5 Reasons Southpaw Is A Better Boxing Movie Than Creed (& 5 Why Creed Is Better)

Boxing movies have become fewer in recent times but luckily, the 2010s gave us two brilliant ones. Creed was released as a spinoff to the Rocky movies. Sylvester Stallone reprised his role, coming back as a retired Rocky Balboa. But the star of the movie was Adonis “Donnie’ Creed (Michael B. Jordan) who Rocky Balboa offered to train. Given the success of the Rocky franchise, Creed already had a great foundation to build on.

Southpaw also came out around the same time as Creed. It followed boxer Billy “The Great” Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) who went from being rich to having nothing. He also lost both his wife and daughter in bizarre circumstances. And to make his life worse, he had a rival who was totally obsessed with making his life as terrible as possible. So, which is the better boxing movie? Let’s take a look at both.

10 Southpaw: The Boxer’s Motivation

To anyone risking their lives, the question “why are you doing this?” ought to be asked. Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) has no justifiable reason for risking his life in the ring. In fact, he has a bigger reason to avoid the ring. His father Appollo Creed died in the ring in Rocky IV at the hands of  Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). Either way, Adonis still feels that boxing is his passion.

Southpaw doesn’t go with the “I think I am good so let me do this” ideology. It’s a story of grief and tragedy. Boxer Billy Hope is justified for risking his life in the ring. He has lost his wife in a tragic accident and his daughter has been taken by child protection services. He has also gone broke and to get out of the downward spiral he is in, he needs to fight. This is quite reasonable.

9 Creed: More Intense Fight Scenes

Southpaw‘s undoing is that it lacks the camera focus seen in some of the best boxing movies of all time. Director Antoine Fuqua messes up Southpaw‘s fight scenes by placing more focus on the sounds, spectator reactions, and surroundings, making the viewer miss out on the aftermath of the punches and the flying drops of blood. The director obviously does this to pump up the drama but he goes a bit overboard.

Creed has spectacular fight scenes that make the viewer feels the pain of every punch. Stallone knew what was needed in this kind of movie after all and he probably let director Ryan Coogler know. The decision to use a single take on the first fight rather than the overflowing quick cuts made it one of the best scenes of all boxing movies ever made.

8 Southpaw: An Abundance Of Shocking And Emotional Moments

Creed plays it safe by using the most common boxing movie formula. The antagonist wants to prove a point so he trains hard with the help of a trainer who is a former boxer and in the end, he fights the big bad boxer and wins. Southpaw uses this formula too but adds shocking moments that bring the entertainment value way high.

For example, just when the viewer gets comfortable thinking Billy’s supportive wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) will be with him for the whole journey, she dies. To make it worse, his daughter Leila becomes hostile towards him too. It’s shocking and emotional, but’ shocking’ is good for movies.

7 Creed: Inspired Performance By Lead Actor

It’s hard to say who is the better actor between Michael B. Jordan and Jake Gyllenhaal. Both have been terrific MCU villains and both have won a couple of awards. However, Jordan was nominated for 8 awards across different award organizations for his role as Adonis Creed whereas Gyllenhaal only got one nomination.

Whereas Southpaw can’t be considered Gyllenhaal’s best movie, Creed is considered Jordan’s best movie. Gyllenhaal does his best to portray a highly flawed boxer compared to the fairly normal Adonis Creed but his best performance came in Nightcrawler.

6 Southpaw: Approval From Boxing Champions

What do people who have been in the boxing business think? Thomas Hearns who became the first boxer in history to win world titles in five different weight divisions called it more realistic than classic Rocky: “It is more realistic. I mean I am not knocking Rocky. Southpaw is more realistic as to what is happening in boxing. I know the things that happened in the movie can happen. I know they happened when I was boxing.”

Former WBO and WBA middleweight champion Bronco McKart also praised the movie: “That is one of the more realistic movies I’ve ever seen. It is your typical boxing. When you are on top, everybody is riding with you. But when you hit bottom, people step on you.”

5 Creed: Well-Crafted Dialogue

One-Liners are quite crucial in a movie. Sadly, Southpaw lacked any notable ones. Those in Creed—though not extraordinary—were quite memorable. For example, when Rocky is asked how he managed to beat the unbeatable Appollo Creed decades ago, he says “Time beat him. Time, you know, takes everybody out. It’s undefeated.”

He also dishes a couple of elderly-man bits of advice including, “You can’t learn anything when you’re talking. That’s a fact of life. As long as you’re talking, you’re not listening.” How about “Now we’re going to shut his big mouth aren’t we?”

4 Southpaw: Supporting Characters

Creed 2 tried to rectify Creed‘s mistake by bringing back Dolph Lundgren. The first film was completely the Rocky and Adonis show. Obviously, Stallone loves the limelight, but sadly, he doesn’t always know how to share it for the good of the movie.

Southpaw was quite different since it had a string of compelling supporting characters. There’s Billy’s manager Jordan Maines played by rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. There was also Billy’s trainer Titus “Tick” Wills played by Forrest Whitaker. Boxer Victor Ortiz also had a role and Billy’s rival Miguel “Magic” Escobar was a more convincing bad guy.

3 Creed: The Training Gets You Excited

Ironically, a director who made a movie called Training Day didn’t make the training scenes in his boxing movie that interesting. Of course, that Denzel Washington film was not sports-related but there’s still some irony there. What makes Creed‘s training scenes better is that a popular action star is doing the training.

This is one of Stallone’s more reserved roles but he’s still Stallone and seeing his aging character Rocky Balboa training Adonis (Jordan) makes you way excited. Whitaker is a great actor but he doesn’t do a lot of fighting in movies. So, in as much as he is committed, he doesn’t convince the viewer that his trainee will succeed in the ring.

2 Southpaw: The Music

Music is a huge part of boxing. Deontay Wilder had a rapper rapping his heart out as he entered the ring recently. And Tyson Fury decided to do the singing himself after winning. Music has always been incorporated into boxing in many ways and in movies, it plays a huge part.

Despite the Rocky franchise being known for great scores, Creed really didn’t have any soundtracks capable of pumping you up. In Southpaw, James Horner’s score did the trick and so did Eminem’s “Kings Never Die.” Interestingly, Eminem was supposed to star in the movie instead of Jake Gyllenhaal.

1 Creed: Better Statistics

Creed has an IMDb rating of  7.7, a Rotten Tomatoes score of 94% and a domestic gross of $109,767,581. Meanwhile, Southpaw has an IMDb rating of 7.4, a Rotten Tomatoes score of 57% and a domestic gross of $52,421,953. Judging by the numbers, we have a clear winner.

Creed’s high box office figures are understandable because the movie is part of the Rocky franchise. But given that Creed, fails to beat in the critic/review side of things shows that this contest is pretty much leaning one way.  We still need more boxing movies though so hopefully we’ll get a Southpaw 2.

About The Author

Philip Etemesi
(1215 Articles Published)

Philip Etemesi is an author, journalist, screenwriter and film critic based in Nairobi. Kenya. As a child, he preferred watching movies like The Goodfellas instead of Home Alone. His girlfriend constantly has to pull him from the front of the TV but he just keeps returning. Stubborn dude! An animal lover, Philip also has a pet giraffe called Refu.

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