ROCKY IV (1985)

Listen To Your Wife.

Synopsis: Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), now best friends with his former boxing rival Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stalloen), is minding his own retirement, playing ball with his pack of dogs in his backyard pool when he sees an up-and-coming steroided Russian boxer (Dolph Lundgren) talking shit through his wife (who translates). Apollo rises to the challenge of a fight, and the exhibition turns into Apollo and Rocky fighting a proxy Cold War.

 December 25, 1985, training to box in Soviet-era Siberia. Why did you agree to that, Rocky? is the refrain from reporters at the press conference when Rocky announces when and where he will avenge his best friend’s murder.

At least, that’s how the film frames Apollo’s death at the literal hands of the Russian, whose real name is Captain Ivan Drago, apparently. My whole life I’ve been calling him The Russian. Drago is a dope name, but the Russians are granted no such grace in this onscreen depiction of Soviet-era Russia. You know all about how the film manifests as the Cold War’s proxy war, so I won’t go into that. Rather, I’ll focus on the intricacies of the relationships, and how, through this heroic sports mindset, the boxers’ wives are given no say in the course of their own lives. Adrian (Talia Shire) even demands at one point, “What, at this point, is worth getting hurt for?” What, indeed.

But let me back up: I’ve been nostalgic about ROCKY IV (“It’s the best one!”) since I was a small child. My dad is a former professional baseball player with a natural athleticism and sportsmanship, so we watched the televised version nearly every Christmas Day while he narrated over the awful synth score, sometimes watching all four films in a row. It’s from ROCKY III’s Mr. T montage that I learned what Russian twists do for the obliques, but from ROCKY IV, I learned that a forty-pound weight difference was impossible in boxing. The Russian would have (and did) cream Apollo.

No wonder the Boxing People didn’t commission that exhibition. Apollo came out of retirement to fight the Russian. Normally, boxers train for months for one match against one, specific opponent. In short: Apollo wasn’t ready. And that’s not even considering the unfair advantage that the Russian has been shooting up steroids of some kind, and because the exhibition is not regulated officially (I assume), ain’t nobody checking for him.

I was also taught (as the eldest grandchild who outsmarted my cousins on the regular) that you never gloat over a win after you win. It’s bad sportsmanship. And more importantly, if you’re the clear projected winner beforehand, you never showboat. I put those two things together when I re-watched ROCKY IV as an adult: Apollo Creed is not in the right.

Just to illustrate my point: at an unofficial boxing exhibition, they embarrassed the Russian by not only having a whole variety show in celebration of America, but they did it while the Russian was on the stage. James Brown sings “Living in America!” G-stringed showgirls have a kick line! Apollo Creed comes into the ring dressed as Uncle Sam and chants “I want YOU!” while he points at the Russian’s chest. I never even knew his name wasn’t “The Russian!”

At this point, my nostalgia was completely undermined. You don’t do that, man. America loves an underdog story, and gloating about a certain victory before it happens is just… well, it’s tacky.

But… America also does that. I love my country. I do not love that we are kind of internationally viewed as a bully. It doesn’t align with our values. In fact, at the press conference, Drago’s wife Ludmilla (Brigitte Nielsen) (who is GORGEOUS with her Annie Lennox haircut, btw, and is the real hero of the story, lbh) yells down the table, “Why do you insult us?”

I looked over at my boyfriend who was watching with me and said, “This bitch is right. She is hot, and she is right: they’ve been insulting the Russians this whole time.”

He said, “Apollo fixing to get KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT.”

I paused and said, “Have you never seen this movie before?”

He said, “No, I have.” I waited. “Oh no. He dies? He dies!?”

It broke my heart, too, as a kid: Apollo was the ultimate hero to me growing up. As a less-partial grown woman, it broke my heart less. And the reason why is this: you should have considered your wife.

Mary Anne Creed (Sylvia Meals) is A Real One. She supports what her husband is doing, but she can tell when she’s had enough. She yells to Rocky to throw in the towel, but he won’t, because at the critical moment Apollo screams at him, “Don’t!”

Apollo Creed, it seems, would rather get beaten to death than be slightly embarrassed, and that is unacceptable. Sure, when you’re a lone wolf and no one cares about you in the entire world, you’re welcome to fall on your own grenade, but all I could think of as an adult rewatching ROCKY IV as Apollo gets bounced from corner to ropes to corner was, “That selfish asshole. Everyone who loves him is watching him kill himself right now.”

And, I’m sorry, the Russian? He didn’t murder Apollo. What’s he supposed to do? Stop fighting? When his opponent is screaming to his coach to not stop the fight?

I actually had more sympathy for the Russian after Apollo’s death: it’s like completing suicide by cop. Drago’s responsible for someone’s death now. How can he live with himself? How could any of us?

Granted, Drago’s ‘roid rage seems to be making most of his decisions, and he says to interviewers, “If he dies, he dies.” If it seems cold and callous, that’s because it is, but these guys have made blood sport their living, too. I guess compartmentalizing is part of it. However, that never-ending desire to be a hero is as old as Beowulf: when there’s no way for a “hero” to re-enter society, he goes into a battle that he knows he will lose, just so he can be absolutely positive to have a hero’s death. Apollo even admits this outright, when Rocky suggests they’re turning into “regular people”: “Without a war to fight, the warrior might as well be dead.” Even in non-contact sports, marathon runners go into heart failure at the finish line because they’re coached into pushing past the reflex to stop. And that mentality is so, so, so, stupid selfish.

Apollo might have gotten a hero’s death, but he also has a widow now. And that widow acts as a sort of Ghost of Boxing Yet To Come for Mrs. Balboa and Mrs. Drago.

In fact, the moment in which Ludmilla and Adrian make eye contact in the stands is the moment I identified with the most: these are the men we hitched our wagons to… and now, here we find ourselves, watching them die on stage. Can you believe it?

As a matter of honor and heroism-by-proxy, Rocky has to go fight that same dumbass fight because Apollo lost and died.

At this point, Adrian is way more chill than I would have been in the same situation, even as she screams, “It’s suicide!” from the top of the staircase, and he’s all like, Yeah, well, maybe. Shrug.

I’d be mad enough that he’s missing our eight-year-old’s Christmas morning for a work thing, let alone that you might never come back. That, in fact, you probably won’t since this same motherfucker killed your best friend.

And while we’re on the topic, Apollo’s coach, Duke (Tony Burton) says that if Rocky wins against the Russian, then Apollo’s death won’t have been for nothing. My exact reaction was this: WHAT are you TALKING about? How?

Adrian shows up in Siberia, though. Leaves her kid on Christmas to support Rocky. I just can’t fathom it: she don’t agree with it, but she will show up to watch him die.

Truly, Ludmilla is the real hero here. After the Apollo dies in the ring, she insists that Drago fight Rocky in Russia or not at all.

When someone asks her at the press conference, she says, “I'm afraid for my husband's life. We have threats of violence everywhere. You call him a killer. He is a professional fighter... not a killer. We are getting death threats. We are not involved in politics. All I want is for my husband to be safe, and to be treated fairly.”

She gets pooh-poohed at this statement, but only by other men. The rest of us get what she’s saying. It resonates hard. The statement “I would die for you,” is a common one because it’s an easy one, and no one is asking you to do that. Dying for someone requires one grand gesture, the end. Continuing to live for someone, choosing to show up day after day despite it being hard and embarrassing is the thing other people need. For that reason, Ludmilla Drago, Mary Anne Creed, and Adrian Balboa are the real heroes of this story.