There have been a lot of boxing villains throughout film history but the most iconic and the most purely physical is Ivan Drago. Now you might ask why this is and how can anyone be certain, but look at him. He’s a towering, glistening engine of destruction that can hit two or three times as hard as the average boxer. You might also say that Rocky finally beat him, but then look at what happens when Rocky is suffering the effects of the fight afterwards. His hands can’t stop shaking, he has brain damage, and he becomes an old man almost overnight. Ivan Drago knocked something loose inside of Rocky that can be repaired, and he did it just by HITTING him.
Can you imagine if it was a bare-knuckle fight that they entered into? The padded gloves are for protection but even padding can only do so much. The force of a boxer’s punches can be lethal if delivered in certain spots and they can easily break bone and pulverize flesh thanks to their intense training and the power they can generate with a single hit. Now imagine that without the padding and you’ve got a fight that would have ended with Rocky’s eventual death as he was pounded into oblivion. The unrealistic nature of the fight to begin with is enough to turn some people’s heads away in disgust.
And it’s not the sheer size of Drago either. He’s big and strong but he’s also fast and patient. If you watch this fight he waits and picks his moments. Once he does find a spot he hits it relentlessly over and over without pausing to see if Rocky is okay. That’s a true killer in the ring at that moment, someone that’s there to win at all cost and not give an inch to their opponent. Unlike Apollo Creed and even Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago is a man that wanted to put Rocky down and out, maybe even for good.
Plus, Drago didn’t say more than a few words during the fight. Creed and Lang both felt the need to trash talk with Balboa occasionally, while Drago was just in there to punch and keep punching. He said a couple of words before the fight and before the final round, but otherwise he didn’t say much at all. By the end you could see frustration on his face and a desire for Rocky to really cut loose and hit him, but by that point Rocky was already starting to think of his own strategy and was allowing Drago to tire himself out just a bit more. The problem with that in real life is that a man like Drago, if he was fighting intelligently, would use his reach and his power to his greatest advantage and would have likely already put Rocky on the mat for good.
So to sum it all up, Ivan Drago is the best boxing villain because he doesn’t feel the need to talk too much, he’s just there to hurt people, and in reality, he’d be dang near unstoppable.
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