A potential Rocky prequel from Sylvester Stallone that focuses on cinema's favorite boxer in his younger years would finally return the franchise to the spirit of the icon's most famous quote. Back before the days of his stunning victories and his underdog rise to being the champion, a Rocky prequel show would be a lot more like the original Rocky than any of its sequels. And that would be the perfect way to show the true complexity of Balboa.
Stallone has openly talked about how dearly he holds his relationship with Rocky, admiring the way the boxing champion refuses the limiting notion of filters and says what he wants. That much led to Rocky Balboa being one of the most eminently quotable movie characters of all time, which set up his transition to becoming Adonis Creed's mentor in the Creed movies all the more perfectly. Rocky may not have been the most gifted of technical boxers, but he had heart and spirit, and they translated into an indomitable spirit that was best summed up by Rocky's most notorious call to arms, which continues to be used as an inspirational motto across sports and life.
In 2006's Rocky Balboa, with the best years of his career behind him and facing a final fight against Mason "The Line" Dixon, Rocky delivers his best speech to his son, revealing that the strength of a man is measured not in his victories but in his perseverance, a mentality that was clearly honed over years of losing fights and missing shots before his first big fight with Apollo Creed in 1976. That mantra - of endurance and overcoming - is what made Rocky such a formidable character, far more than any of his victories and a Rocky prequel would allow fans to see exactly how that mentality was carved out of losses and adversity in the ring and outside of it:
“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!”
Rocky was never as interesting when he was on top, and it was only when the odds were stacked perilously against him that Stallone's brightest star character shone the most. Fans tend to remember the beatings handed to him by Dolph Lundgren's Ivan Drago and Mr. T's Clubber Lang just as much as him raising his arms in victory, because the former always informs the latter. The blood makes the champagne taste better. But what made Rocky get back up every time wasn't just his unfaltering commitment to winning, but rather his past experience of knowing what repeated defeats and being at the bottom of the ladder meant. As Rocky told Mickey (Burgess Meredith) when the trainer offers to coach him, he "didn't have no prime... didn't have nothin'" and had fought for ten years without any attention, despite Mickey recognizing him as a wasted talent.
A Rocky Balboa prequel focusing on the difficult years between Rocky establishing his talent and training as a young man and ending up "wasting" his life as a debt collector before getting his big fight is the key period for understanding his "how hard you can get hit" speech. It was in those years, in those boxing rings and on those streets, embedded in the poverty of Philadelphia and living hand to mouth on what he made from his loan shark gig that Robert Balboa really became Rocky. And Stallone being able to tell that story properly in his own Rocky prequel show is arguably the most important story left for the character.
