 And Rocky feels guilty because, and this part never made any sense to me, Rocky didn't throw in the towel that would have stopped the fight. But Drago already threw the ref out of the way, so I don't know what a towel would have done. You think Drago would have stopped pummeling Apollo Creed into oblivion? No! Right? He was hell-bent on killing the man. The towel wouldn't have done anything. But anyway, Rocky feels guilty about this. It's kind of like the whole premise of the movie, where then he feels that he has to avenge Apollo. So then the Soviets, the Soviets at the time, they say, okay, we'll give you a fight.