Former world heavyweight champion Rocky Balboa serves as a trainer and mentor to Apollo Creed's son, Adonis.
In 1998, Adonis Creed, the son of an extramarital lover of former heavyweight champion Apollo Creed, is serving time in a Los Angeles youth detention center when Creed's widow, Mary Anne, visits and offers to take him in.
Three years after his loss to "Pretty" Ricky Conlan, Adonis Creed scores a string of victories, culminating in a victory over Danny "Stuntman" Wheeler to win the WBC World Heavyweight Championship. Now a worldwide star, Adonis proposes to his girlfriend, Bianca Taylor, who agrees to marry him. When Bianca suggests starting a new life together in Los Angeles, Adonis is reluctant to leave his life in Philadelphia behind.
Adonis has been thriving in both his career and family life, but when a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy resurfaces, the face-off is more than just a fight.