Here's the advice Apollo Creed performer Carl Weathers believes the boxer would have given to son Adonis in the Creed movies. While the titular boxer is the icon of the Rocky series, the legacy of Apollo Creed himself has loomed large over the series. In the original movie, he was the World Heavyweight Champion that Rocky found himself facing off against in the ring and the two returned for a rematch in Rocky II. The two rivals later turned into fast friends when Apollo became Rocky's trainer in Rocky III, and the latter is left heartbroken when Creed is later killed during a fight with Soviet boxer Ivan Drago.
Fans felt the same way, with Apollo Creed's Rocky IV death being one of the most defining moments of the entire franchise. Weathers' multilayered turn as Apollo throughout the first four entries left a huge impact on the series, and the character remains a firm fan favorite. This was only reinforced with the Creed spinoff movies, which focus on Michael B. Jordan's Adonis, the son of Apollo. The first movie followed Adonis as he tried to make a name for himself in boxing, with Stallone's Rocky acting as his trainer as the latter tries to make peace with his part in Apollo's demise.
Creed worked as both a worthy follow-up to the Creed 2, Adonis essentially feels he has to avenge Apollo's death by fighting Viktor Drago, the son of Ivan. During a 2015 interview with THR, Carl Weathers spoke of the advice Apollo Creed would have given Adonis about going into boxing.
“If Apollo Creed was there to counsel his son, it would probably be, in my mind: ‘Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this. The reason I sweat and bled the way I did was so that you didn’t have to. And then if his son insists and is going to do it come hell or high water, then who better to show his son the ropes than the greatest.”
On the surface, Rocky IV, and that if he was to remake it, Creed would have survived the fight but been left in a wheelchair.
This would have made for a very different take on 2015's Creed III, which Jordan will direct. There was once a plan to include Carl Weathers Apollo in Creed 2 in ghostly form, which (thankfully) didn't come to .
