When I was 16, I was one of many who entered a radio contest timed to the release of Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky V.” Our challenge? Sit through all five “Rocky” movies in a row — the entire odyssey of Rocky Balboa, Philadelphia’s Italian Stallion — without leaving our seats. There would be no bathroom breaks. Just Rocky, Adrian, Apollo, Paulie and the gang for almost nine hours. As someone who loved the Rocky movies and replayed them on the family VCR until the ribbon broke, this didn’t seem like much of a challenge at all.
Our challenge? Sit through all five “Rocky” movies in a row — the entire odyssey of Rocky Balboa, Philadelphia’s Italian Stallion — without leaving our seats.
By the time “Rocky V” began, the theater was nearly empty, an appropriate harbinger for a film that was hated by critics and audiences. By then, however, I was punch drunk enough to proclaim “Rocky V” the best of the bunch, and, after it was over, I along with a few others, emerged from the theater with my hands raised triumphantly, shouting for an Adrian who wasn’t there.
I’d won a gold chain with a boxing glove dangling from it. Yes, the gold was as fake as Stallone’s boxing prowess, and it turned my neck green within two weeks. But it was worth it. To me, the “Rocky” films had it all: pathos, violence, an underdog story and, perhaps above all, a plucky “great white hope” as a protagonist. In 1990, I took in that aspect of the Rocky movies far too easily and uncritically.
I am thinking about the durability of this franchise as an American institution as “Creed III,” the ninth film in the Rocky series, hits theaters Friday. It has been more than 46 years since “Rocky” was released in December 1976, and it’s been more than 32 years since I held my bladder and watched five Rockys in a row. “Creed III” looks poised to be another massive hit. Why do these stories and these characters have such a hold on us after almost five decades?
I believe it’s because “Rocky” movies tap into something more American than patriotism and more American than even race and racism. They tap into a distinctly American idea that an individual underdog can fight his way out of his personal circumstances and achieve more than mere social mobility but also fame, fortune and romance.
As Rocky said to his son in “Rocky Balboa,” the sixth film in the series, “You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
For the uninitiated, “Creed,” which was released in 2015, follows the travails of Adonis Creed (played by Michael B. Jordan). He’s the son of the late Apollo Creed, whom Rocky fought in the first two films. In the first two “Creed” movies, Adonis Creed is featured and Rocky Balboa is a supporting character who aids Adonis’ transformation from rough kid to responsible man. Rocky trains him to be a championship fighter and provides a series of life lessons along the way.
With “Creed,” director Ryan Coogler began steering the franchise’s perspective away from its original “great white hope” framing into something new and far more of the moment. Coogler rooted the “Creed” films in the Black experience as seen through multiple perspectives, including Tessa Thompson’s Bianca Creed, a complicated character who is far more than just Adonis’ wife. That rebooting of the “Rocky” series was a daring move. Coogler deftly changed the franchise’s perspective and, compared to the last two movies with Rocky in the title, he dramatically expanded its audience. In our divided country, that feels like something worth celebrating.
With “Creed III,” Coogler will be taking the “Rocky” rebooting a step further, as this movie will be the first one of the series’ nine in which Stallone’s Rocky Balboa doesn’t appear. Audiences and critics will tell us whether “Creed III” has been liberated from Rocky’s iconic shadow or whether the film feels unmoored.
Coogler is taking a dare by telling white America that they don’t need the character Rocky as a window through which they can see and celebrate Adonis Creed.
Coogler is taking a dare by telling white America that they don’t need the character Rocky as a window through which they can see and celebrate Adonis Creed. The director is boldly asserting that Adonis, through his individual passion for his sport, his family and his own success, can connect with a mass audience that identifies with his aspirations. Let’s hope he’s right.
The Rocky franchise as a whole rejects the idea that there ought to be collective solutions for individual problems. Rocky Balboa is nothing like Terry Malloy, the washed-up boxer who’s the protagonist in 1954’s “On the Waterfront.” For help with his problems, Terry looked to his family, to love, to community and, finally, to the government. The Rocky movies present us with a narrative of liberation achieved only through individual will, which in these trying times can sometimes feel like all we have left. Adonis Creed is also not like Terry Malloy. Not surprisingly, he’s like Rocky. In “Creed II,” Adonis Creed trains in the desert, with weights hanging from his neck by a leather harness and his muscles bulging toward the cartoonish. He is another iteration of Rocky Balboa in “Rocky IV,” who was training in the Siberian hinterlands to face the Soviet boxer Ivan Drago. Both scenes are set to music you’d expect to hear in a commercial for a particularly rustic Gold’s Gym. Rocky and Adonis are two men who have been broken down but are becoming stronger versions of themselves after a period of being wealthy, slack and “soft.” This is the America of the “Rocky” franchise: If you make it to the top, those hungrier than you will always try to tear you down. Those with the “eye of the tiger” are always darkening your doorstep, whether they come in the form of Chicago’s Clubber Lang in “Rocky III” or the USSR’s Drago or so many other felled opponents. The trailer gives us reason to believe that “Creed III” will be making this plot point even more explicit, with challenger Damian Anderson (played by Jonathan Majors) telling Adonis Creed: “I’m coming for everything you got. I want it all.” And one look at the charismatic, sneering Majors makes you think it could happen. This is the America of the “Rocky” franchise: If you make it to the top, those hungrier than you will always try to tear you down. For me, “Rocky” movies are review-proof. I will be delirious with joy from the opening credits of “Creed III.” And if the trailer, the sparkling reviews and early word of mouth is any indication, we are looking at another titanically successful entry in the franchise. Somewhere there may be a TikToker or podcaster thinking about a new contest: nine movies in a row with no bathroom breaks. Maybe even offer a gold chain that will turn winners’ necks green. Hold that contest, and I’ll be there in a heartbeat.
Dave Zirin
Dave Zirin is sports editor of The Nation. He is the author of 11 books on the politics of sports, including "The Kaepernick Effect." He is also the host of the "Edge of Sports" podcast. 
