Rocky’s parents never come to any of his fights or his wedding to Adrian, but there are a few hints about what happened to them in the Rocky movies.
While Adrian and Mickey are always ringside, two important people never watch the Italian Stallion fight in Rocky, so what happened to Rocky’s parents? Rocky spends a significant amount of time in the old Kensington neighborhood, but even so, Sylvester Stallone’s boxing franchise has a total of 9 films in it and none have ever featured Rocky’s parents. He goes from being a muscle for loan sharks and fighting in amateur bouts to duking it out for the World Heavyweight Championship belt, but his mom and dad are never cheering him on in the crowd, and he never goes to visit them.
Rocky is an underdog and a lone wolf, and as his fame and fortune rise and fall, his parents (and extended family) aren’t part of the saga. He builds a found family including his wife Adrian, her brother Paulie, his coach and mentor Mickey, the young boxers he trains, and even former rivals like Apollo Creed. There are hints throughout the films about what happened to Rocky’s parents, but also prominent reasons why putting them in the franchise would ultimately change the message of the Rocky and Creed movies altogether.
Rocky Hints At A Rift With His Father In The First Movie
Some close-knit Italian families live together until a child gets married, but Rocky has his own apartment and doesn’t participate in big family dinners. At one point, Rocky references his father by saying, “My old man, who was never the sharpest, told me I weren’t born with much brain, so I better use my body” which implies that Rocky is estranged from his family, and that his parents weren’t the kind who would come support his fights or other important milestones. Rocky’s unstable home life, combined with his perceived lack of intellect, makes him feel like he doesn’t fit in anywhere except the boxing gym.
Rocky is a pretty lonely movie, with excessive shots of Rocky walking the streets of Philadelphia by himself, and the only people he can consider friends consist of a criminal element. Even after he starts a new family with Adrian, he eventually loses his grip on it over the course of the next several films, and by the time Adonis Creed finds him, he’s alone again with only the memories of his past to sustain him. It makes him a tragic but nevertheless compelling working-class hero who has become a beloved cultural icon because he wears his heart on his sleeve.
Rocky’s Missing Parents Are A Vital Part Of His Character
Part of Rocky’s enduring appeal lies in the fact that he’s an underdog who has to go the distance in order to succeed, so having a pair of loving parents might change this vital part of his character, not to mention an overall theme of the Rocky franchise. Taking all the major Rocky characters into consideration, most of them are missing family members, implying that they’re a motley crew of mostly street kids who had to fend for themselves when they were growing up. At Rocky and Adrian’s wedding in Rocky II, there weren’t even any guests in attendance on either side, or even a small circle of friends.
This contrasts to the Creed franchise where family lineage is a major theme. With Creed III’s major death involving Donnie’s adoptive mother, there are a number of guests at the funeral, but at Mickey’s funeral, it’s just Rocky, Adrian, and the Rabbi. Rocky doesn’t even have a good relationship with his own son, and they go through many periods of estrangement, perhaps because Rocky never had a very good example modeling fatherly behavior.
Sylvester Stallone Has Teased Revealing Rocky’s Parents
As recently as 2019, Stallone teased writing a Rocky prequel TV show set in the 1960s that would have addressed what happened to Rocky’s parents as it followed a young mob enforcer fighting his way up the boxing circuit in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, Stallone’s conflicts with MGM have inhibited its progress, but Amazon has continued to express interest in more Rocky material since the huge success of Creed III. Currently, there are several upcoming Rocky and Creed projects in development and not all involve Stallone, but the subject of Rocky’s parents is bound to come up at some point.
Stallone’s Rocky 7 could happen after Creed III’s success but he’s been unwilling to do any further films as long as the rights continue to be owned by Irwin Winkler. As the real Rocky keeps going the distance to maintain his creative integrity, the issue of Rocky’s parents becomes more and more negligible. Knowing what happened to them wouldn’t change the poignancy or the impact of the Rocky movies, but it might alter how the characters and the lessons they go through are perceived, minimizing the importance of having a found family in order to face the world’s hardships.