What if something like Apollo Creed's in-ring death happened in real life?

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I think the soviets just played Creed and the American media, couple that with The Master of Disaster’s overconfidence and dismissive attitude and next thing you know you have ringside’s Stu Nahan announcing “...Creed is down and he could be badly hurt...”....thanks, Dr Nahan...

I mean, the punching machine display and pushing Creed at the press conference aside, The King of Sting just thought Drago was an amateur, “strong...but big and clumsy...I know I can beat him.”...Balboa saw something, but Creed and Tony the trainer didn’t see it....Creed and Tony, I think, finally saw it when Apollo foolishly tried to bang gloves with Drago after the refs instructions, as you see Tony’s face in the background and The Count of Monte Fisto appearing a bit spooked after Drago’s Oscar worthy “you will lose” line...

Fight opens, The Dancing Destroyer moving good, lands some ok jabs, a few rights, nothing much but still scoring, while Drago does nothing but follow The Prince of Punch, looking robotic and quite amateurish...patriotic crowd going fervently nuts when suddenly Drago’s trainer yells something in Russian and the Siberian Bull unleashes on Creed a right hand that would make Earnie Shavers, Lennox Lewis and Deontay Wilder jealous...that left wasn’t bad either...

Then Tony screaming and spitting after the round, “...this is supposed to be an EXHIBITION! YOU UNDERSTAND!?!?l AN EXHIBITION!!”....after all, the Godfather of Soul James Brown opened this show!...they just didn’t get it, the Soviets didn’t come for the show or to mess around— this Cold War just got hot!

Soviets probably had Drago sandbag during some amateur tourneys to not attract too much attention to their behemoth...plus, depending what timeline we use, the Americans could have possibly been ignorant to some Soviet boxers because of the 80 and 84 Olympic boycotts...the US and USSR did have face offs in those days, but it was suspected that each country withheld some of their best fighters in those side tourneys as to not expose the other side to their ace fighters before the Olympic or World Amateur tourneys...

Also, what can be said about the script, other than this movie plays out like a montage or an MTV video....still, it was a fun ride...

And, unfortunately, boxers die from damage received in the ring...this Creed situation looked eerily similar to Griffith/Paret, as Paret never left the ring conscious or alive (maybe alive, can’t remember offhand)...not uncommon in those situations to see a fighter collapse AFTER he leaves the ring....

In amateur boxing they wear head protection, and there's nothing that requires that Drago went full throttle on his amateur opponents. In the fight with Apollo, they wanted to make a statement. Also, he may not have even been freakishly strong during his amateur career. When this movie takes place, his amateur career is over, because he's about to have his first professional fight. They may have recruited him and started his high-tech training and chemical enhancements after his last amateur fight. In any case, there's nothing in the movie which indicates that he necessarily would have been killing or seriously injuring his past amateur opponents.

I already addressed the fact that boxers have in fact in real life, died from injuries sustained while boxing. What I said was that they didn't literally die in the ring right then and there, not following.