's white, Italian, and has a catchy nickname (The Italian Stallion). Let's just say Apollo has underestimated Rocky a great deal, just like the rest of the world.
Commentator #2 in Las Vegas : Hey guys, Ivan Drago is definitely for real! Apollo : [His last words] I want you to promise me you're not gonna stop this fight, no matter what. No matter what!
Faced with either publicly admitting defeat (and, by extension, his own apparent weakness) or allowing Drago to kill him, Apollo Creed opts for the latter, keeping his pride intact but losing his life.
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).
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.
In 1985, he killed an African-American boxer named Apollo Creed. In boxing business, he was undefeated until Christmastime of 1985 when Rocky Balboa defeated him. Shortly after his defeat, he was arrested alongside several other members of the Koloff crime family, causing the syndicate to become heavily weakened.
Apollo's biggest vice has always been his hubris. He couldn't handle that Rocky nearly beat him, and his desire for a rematch was an attempt to prove to himself that he wasn't at the end of his rope. This personal validation would continue to follow him into Rocky IV and even alienate him from his loved ones.
Drago enters professional heavyweight boxing in the beginning of the movie. Former champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), now 43 years old, comes out of retirement to challenge Drago to an exhibition match, assisted by Creed's former rival Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone).
Apollo Creed : Now, when we fought, you had that eye of the tiger, man; the edge! And now you gotta get it back, and the way to get it back is to go back to the beginning.
"That's a regretful situation because I know what it could have been," Stallone told THR about disagreeing with the new film's tone. "It was taken in a direction that is quite different than I would've taken it. "It's a different philosophy, Irwin Winkler's and Michael B. Jordan's.
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.
The series has yet to specify Lang's fate: Clubber Lang eventually retired from boxing and according to Sylvester Stallone, Clubber Lang later became a born-again Christian and a ringside announcer.
Marciano is the only world champion to complete his career undefeated. Marciano had a 12-fight amateur career during which he won the New England Golden Gloves title before losing to Coley Wallace in the Eastern Championships. It would be his last defeat inside a boxing ring.
Read on. (Note: ESPN Classic will be showing "Rocky" at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday.) In Reel Life: Rocky Balboa is a 30-year-old club fighter. In Real Life: Sylvester Stallone was inspired by Chuck Wepner, a 35-year-old club fighter who also happened to be the No.
In an unusual move, Marciano returned to the amateur ranks and fought in the Golden Gloves All-East Championship Tournament in March 1948. He was controversially beaten by Coley Wallace.
