New ‘Creed’ Image Shows Rocky Balboa Back in the Ring

Hey yo, Internet, check this out, y’know? It’s like the first picture from the set of Creed, the new Rocky spinoff about the son of Rocky’s greatest rival and best friend, Apollo Creed, who decides to follow in his father’s footsteps and enter the fight game. Eventually he comes to Rocky and asks him to become his trainer; the way Mickey was a mentor and teacher to Rocky. Thus the circle is complete; the student becomes the teacher, the son becomes the father. This is some profound stuff, dudes.

The photo, posted on Sylvester Stallone’s official Instagram account, shows Sly, back for the seventh time as the Italian Stallion, in the ring with Fruitvale Station and Fantastic Four’s Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Johnson Creed (which is a fantastic name for the son of a man named Apollo). The caption with the photo (“Get ready to go for it!”) is a reference to Rocky V, where an aging Rocky became the trainer to another young boxing talent, Tommy “The Machine” Gunn. Despite Rocky’s constant advice to “Go for it!” that relationship didn’t work out all that well. (Neither, frankly, did the movie.) But hopefully Creed turns out better.

It certainly has lots of potential. As the title makes clear, this isn’t a movie about Rocky, it’s a movie about the next Rocky, with Stallone serving as a supporting character. And Creed is co-written and directed by Ryan Coogler, the talented young filmmaker behind Fruitvale Station, who pushed hard to make this his follow-up to his big debut. And Rocky Balboa proved there was still some fight left in the old Italian Stallion. This could be great. “I didn’t hear no bell!” a wise man once said.Creed opens on November 25.