Film / Creed III

There's no enemy like the past.

The one where Donnie gets his own Clubber Lang.

Creed III, sometimes known as Rocky IX, is a 2023 sports drama film directed by Michael B. Jordan in his directorial debut, and the third installment of the Rocky Spin-Off series Creed, based on a story from Ryan Coogler, who also directed the first film. It is also the first film in the Rocky universe not to feature Rocky Balboa himself, though Sylvester Stallone is still attached as a producer.

Set five years after his fight against Viktor Drago, Adonis "Donnie" Creed has experienced great success in his professional and personal life. This stability is upended by the re-appearance of his former friend and boxing prodigy, Damian "Dame" Anderson, who is eager to prove himself in the ring after a long stint in prison. Donnie is forced to confront his past and his demons to settle the score with his former friend-turned-merciless rival.

Jordan returns as Adonis "Donnie" Creed while series newcomer Jonathan Majors plays Damian. Tessa Thompson and Florian Munteanu return as Biance Taylor and Viktor Drago, respectively.

The film was released on March 3, 2023.

A sequel, Creed IV, is currently in the works.

Previews: Official Trailer

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This film contains examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Past: Adonis' rematch with "Pretty" Ricky Conlan in the prologue takes place fifteen years after the 2002 flashback, setting it in 2017, and the three year Time Skip afterwards sets the main narrative's events in 2020. The film was released in 2023.
• Actor Allusion: During the film's Training Montage before the big fight, the accompanied background soundtrack (Adonis Interlude (The Montage) by Dreamville, J. Cole) has the line "Arms crossed in coffin like you was from Wakanda". Michael B. Jordan is also famous for his role as Erik 'Killmonger' Stevens/N'Jadaka, a Wakandan who was exiled from his homeland and return to take revenge on those who wronged him. Ironically, in this film, Jordan's character Adonis is going up against Damian, who has a very similar motivation to Killmonger.
• Anachronism Stew: During the film's first flashback in 2002, Donnie has both a Gundam Astray Red Frame Perfect Grade model and a Naruto Shippuden poster in his room, despite Astray not starting its run until 2003 (with the Perfect Grade model depicted not being released until 2009) and Shippuden not airing until 2007.
• Anti-Villain: The film's villain, Damian Anderson, has the laudable goal of attaining the success in boxing his life circumstances denied him, and is right that those circumstances were at least tragic and arguably unjust. Nevertheless he remains the villain because his grudge against the protagonist forces the movie to its climax, and he uses underhanded methods to attain his goals, fighting dirty to defeat one contender and arranging an assault on another.
• Artistic License – History: Despite the main story taking place in 2020, the COVID-19 Pandemic, which broke out early in that year and left a widespread impact on sporting events and other public gatherings, is not mentioned or alluded to in any way. No characters are shown social distancing or wearing face coverings, and the fights are able to go on with massive crowds in attendance.
• Asshole Victim: A non-lethal version but Leon, the man Adonis attacked back in 2002, is later revealed to have been a physically abusive caregiver to the house that Adonis and Damian lived at as kids which is why Adonis attacked him back then.
• Attack Backfire: After Dame's Face–Heel Turn has been exposed, Adonis huffs that Dame is banned from his gym, giving Dame the opportunity to crow that he doesn't need Adonis any more.
• Author Appeal: Michael B. Jordan is a huge anime fan, and this film borrows various elements from Hajime no Ippo and Megalo Box. There are even shots that are borrowed straight from Dragon Ball Z and Naruto.
• Awesome by Analysis: In the 2002 match, Donnie shows that he's researched both the fighting techniques and previous injuries of Dame's opponent, and uses them to craft a strategy. Similarly, in his bout with Ricky, he's shown picking out vulnerabilities and deliberately maneuvering to target them.
• Batman Gambit: Damian engineered the whole situation that led to Viktor's injury and subsequent withdrawal from the scheduled boxing match with the current world champion Felix, knowing that with all the publicity and preparation they can't reschedule it and Adonis will be forced to pick a substitute fighter to become Felix's opponent in Viktor's place. Due to Adonis's own guilt of leaving Damian behind to be arrested - which is further fuelled by Damian guilt-tripping him about it nearly every time they see each other - Damian knows Adonis feels obligated to give him what he's always wanted: a shot at the title. It works flawlessly, and Adonis only finds out about the whole ruse from Mary Anne after the damage has already been done. Damian also manipulates Adonis into coming out of retirement for the grudge match Dame wants by using in his attack on Viktor an associate who appears in a photo he's sent to Adonis, cluing Adonis in to Dame's villainy.
• Battle Discretion Shot: Upon getting her drawing ripped by a bully, Amara punches said bully. The scene then cuts to Adonis and Bianca talking to her teacher about the incident.
• Betrayal by Inaction: Adonis never got Dame's letters from prison, but even he ultimately agrees this is an insufficient excuse and never visiting his friend in prison was a betrayal.
• Bookends: In Adonis and Dame's first meeting (excluding the prologue), the former offers to do whatever he can to help the latter, but Dame dismisses the offer as a handout. In their final meeting, Adonis repeats the offer and receives a more humble response.
• Break the Haughty:
  • Dame, having started the main plot with a humble attitude (of questionable sincerity), becomes arrogant as soon as he achieves success. Naturally, the plot then conspires to take everything away from him. In contrast, Adonis starts the film at the peak of personal success and privilege, but averts the trope by avoiding an arrogant attitude; in turn, he is never broken by the events of the plot, even though he is challenged by them.
  • In the prologue, it's Dame who is prideful about his life prospects and Adonis who humbly defers to his friend, and again it is Dame who is broken by events (even though Adonis is responsible for them) while Adonis escapes unscathed to become successful.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Having become champion, Dame (a boxer with one fight under his belt after nearly two decades out of commission) aggravates Adonis, an experienced former champion, into coming out of retirement, instead of choosing safer opponents and enjoying the fruits of his victory. This leads to Damian's downfall.
  • Early in the film, a bully rips Amara’s drawing. She bullied the daughter/granddaughter/goddaughter of Three World Heavyweight Champions. It doesn’t end well for her.
  • One of Dame's new entourage tries to physically block the supremely-pissed former undisputed world heavyweight champion from seeing him on the beach. To the point he puts hand on him and seems on the verge of violence. Adonis knocks him down with one halfhearted punch and we do not see him get back up for the rest of the scene.
• Call-Back:
  • The first fight ends with Donnie defeating Ricky Conlan, and immediately complimenting him for the fight, which the inverse of how the first film ended.
  • Before Adonis starts his training, Duke gives him a rundown on all of his weaknesses and health issues to turn them into strengths, just like how his father before him did with Rocky in Rocky Balboa.
  • Amara gets into a fight with a bully, similar to Robert in Rocky V. At the meeting with Adonis and Bianca, her teacher states that while Amara is a good student, she gets into fights, mirroring what the correctional officer had previously told Mary-Anne about Adonis himself in the first Creed film.
  • Like in Rocky IV, a boxer close to the protagonist receives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from the antagonist and suffers grave injuries as a result. This results in the protagonist challenging the antagonist. Fortunately, unlike Apollo, Felix survives this beating, and even recovers in time to attend Adonis' showdown with Damian.
  • Someone close to Adonis dies of natural causes, much like in Rocky III, though of a stroke rather than a heart attack.
  • Before the final bout, Donnie repeats the "one round, one punch, one step at a time" mantra that Rocky taught him in the first film.
• The Cameo: Real-life boxer Canelo Álvarez and his wife Fernanda Gómez appear as themselves in one scene, posing with Adonis, Bianca and Amara on the red carpet before Damian's fight with Felix.
• Chekhov's Gun: Literally a gun: Adonis discovers a gun in Dame's bag, as the soundtrack sounds an ominous tone but then the action goes back to mundane activity. Dame later brandishing that gun gets him locked away for almost two decades.
• Chekhov's Skill: In the prologue, a younger Damian brags to Adonis about using a specific combination ending with a straight right to take down his opponent. Adonis uses the very same combination to knock out Damian during the last round of their fight.
• Combat Pragmatist: Damien. Being arguably past his prime and fresh out of prison against younger and more skilled fighters, Damien often targets weak points, and provokes people into making mistakes.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Adonis owes loyalty to Felix, who he is mentoring, and to Damian, a friend whose loyalty he failed to return years ago. He gets Felix to accept Damian as his sparring partner and ultimately fight opponent, even after being warned this is a bad idea because Damian is coming with bad intentions, and only begins to change his mind (with a firmly disapproving shake of the head) when he sees Damian fighting dirty during the championship fight.
• Continuity Nod: In the prologue of the first Creed film, a younger Adonis refused to go to "another" group home, having mistakenly assumed that Mary Anne was a social worker. In this film, Adonis finally opens up about his previous experience living in a group home, where he and Damian first met, and the cruel carer that abused them both there.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: "Pretty" Ricky Conlan was just a champion for Donnie to prove himself as a boxer worthy of the professional stage. Viktor Drago was a physical representation of Rocky's and his own father's dark past that Donnie has to overcome in finding peace for his own legacy. Damian "Dame" Anderson is a figure of Creed's own past as his childhood friend turned enemy.
• Cope by Pretending: Adonis is still feeling very guilty about leaving Damian behind to be arrested, which is why he never talks to anyone except his adoptive mother about it all these years. It ultimately blows back into his face when Damian shows back up in his life and Adonis's overwhelming guilt causes him to make several mistakes that end with Damian with the world championship and his student winding up in the hospital. Later on, Adonis confesses to Bianca that he was so ashamed of that guilt that he figured it would be easier to pretend that things would get better on their own and do nothing to remedy the situation until it escalates beyond control.
• Cross Counter: A very notable version occurs during the final bout.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Adonis has failed to tell Bianca about his time in the miserable group home or his relationship with Damian, including the incident that drove them apart, leaving her surprised and discomforted when Dame introduces her to parts of the story, and bringing conflict into Adonis and Bianca's relationship until his Somber Backstory Revelation resolves that conflict.
• Darker and Edgier: With its deeper look into Adonis' origins, discussions involving child abuse and crime, and some of the most brutal, intense fights in the entire franchise, the film is easily the darkest of the Creed trilogy and one of the grimmest in the Rocky series as a whole.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Adonis is shown to be on good terms with both of his previous opponents, "Pretty" Ricky Conlan and Viktor Drago. After their rematch in the opening, he sincerely thanks Conlan for a good fight and later greets Viktor with a Man Hug when the latter arrives at Bianca's party and gets his help in the Training Montage. At the end of the film, a victorious Adonis also reconciles with Damian.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: When Adonis and Dame meet in the restaurant and the former, offering to do whatever he can to help, tries to slide a wad of cash across the table, the latter rejects it and hints that he considers it Condescending Compassion. Played more straight later; after Dame's Face–Heel Turn, when Adonis huffs that he is no longer welcome to train at his gym, Dame crows that he doesn't need Adonis's help any more. Notably by the end, Dame's pride is completely broken, and he takes no offense when Adonis once again offers to help him.
• The Dreaded Pretend Tea-Party: The first scene of the main narrative has Amara waking Adonis up from his nap, and he seems reluctant to do what she's asking of him, which is then revealed to be a pretend tea party where he has to dress in a dragon costume.
• Easily-Distracted Referee:
  • Zigzagged with the referee in the Felix v Dame fight. He doesn't seem to notice some of the cheap moves that Damian commits in the first round, such as him knee-checking Felix during a clinch, and both Felix and Little Duke loudly complain about it. However, in the second round he's attentive enough to see Damian elbowing Felix under the eye and pauses the fight to reprimand Damian for it, marking the first time in the Rocky series that a fighter has been shown losing points for illegal moves.
    Little Duke: 'Bout time, Ref!
  • Averted with the referee in the final bout, as he's shown warning Damian not to hit below the belt after the latter tries this on Adonis, forcing Damian to keep his cheap shots to a minimum throughout the fight.
• Everyone Has Standards: While Damian goes out of his way to publicly drag Adonis and other fighters after winning the championship, he spares Bianca and Amara from direct mockery, making it clear that his anger and resentment is entirely with Donnie himself. He never even uses Mary Anne's illness and recent passing as material for his slander, even with the indirect role that she played in his falling out with Donnie.
• Expy Coexistence:
  • In the opening flashback, Adonis gives Damian a ticket Apollo had of the famous Rumble in the Jungle fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Both Ali and Foreman were inspirations for Apollo's characterization.
  • Damian jokingly compares Adonis in his retirement to Don King, which means that King exists in the same universe as George Washington Duke, who was heavily inspired by him.
• False Friend: Damian is later revealed to be this after he gets out of prison. He was using Adonis' past real friendship and feelings of guilt to get his opportunity in boxing and immediately turns against him when he secures his world heavyweight title. Averted by the end, since he and Adonis do reconcile with each other.
• Faux Affably Evil: Even after punching Donnie in the face during their argument on the beach, Damian maintains a friendly façade as he gloats to Donnie that he'll be coming for him.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Damian mentions that he wrote several letters to Donnie while in jail, but he never knew about them. Turns out Mary Anne was keeping them from her son, which leads to an argument between them when Donnie discovers the truth.
  • While Adonis speaks to Felix and Little Duke at Bianca's party, Damian can be seen in the back speaking to the man who attacks Viktor later in the scene.
• For Want Of A Nail: The entire plot is a result of Donnie having come across his abusive caretaker Leon in 2002. Had they not crossed paths, there would be no jail time for Damian and his friendship with Adonis would remain intact.
• Freudian Excuse: Damian cites that being in jail and watching Donnie rise to prominence while losing at that chance himself caused him to be rather bitter and angry at his friend seemingly abandoning him. Little Duke outright warns Donnie that Damian is trying to fight the world and dragging everyone down with him.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: In the final bout, Damian is dressed almost completely in black, while Donnie (and his whole support team) are wearing pure white.
• Graceful Loser: Even before Damian and Adonis reconcile after the fight, Damian gives a accepting smile to Adonis after Adonis beats him.
• Guns Are Useless: In the flashbacks, Damian pulls out his gun to defend Adonis from Leon and his thugs, but he never fires it, and the police show up anyway due to the fighting. Using a gun not only didn't accomplish anything, but because of his possession of it, what could have otherwise been a minor arrest becomes an eighteen year prison sentence for Damian.
• Half-Sibling Angst: Though not shown onscreen, during a talk with Mary Anne, Adonis briefly gives an insight into the relationship that he had with her own children while growing up. He claims that his older half-siblings wanted nothing to do with him, due to him being an illegitimate son from their father's affair, which likely prompted Donnie to get closer to Damian as his big brother figure.
• Hope Spot: For the antagonist. Dame has an incredible moment of triumph after years of adversity, and then Adonis comes out of retirement to take it away.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: The opening flashback shows that Damian was a talented young fighter from a difficult upbringing who dreamt of going pro and becoming champion. These ambitions were prematurely shattered when he was arrested and imprisoned for eighteen years, and he's now determined to prove his worth and fulfil his dream. He's at least able to hold the title for one fight before Adonis defeats him.
• I Never Got Any Letters: When they reunite, Damian reveals that he wrote to Donnie the entire time he was imprisoned but never got any responses, and wonders if Donnie and Mary Anne had moved from their address while he was gone, which Donnie denies. During an argument, Mary Anne reveals that she had been intercepting the letters and keeping them from Donnie, hoping that he would move on from Damian.
• In the Blood: Adonis and Bianca's daughter Amara is a big fan of boxing and has been secretly watching all of the recorded videos of her father's fight matches. This becomes a bit of a problem when she has a tendency to get into fights with her bullies in the school, with Bianca expressing concern that she may come to believe that Violence is the Only Option, not unlike Adonis in his younger days. Adonis's ongoing task is to help Amara find an outlet to vent her anger in a healthy way and not resort to violence all the time while also making sure that she knows how to defend herself when the situation calls for it, and that is by teaching her boxing properly.
• It's Personal: Once it gets to its boiling point, the bad blood between Adonis and Damian arguably runs deeper than between Adonis and the Dragos in the previous movie. Adonis is pissed off that Damian has been manipulating him all along and responsible for injuring two of his friends (Viktor and Felix) all just to get a shot at the title, while Damian holds Adonis accountable for leaving him to rot in prison for twenty years and robbing him of the chance to turn professional. This is reflected in their climatic battle, where the large crowds of spectators in the stadium and even the ring attendants all disappeared as the two fighters only focus on duking it out with each other.
• Juvenile Hell: When they were young, Adonis and Dame lived together for years in a group home so miserable the bedbugs were legendary, and the caretaker so physically abusive that Adonis eventually beat him up the next time they crossed paths, kicking off the events of the film.
• Karma Houdini:
  • While he ultimately loses the title and makes amends with Adonis, Damian receives no further comeuppance for any of the underhanded actions he committed throughout the film, including conspiring to have Viktor attacked and injured to take him out of the fight with Felix. Justified, in that Damian is the way he is because of his nearly 20-year stint in prison and Adonis, the only one who knows of his crime, is mostly responsible for getting him locked up in the first place and has no desire to send Damian back to prison.
  • Adonis faces no legal consequences for the assault he committed in the prologue and limited life consequences for his abandonment of the friend who protected him then. One of the fighters he manages suffers the consequences of Dame's grudge, but Adonis winds up champion of the world again.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: At Bianca's party, Viktor fractures his arm during a fight with one of the other partygoers and is rendered unfit for his scheduled fight with Felix, which prompts Adonis to pit Felix against Damian instead. When looking through Damian's old letters, Adonis finds a photograph of Damian in the prison courtyard with Viktor's attacker and realizes that Damian orchestrated the entire incident.
• Men Use Violence, Women Use Communication: Played With. Donnie and Bianca clash on how to properly teach Amara to deal with bullying at her school because she believes in helping their daughter find healthy ways to vent out her anger while he believes in teaching her how to defend herself. Eventually, a compromise is found when Bianca accepts to have Donnie teach Amara boxing while also teaching her not to solve everything with violence.
• Mickey Mousing: As the young Adonis uncovers the young Dame's handgun at the beginning of the film an ominous tone in the soundtrack warns that this is something to be concerned about (and indeed this gun later on is what gets Dame sent to prison for almost two decades, setting up the film's main action).
• Mugging the Monster: A girl tears up Amara's drawing of her father and receives a swift punch to the face in response.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Damian Anderson's first name foreshadows his insidious, evil nature.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Damian pulls out a gun to threaten the people beating up Adonis. Since the cops show up immediately this fails to accomplish much, instead landing Damian with a long prison sentence that derails his promising career, breaks his friendship with Adonis, and sets the stage for the main action 18 years later.
  • After Felix is beaten within an inch of his life and hospitalised during his title fight with Damian, Adonis is put on blast by just about everyone for vouching for his old friend and allowing this to happen. Little Duke even suggests that Donnie stay away from the gym because of it.
  • It's revealed that Mary Anne was hiding countless letters that Damian had been writing to Adonis while incarcerated, hoping that it would allow Adonis to stop living in the past. This led to Damian believing that his best friend had abandoned him to lose his prime years to prison after he helped save Donny from a severe beating, directly resulting in their current feud.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • While evenly matched to start off with, Damian's championship fight with Felix Chavez ultimately devolves into this after a few dirty blows from Damian throw Felix off his concentration and leave him an unconscious, hospitalized, bloody mess by the end of it.
  • Though not shown onscreen, Amara's fight with a bully at school was apparently so one-sided that Amara is the one who gets in trouble for it, despite the fact that the other girl intentionally provoked her.
• Parting-Words Regret: Adonis' final conversation with Mary Anne while she is still lucid devolves into a very harsh argument. He furiously reprimands her for hiding Damian's letters from him, points out that her biological children never accepted him, and claims that in many ways he's better off without her. Mary Anne has a stroke the following day, and the next time Adonis talks to her she is so far gone that she doesn't even realize that it's him she's speaking to anymore. She dies almost immediately afterwards.
• Pet the Dog: When Damian is invited to Adonis's house, he greets Amara warmly and plays along for an extended sequence in which he learns sign language so he can communicate with her. He is also cordial with Bianca and permits Donnie to have the first word in telling his wife about the incident that led to his arrest.
• Police Are Useless: During the flashback, when the cops arrive to stop the altercation outside the liquor store and arrest Leon, his friends and Damian, Adonis manages to run away without being pursued. Thankfully no Police Brutality occurs, as might be expected in such a scene, but a person of interest being able to run from a crime scene is just poor police work.
• Prisons Are Gymnasiums: Damian just came out of prison and looks like he's been lifting weights since kindergarten. He's so strong, in fact, that despite spending the prime years of his life behind bars and barely having any formal boxing training, he is able to easily beat the defending heavyweight champion of the world in his first ever pro match.
• Put on a Bus: Rocky does not return for this installment and is only mentioned as an example of an underdog coming from nowhere to compete for the world championship. Donnie and his loved ones never mention the possibility of calling him for advice in dealing with his personal and professional challenges and he doesn't even appear at Mary Anne's funeral.
• Real Men Wear Pink: In a scene near the beginning of the film, Adonis has to wear a childish green dragon onesie during a pretend tea party with Amara. He's clearly not enjoying it.
• The Resenter: Dame's resentment of Adonis for the latter's success, and his perceived abandonment of Dame, drive his behavior through the film and eventually lead to his downfall, as Dame's resentment drives him to taunt Adonis until the latter comes out of retirement to defeat Dame.
• Sacrificial Lion: Along with a dab of Worf Effect- Viktor and Felix both get violently taken out of the current competition—Viktor via subterfuge, Felix via a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown in the ring—to establish Damian as an unstoppable threat to anyone in his way and to place the focus solely on his feud with Donnie.
• Sequel Hook: Some fans hope that the final scene with Donnie jokingly "sparring" with Amara in the ring will indicate that a future film will have an adult Amara becoming a professional woman boxer and continuing the Creed-Balboa dynasty.
• Shout-Out:
  • Young Adonis has posters of Dragon Ball Z, Lupin III, Robotech and Naruto on his bedroom walls, as well as a Gundam model kit on his desk.
  • The red trunks Adonis dons during his title bout were designed as an homage to Kaneda's iconic jacket from AKIRA.
  • Little Duke warns Adonis about Damian's bad intentions by quoting Maya Angelou (or possibly Hillary Rodham Clinton) by telling him "when someone shows you who he is, believe him".
• Small Role, Big Impact: Leon, the abusive caretaker, only shows up for a few minutes in the prologue, but Adonis' beatdown of him and Damian drawing his gun to protect his childhood friend end up causing the events of the film.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When Damian elbows Felix in the face during the second round of their bout, the referee stops the fight and deducts two points from Damian's score, while also warning him that he will be disqualified if he commits any more fouls. With the only previous exception of Viktor Drago's disqualification in Creed II, the other Rocky films have always been infamous for showing fighters committing blatantly illegal moves with no repercussions from the officials.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Adonis sympathizes with Damian (knowing his backstory) even when others in his life criticize him for it; he sets that sympathy aside briefly at the climax but afterward goes to Damian to convey his sympathy.
• There Are No Police: They show up in the prologue, but as far as the audience knows, there is no follow-up investigation of Damian after he arranged for Viktor to be assaulted, even though the incident is national news, Damian is a career criminal with recent conflict with the victim and a material interest in his injury, and the attacker is an associate that he is so close to they appear in a photo together.
• Turn of the Millennium: The prologue is set in 2002, during the teenage years of Donnie and Damian.
• Villains Act, Heroes React: Dame executes a plan to rise to the top of his world, while Adonis socializes with his family and supervises occasionally at his gym, playing into Dame's hands when he actually does anything. Even when Adonis finally acts to challenge Dame, he's merely furthering Dame's plan by giving him the opportunity to indulge the personal grudge that motivates him.
• We Used to Be Friends: The main conflict of the film revolves around Damian, Adonis' former best friend, coming back into his life and disrupting everything he's built out of spite. Damian even outright says that he and Adonis used to be like brothers.
• Wham Shot: Donnie eventually finds a photo of Damian and the man that attacked Drago at the record label party, discovering that his former friend is behind the crime.
• Worf Had the Flu: In-universe Adonis beats "Pretty" Ricky Conlan in the beginning of the movie. Later, when Stephen A. Smith talks to Adonis on his show, he briefly mentions how some people thought Adonis was mainly able to beat Conlan since he was older and past his prime.

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