So who really won the 3rd fight?
Rocky said it was Apollo, but the way Sly acted in this scene shows in my beliefs that he lied to Donnie not to hurt his feelings. That is my interpretation anyway. What do you guys think?
I was thinking about this last night, and envisioning how it would likely go. Apollo was a better skilled fighter, hands down. What always catapulted Rocky to success in the ring was his motivation to succeed - his heart. With that in mind, I seriously doubt that Rocky, when having a good-natured sparring session with Apollo, would have performed nearly as well as he did when it was a "real" fight. Therefore Apollo would have outboxed Rocky easily.
shareIt was more like a sparring session between 2 friends so I doubt either was going all out to destroy the other, Apollo probably just danced about and jabbed his way to a win with Rocky obviously holding back,lacking any real motivation for the bout.
Friendly sparring is not the same thing as a boxing match and I believe Rocky would have won had they had a real boxing match. He had just beaten Lang inside 3 rounds and had the potential to eventually beat Drago and I feel his winning the race on the beach with Apollo symbolized that he had evolved beyond Apollo. And unlike Rocky 2 it would have been a win with only moderate difficulty, it would not have been neck/neck close.
You know what would have been neat? If they had filmed the sparring match back in 1982 but put it on the back shelf as a "deleted scene" and waited till Creed to show it, and have it show Rocky totally outboxing Apollo then have the camera fade from the memory and show Rocky's face and have Rocky lie and say Apollo won just to make Adonis feel good about his dad.