5. Rocky II Apollo Creed
Sadly, a lot of people still die in the boxing ring, even today. While its a perfectly legitimate sport, the sweet science is full of danger to those who drop their guard for even a moment, and prizefighting history is littered with stories of fighters suffering brain haemorrhages in the ring, or in rare cases having their brain simply removed from the connection. Donning the gloves is an inherently risky act, because really, its all about a man attempting to separate your head from your shoulders until you relent. So if you take this into account, Apollo Creeds plight in Rocky II looks even more ridiculous. Now I know that boxing rules were more relaxed in the 1970s so fighters were able to inflict more punishment before the referee waived the fight, but the punishment Apollo takes in Rocky II is just incredible. There are moments in his climactic fight against Rocky where he takes 20 unanswered haymakers to the head thats enough to cause severe, severe injury and yet the ref doesnt even think about waiving the fight. What makes it worse is that the 20-punch barrage isnt even a rare, one-off occasion. At numerous times Apollo takes the beating of his life, yet appears none the worse for it. Its frankly superhuman hes still standing after such an avalanche of punches, and its pretty much a miracle that he didnt suffer any long term damage after the bout. Of course, he does eventually meet his maker in the ring, yet everyone appears surprised by it. Why? The man clearly had a deathwish, and its something of an anomaly that he didnt die in the ring with Rocky.