SOME forty-two years ago, a boxing movie made on a shoestring budget of around $1 million went on to earn over $200 million at the box-office. The movie did not just finish as the highest grossing film of 1976, it also became the first sports film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The movie was titled Rocky and starred then unknown actor Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa, the down-and-out club fighter from the slums of Philadelphia who became a national sensation when he nearly defeated flamboyant world heavyweight boxing champion Apollo Creed (played by former football player Carl Weathers). More than the Cinderella story of Balboa, fans loved the brutal, gut-wrenching boxing action Stallone and Weathers put up in the ring.
The movie Rocky was actually inspired by the real-life story of American Chuck Wepner, a journeyman fighter who stunned the boxing world in 1975 when he knocked down world heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali in the ninth round before eventually getting battered into submission in the trenches. Wepner showed unbelievable toughness, refusing to quit even if he had been reduced to a human punching bag by Ali.
The Rocky franchise has thus far spawned a total of eight movies with the latest installment, Creed 2, set to hit the movie screens. Creed 2 is actually a sequel to the 2015 movie Creed which introduced Adonis “Donnie” Johnson Creed (played by Michael B. Jordan), the son of former champ Apollo Creed from an extramarital affair.
In Creed 1, Adonis Creed is taken in and treated as family by Apollo Creed’s widow Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad), but a disagreement erupts when Adonis gives up his day job to pursue a boxing career. Mary Anne’s opposition stems from the fact that Apollo Creed died in the ring, in the hands of Russian mastodon Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), in Rocky IV (1985). A stubborn Adonis Creed pursues boxing and even taps the former rival of his father, an ailing Rocky Balboa, to serve as his trainer.
Creed 2 will be a mixture of Creed I and Rocky IV, as it will see Adonis Creed taking on Viktor Drago, the son of Ivan Drago. Many of the supporting stars from Rocky IV are reprising their old roles, notably Lundgren (as Ivan Drago) and Stallone’s ex-wife Brigitte Nielsen (as Drago’s wife and Viktor’s mother).
If you are a Rocky fan, you will remember that it was in Rocky IV where Rocky Balboa last appeared as a heavyweight champ in his prime (a retired Rocky Balboa figured in a street fight in Rocky V and an ageing Rocky Balboa made a one-fight comeback in Rocky VI). After his rival-turned-best friend Apollo Creed was killed by Drago in an exhibition match, Balboa agreed to take on Drago in an official boxing match in the Soviet Union. The boxing action was over-the-top, far removed from the simple yet realistic take in Rocky 1, but just the same Balboa prevailed by knocking the daylights out of Drago. From where this writer sits, Rocky IV was the last all-action movie in the Rocky franchise with an outrageous storyline. The storylines in the succeeding installments have been a bit grounded, with dramatic touches.
Still, in Creed 2, it will be interesting to see Balboa and Drago revisiting their history together. Actor Michael Jordan was a believable light heavyweight boxer in Creed 1 and fans will be on the lookout for some frenetic boxing action when Adonis Creed swaps celluloid punches with Viktor Drago. Oh, the role of Viktor Drago will be played by a real boxer, 6-4, 250-pound Romanian heavyweight Florian Munteanu.
Adonis Creed vs. Viktor Drago will be the highlight of Creed 2, but one can imagine old clips from the previous Rocky movies being shown if only to give the main event more emotional weight. After all, it was this shoutout from Rocky Balboa in Rocky 1 that started it all: “Yo, Adrian! It’s me, Rocky!”
[Editor's note: Creed 2 hits theaters on Nov. 21]
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