Dear Donnie,
You the champ. The result of your father’s legacy, the heir to Creed glory, a warrior who stepped from the shadows of Apollo to become a great all your own. You’re rich. You’re handsome. You’re the best. But enough time done past after the premiere of Creed II and enough emotion done wore off so I need to tell you the truth about something, okay? You ready? Alright, here goes, my dude.
You know you lost, right?
No, no, no, wait, wait, wait, now I know you thinkin’, This dude crazy, I won fair and square. And you right, you right! Even made dude throw the towel and that shit never happens in Rocky movies! Das the fucked up part, yo. So hear me out champ, because Rocky told you in part one, you see that face in the mirror? That’s your toughest opponent righchea… until you came up on Yung Sabretooth Viktor Fucking Drago. And if we really wanna get into it we can get really real about how wack it was for us to be cheering for you.
The whole fact we supposed to be out here cheering for the rich kid son-of-a-champion is all the proof I need we living in a glitched timeline. Donnie, your 16-0 boxing record was from underground cockfighting in Mexico. You lost 1 of 2 legitimate fights and were basically .500 coming into this movie. Your dad was 48-0 before he gave Rocky a chance. You a fucking legacy admission, my g.
Can I keep it Family Dollar, my g? Because after the credits rolled and I went back home I tossed and turned. I couldn’t eat breakfast. Something ain’t sit right with me, and I then I realized Viktor Drago is who we should’ve been cheering for all along. And we let my mans all the way down. Viktor ain’t deserve this.
Kid Drago the real redemption story. Father dishonored. Used drugs. Lost. Shamed his nation. Son has to grow up in that shadow. A Drago. A filthy name [spits on the ground in disgust] Should change his name. Hide. But no, he fights on playgrounds when he’s teased. Masters the sport that was his family’s undoing. Are you not fucking inspired? Viktor the real hero! Blue collar. Refugee. Covered in shame for shit he ain’t even do!
Donnie living in LA and shit, buying new apartments with his wife who got a record deal and we supposed to feel you, bruh? And you added another L to the Evers name? Duke rolling in his fucking grave right now. Yo, maybe Bodie did us a favor. You really think I’m that bonded to you ’cause we black? And I tried to love you too, g. Start a fight at the weigh in? OK, whatever. Ain’t touch my man’s gloves? Mhm, OK. And you get to keep the— yo how are you not the villain here?!
Oh, so we can disgrace a man and make him a refugee where he gotta work the factories and pour cement and shit? And then you go train in Arizona with brown laborers and a sledgehammer and you suddenly that dude now? Nah man, fuck you, g. You lucky for that disqualification punch ’cause you knew it woulda just happened the next round anyway. He shoulda killed you in that first fight. They shoulda clapped you up and dumped your body in Siberia.
Oh, so you deserve to win ’cause you discovered your love for fighting? Fam, Viktor eats porridge like a fucking British orphan. Viktor pours concrete and sleeps on a couch. Viktor ain’t got no specialty diet. No dietician. No Mustang. No vacation training at the Mexican border, this shit his life every day. Viktor ain’t training on a budget to fucking pretend to struggle, this his fucking life. You know how much porridge you gotta eat to get that massive? Fucking potatoes and root vegetables and shit?
Nah, Viktor ain’t have no parents, g. Mom ran out on his ass, dad lives in shame. All Viktor wanted was a family, yo. He ain’t have the benefits his dad had.
No Olympic facility.
No cutting edge technology.
No PEDs.
No support from his country.
Viktor came from the gutter. The eastern European gutter, g. I lived in eastern Europe once, it was terrible. He ain’t even have a real coach. Whole coaching strategy from Poppa Drago is 17 different ways of saying “break him.” Like seriously, my dude? Dad got in the ring to train with him one time and we suppose to feel like they the Seavers now? He made magic out of that shit, man. Something out of nothing. And what you get, huh? Fucking Rocky. Fucking words of wisdom and belief and strategy and encouragement while all he gets is The Thing telling him “It’s Clobbering Time” over and over again. He beating the shit out you and all he hear between rounds is, “Why is he still standing, did I… did I not say it’s clobbering time?”
So now what, Donnie? You get to go back to living all Hollywood and shit and I’m ‘spose to feel good about Viktor going back to the yard ’cause his daddy decided to go running with him? And you know Russia stole all the fight money because he still out there training in the struggle at the end with them dusty ass tracksuits.
The crowd failed him. Russia failed him. They shoulda been chanting his name, pumping him up to finish you after he tenderized them ribs a second time. I woulda been chanting right there with em, Viktor! Viktor! Viktor did irreparable damage to them ribs my dude and I’m fucking glad. Viktor gotta just hold onto that joy and wrap himself in that shit like a gravity blanket on cold nights.
That shit soothes me too, I play smooth R&B at the memory of those body shots, like left hook to the center, BANG, Toni Braxton Breathe Again, right to the body, POW, Waiting to Exhale, shoeshine to the midsection — BRRRAP! BRRRAP! BRRRAP! — Destiny’s Child Lose My Breath. Your insides gon’ forever look like gravy. He got in them guts like a lover. He tenderized them ribs like Rocky at the meat shop. You gonna shit soft serve the rest of your life.
So I ask again: you know you lost, right? Not the fight, they made sure you got that one, but the hearts. You got everything, Viktor has nothing, and you get to keep it all. Say hello to the bad guy, fam. Like Rocky said, he’s the toughest opponent you’ll ever face. He looking right at you.
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Show Comments
VyceVictus
WhyWouldYouSaySomethingSoControversialYetSoBrave.gif
I dont know if Donny is an outright villain much as he’s just an asshole, but for damn sure Viktor is a true tragic hero who absolutely deserves his own movie
Courtney
So. I get where you’re coming from and all of it makes sense .
BUT.
Ivan Drago KILLED Apollo Creed.
That’s why your argument, in this case, is nullified. I don’t care where you came up, how rich Donnie is now, what you have versus what he don’t have; concrete pouring, rag jumpsuit wearing Victors dad, KILLED Apollo.
I feel BAD for Vik cause he has to fight his daddy’s war. Did he ask for that? Nah. He was brought up to fight. I get it. So I feel bad for his plight and all, BUT Vik HAD HIS DAD. Apollo gone.
And you know what makes it worse? What Drago said in the ring right after he killed him.
“If he dies, he dies”
WTH?!?!? You REALLY trying to convince me that Adonis Creed is the bad guy? You couldn’t BE more off.
Donnie doing what any black man with an opportunity to avenge his fathers death would do. I’m sure he would have rather fought Ivan Drago, (especially since he was the one pushing for the fight but he got that work from Rocky already and definitely was too old for that smoke) but he fought a son brought up in hate so it is what it is.
If anything, I will allow for compassion at the situation Victor had to deal with, deadbeat mom and all but that’s it.
Ivan Drago was an engineered roided up freak who killed a man without remorse in what was just supposed to be a 3 round exhibition match. Who then lost his wife and his country because he thought he could go back home and beat Rocky on his own floor and got knocked out. He raises his kid in hate to avenge a loss he caused in the first place?
Get outta here with that…
Donnie got beat up for sure, but let’s not confuse the people.
Viktor wasn’t the villain but he dang sure wasn’t the hero.
Cedric
Thank You
Nay
Courtney, thank you for saying everything my rolled eyes didn’t feel like typing lol.
Also, we’re definitely rooting for Donnie to win regardless because he’s Black.
GOAT
Perfectly said.GOAT
CK
Let be honest Ivan didn’t kill Apollo. Apollo killed himself because he didn’t want Rocky to throw in the towel. On top of that he did one of the worst things a person can do and that is underestimated his opponent.
Derek Halliday
This was a brilliant piece, and put into perspective my own feelings on why I left the theater so conflicted…I knew I loved Viktor Drago’s arc in the movie, but I couldn’t pin why I was left so numbed by Donnie’s.
I literally LOVE CREED. 😐 It is one of the most perfect movies I’ve ever seen. And I enjoyed CREED II, but something was…off. I cried for Adonis at the end of CREED…but I cried for Viktor Drago at the end of CREED II. And it’s EXACTLY for the reasons you state; Donnie does not struggle in this movie.
Sure he gets knocked down and builds himself back up…but it’s no longer the rags to riches story. It’s just…riches to riches. And it doesn’t help how toxic he becomes in this story…from the way he doesn’t ask HIS WIFE what she wants to do about the pregnancy, just…deciding that they’ll have the child despite her reservations, to taking a fight he just…doesn’t need too. And THEN, after having the child and after being beaten within an inch of his life, and knowing that he has a child…he takes that same fight again. Against the advice of EVERYONE. EVEN ROCKY.
Nah man. I can’t fux with that.
I went into this movie fully expecting Viktor Drago to be like his father in ROCKY IV…a literal dragon; a voiceless beatin’ machine with no emotion and no agency. Instead…they show me this angry kid so desperate for affection that he will DIE fighting if it will make his father happy. And even when he takes that L at the end…he wins. Because he gets what he’s always wanted. He finally gets his father to SEE him.
;___; I’m fucked up again.
Cedric
People didn’t understand Viktor Drago did not lose at the end. He was not fighting to redeem his father’s name. He did not believe his father’s name needed to be redeemed that was the point he felt that everyone who abandoned them didn’t deserve them. He fought to make his father proud which he did. But it also kind of made him a villian he obviously did not care thay his father killed a man neither was Ivan remorseful about it. As far as Adonis he was still.in his father’s shadowbhe was a champ no one respected because he beat a man passed his prime for the title. He needed to push himself passed the limits his father went. As far as the baby thing you’re nitpicking he was in love and wanted a child his girl.
Rece
This was all so that Viktor/Adonis could be Apollo/Rocky bromancing in Creed III.
Vee
So….we’re gonna gloss over the fact that Apollo was killed during a FAIR, LICENSED FIGHT? It may seem harsh, but shit happens.It ain’t like Ivan ran up on him while he was feeding ducks in the park. You sign up for various injuries when you decide to be a professional fighter…and maybe you don’t consider the rare possibility of death…but eh….SHIT HAPPENS. Never mind the fact that Apollo fought Ivan because he was salty about Rocky getting all this attention. In a bid to prove he still had the juice and wasn’t a washed up has-been, he signed up for a fight against a man that was trained by what appeared to be the craziest of Russia’s scientists to groom exactly what he was; a killing machine. And to add insult to injury, he treated it like it was a fkn joke. Don’t tell me yaw don’t remember James Brown in his sequined suit dancing around with the 80s equivalent of Vegas showgirls? And yeah, it was an exhibition…to US. For them, that was their ticket to being taken serious in the boxing world. He shouldn’t have been fighting Ivan Drago to begin with.
And then try to make the baby deaf in order to squeeze out sympathy for a character with hardly any redeemable qualities? Lash out at his “Unc” because he’s gun shy about leading yet another person he cares about to their perceived death? Yeah…Adonis is an a-hole.
Kerry Fonville
To say this entire article is full of sh*t is an understatement. Clearly, you didn’t watch the same movie as everyone else did, this is entirely a click-bait article that I would have never read if it weren’t for my friend sending it to me and completely furious about this, your argument makes zero sense.
Have a Happy New Year!
Juice
Viktor straight up tried to kill donnie their first fight, but hes the hero? NAH.