By Geno McGahee
One of my favorite movie series is ROCKY. I was really into CREED until CREED 2 came out and I never wanted to see anything from that spinoff again. So, as I watched the ROCKY films, I started to think about what would happen if the badass from Russia, Ivan Drago, was really the best opponent for Balboa and would he beat Clubber Lang and Tommy Gunn in the ring. The more I thought about it, the more I surprised myself. Ivan Drago was basically a fraud that benefited from a win over a shot fighter and a good performance against an ill-prepared fighter.
ROCKY III is where Rocky teams up with Apollo. After Rocky’s trainer dies, Rocky goes into the ring with Clubber and gets quickly stopped. I don’t think that Mickey being in the corner would have changed a thing. Going into the fight with Clubber, Rocky did not train well. He had no strategy and wasn’t ready for the fight. Getting knocked out was the obvious conclusion.
After training with Apollo, he implemented a new style, strategy, and easily beat Clubber. His speed and movement were the difference. He took the Creed style and mixed it with his own to take the title back. He would then move on to ROCKY IV, which is an awesome and strange film, and face Ivan Drago.
Drago has a lot of hype. He hits hard. He hits harder than any other heavyweight. He has power, but he is an amateur. I don’t care how good an amateur is, the professional game is totally different and Drago’s handlers know this. That is why they set up a fight with Apollo Creed, a fighter that hasn’t had a fight in 5 years or so and relied on his speed and reflexes, which are now gone. It’s fair to say that Creed was shot in the first Rocky fight. Now, he’s going in there to take on Drago, but if you can’t get away from the punches, you will get knocked out.
The amateur skills are on display as Apollo, even at that age, is able to out-box Drago. Unfortunately for Creed, he cannot beat father time and Drago begins landing and ends the fight, killing the former champion in the ring and setting up the fight with Balboa. Acting in pure anger, Rocky accepts the fight for no money and it will take place in Russia and this is, once again, a big set up for Drago to further his reputation.
Rocky doesn’t train for a heavyweight title fight. He doesn’t spar. He just trains to be tough enough to take the damage coming his way. If he employed the skills that Apollo taught him, he would have stopped Drago early without getting a scratch, but he insisted on this tough man contest with the Russian, which is the only way that Drago could compete. Look at the Floyd Mayweather, JR.- Conor McGregor fight. Floyd played with him. He didn’t have the skill set or experience. If PBF stood in front with his hands down, we would have had a show.
Despite the lack of training, Rocky knocks out Drago late in the fight. I then began thinking. If Clubber was the opponent and Rocky fought with recklessness and with no defense, Clubber would have stopped him early again. Why couldn’t Drago do it? Drago could not do it because he was an amateur and he didn’t have the experience to get the job done. At this point, he had zero professional fights. He should have never been in the ring with the champ, but Rocky gave him every chance to win.
Had Clubber Lang been in the ring with Drago, he would have not have been emotionally attached to the fight. He would have went in there and tried to destroy Drago and he would have. He would have walked Drago down and landed early and often. Apollo and Rocky both landed with regularity. Clubber would have an easy night, pushing the big Russian back and landing his head shots, leading to a knockout in the first 3 rounds, but what would Tommy Gunn do with Drago?
Tommy Gunn did win the heavyweight title against Union Cane. He did learn a lot under the wing of Balboa, but he got hit a lot. This is where Drago had a chance. If he could land his big shots against the incoming Gunn, he might be able to get the KO. Considering that Balboa knocked Gunn down in 10 seconds and nearly out during the street fight, it’s reasonable to assume that Drago might be able to do the same, but without any amateur experience and with the bad defense, Gunn has the same shot to do the same to Drago. Although I favor Drago because of Gunn’s suspect chin, I would make it a 60/40 fight. If the fight goes late, Gunn wins. If Gunn lands, he may win by KO.
Ivan Drago was a hype job. Apollo saw that, but didn’t have the reflexes to expose it. Rocky fought and trained like an idiot and gave Drago every chance to win and he still couldn’t do it. I like the character Drago, but if he wanted a title shot, he should have fought the former champion Clubber Lang in an eliminator, but he would have been KO’d. He made a lot of money by killing an old Creed and fighting a champion that didn’t train for the fight even though he lost.
You wonder why Drago retired from fighting after Rocky…he would have been stopped again by a much lesser foe, possibly even Union Cain, should they fight in Japan at the pay per view “Letting it go in Tokyo.”
