Adonis Creed

Adonis spends his childhood in foster homes and juvenile hall in Los Angeles, always getting into fights. In 1998, Mary Anne Creed comes to see him, tells him he's Apollo's son from an affair, and takes him home.

As an adult he has a good job at a financial firm but fights on the side in Tijuana under his mother's name, Johnson. He quits, moves to Philadelphia and tracks down Rocky at the restaurant Adrian's. Rocky pushes back but agrees to train him. Adonis meets his neighbor Bianca, a singer with progressive hearing loss, and they start dating.

Adonis knocks out Leo Sporino, and the press finds out whose son he is. Light heavyweight champion Ricky Conlan needs one last fight before going to prison, and his manager offers Adonis the title shot, as long as he fights under the Creed name. Meanwhile, Rocky learns he has cancer and doesn't want treatment. Adonis makes a deal: they'll fight together.

In Liverpool, Adonis wears trunks in his father's colors, Johnson on the back and Creed on the front. He puts Conlan on the canvas for the first time in the champ's career and goes the full 12 rounds. He loses by split decision but earns everyone's respect. Back home, he helps Rocky climb the art museum steps.

Three years later, Adonis is heavyweight champion of the world and proposes to Bianca. Viktor Drago, son of the man who killed Apollo, challenges him. Rocky wants no part of it, so Adonis goes ahead with Tony "Little Duke" Evers, son of his father's old trainer. He takes a brutal beating. He wins by disqualification after Viktor hits him while he's down, but leaves with broken ribs and a ruptured kidney.

During recovery he shuts everyone out. Bianca gives birth to Amara, who was born deaf, as they had feared. Adonis needs a reason to come back.

Rocky returns and takes Adonis to a training camp in the desert, where he learns to absorb punishment and fight on the inside. The rematch with Viktor is in Moscow. Adonis takes a beating early, hangs on and drops Viktor twice in the tenth round, until Ivan Drago throws in the towel to protect his son.

Afterward, Adonis visits Apollo's grave with Bianca and Amara and makes peace with his father's memory.

Adonis beats Conlan in a rematch, retires and focuses on his family, a gym and the career of champion Felix Chavez. Damian "Dame" Anderson, his childhood friend from the group home, gets out of prison after 18 years and asks for a shot. Adonis carries guilt: the night Dame was arrested, Adonis started the fight and ran.

When Chavez's opponent is attacked, Adonis puts Dame in the fight, and Dame wins the title. Mary Anne shows him letters Dame sent from prison that Adonis never read. Soon after, she dies. Adonis finds out Dame set up the attack and decides to come out of retirement.

The fight is at Dodger Stadium. As the rounds go on, Adonis relives the group home and the night Dame was arrested. He goes down in the final round, gets up and wins by knockout. Afterward, the two make peace. Adonis goes back to the empty ring and play-boxes with Amara.

Adonis was created by Ryan Coogler and Aaron Covington. Coogler drew on his relationship with his own father, a fan of the Rocky films. Michael B. Jordan played him in all three films and made his directing debut with Creed III. In 2023, Boom! Studios published the comic Creed: The Next Round.