Moment pages are spoilers off. You have been warned.
Everything seemed like it was going great for Rocky, save for the bad right eye. He can continue to make good money by starring in commercials. Then reality ensues. He's terrible at acting and was dumped by his agent immediately afterward. He tries to get an office job, but he didn't finish school, and on top of that, he's illiterate. He settles for a job at the meat factory, only to be laid off, pushing him to go back into fighting until Adrian chooses to help support them both with her old job at the pet store. To see Rocky having managed to finally get ahead, only to lose it so quickly is quite heart breaking, especially when he realizes that he cannot properly support a family like this.
He DID manage to get work with Mickey at his gym, but as Mickey feared, Rocky becomes a bit of a punch-line. The man who stood up to the champ is now swapping spit buckets. Made worse after Apollo humiliates Rocky in the news media.
When Adrian entered into a coma, Rocky stayed with her like a pet dog waiting for his master to return. What did he do? Stay as long as he could, day by day during visiting hours, just by her side, and at a chapel in the hospital when he couldn't visit her. He even insists on seeing his newborn child only if he and Adrian see him together. This was all during the time that Rocky MUST train for the fight against Apollo. He's willing to throw it all away if Adrian doesn't wake up.
Although Apollo legitimately won the first fight, the way he won it (by virtue of a split decision), in addition to enduring the worst pummeling of his life courtesy of Rocky, led many to suspect that the fight was fixed and that Apollo was nothing but a fraud. Considering his pride, such accusations hurt him deeply, and his kids getting picked on at school only made it worse for him. This in turn led him to be obsessed with proving to everyone and himself that Rocky's performance against him was nothing but a fluke, so much so that in the rematch he went for knocking out Rocky rather than simply out-boxing him and wait out the final rounds for a unanimous decision, which ultimately cost him the championship.
