Apollo Creed was the undisputed and undefeated heavyweight boxing champion of the world through much of the 1970's. In 1976, while preparing for a highly publicized title defense in conjunction with the bicentennial celebration in Philadelphia, Creed suddenly found himself without an opponent. Desperate for a substitute on short notice, the promoters booked Rocky Balboa, a little-known and only moderately successful fighter in the Philadelphia club circuit. Creed did not consider Balboa a serious challenger, and so did not train seriously for the fight, and ended up barely eking out a victory over Balboa in a split decision.Still champion but subjected to ridicule for his inability to score a decisive victory over so unworthy an opponent as Balboa, Creed challenged Balboa to a rematch. This time Creed trained seriously, but so did Balboa, and their rematch was a well-fought, pretty evenly matched contest that ended with Balboa knocking out Creed at the end of the final round to take the championship. Following that fight, Creed retired.Any animosity on Creed's part toward Balboa instantly evaporated a few years later when, at the beginning of Balboa's title defense match against challenger Clubber Lang, Lang insulted the former champion as a has-been. Creed and Balboa were close friends from that moment on. Following Balboa's humiliating defeat at the hands of Lang, Creed took Balboa under his wing to help prepare for a rematch, taking him to his old gym to train and hooking him up with his own former trainer (Balboa's trainer having died the same night as the Lang fight). Creed's involvement played a central role in enabling Balboa to defeat Lang and regain the championship.A few years later, Creed was lured out of retirement to fight an exhibition match against the Russian Ivan Drago, whom the Russians were promoting as a symbol of Soviet superiority to the U.S. Apparently not having learned from his mistake the first time he fought Balboa, Creed again failed to take his opponent seriously and trained only half-heartedly. On what turned out to be the last night of his life, Creed spent the last minutes before the fight not in determined concentration, but fooling around on the stage with James Brown as Brown performed a gaudy rendition of Living in America. Drago brutally pummeled Creed in the first round, such that Baboa and others in Creed's corner wanted to stop the fight, but Creed refused. In the second round, Drago knocked Creed out so violently that Creed died from his injuries.Apollo Creed was a finalist in the 2015 and 2016 Fictitious Athlete Hall of Fame votes: (http://www.notinhalloffame.com/the-nominees/the-athletes/2688-apollo-creed) Show less «