Sylvester Stallone Almost Didn’t Return for the Best Rocky Sequel (& It’s Hard to Blame Him)

October 25, 2025, 9:00am

They don’t grow action stars like Sylvester Stallone on trees. There are a finite number of people on the planet who are willing to take the beatings that he does, and even fewer who care as much about the craft. However, Stallone isn’t a spring chicken anymore, which means he can’t always be the center of attention. Many filmmakers are now handing him mentor roles, casting him as a wise figure who passes down all he knows to the next generation. Paramount+’s Tulsa King certainly goes down that road, having Stallone’s character, Dwight Manfredi, put together a crew of upstarts who want to get rich and have fun doing it.

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While promoting the third season of Tulsa King, Stallone has been asked a fair number of questions about another mentor part, Rocky, the former Heavyweight Champion who now spends his days running a restaurant in Philadelphia. The first Creed movie sees Rocky train Apollo Creed’s son, Adonis, but he also has his own fight to deal with. While he comes out on top at the end, if director Ryan Coolger had it his way, the iconic character would’ve only been part of the first movie in the trilogy.

Stallone revealed in a GQ video that Coogler came to him with the idea for Creed years before the movie came out, but no matter how much the actor liked the concept, he couldn’t get on board with killing Rocky.

“I was never comfortable. I dodged that bullet for two years, three years. And Ryan Coogler was very persistent, kept pushing it,” he explained. “And we had the same agent, but I didn’t want to do it because the way he had written it, Rocky dies. He gets Lou Gehrig’s disease. And I said, ‘I have a big thing about characters like that dying.’ I’d much rather them get on a train going somewhere, and you never see them again. But to die, it will just bum the audience out completely.”

After finding a middle ground, which saw Rocky get cancer while training Adonis, it was smooth sailing from there for Stallone, who embraced the idea of stepping out of the ring.

“So once we got over that, I said, ‘Okay, we’ll give it a shot,’ And it was a lot of dramatic acting in that because I couldn’t use my body,” he said. “I wasn’t fighting. So that was a good challenge, and it turned out pretty well.”

Stallone Going to Bat for Rocky Was the Right Move

There’s no doubt that Coogler would’ve handled Rocky’s death with grace. Adonis probably would’ve used it as motivation to become stronger, honoring not only his father’s legacy but Rocky’s as well. However, it’s hard to imagine the second Creed movie without Rocky. The plot of the film revolves around Adonis attempting to get revenge for his father’s death at the hands of Ivan Drago by fighting the Russian boxer’s son. Since Rocky is one of the few characters alive who witnessed Apollo’s death, he’s crucial to the emotional core of the sequel’s story.

Keeping Rocky around also keeps the door open for him to return down the line. While Michael B. Jordan’s workload is filling up with non-boxing-related projects, he’s been vocal about his interest in putting out a fourth Creed movie. And there’s always room for Rocky, especially since the man behind the champion is still up for discussing his passion for the character.

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