This film didn't suck but it was the worst of the six Rocky movies. The main problem was that Rocky had a street fight instead of a prizefight. When people went to see the Rocky movies, they expected to see prizefights. Not a street fight. Rocky also lost all of his money in this movie. Many fans hated that.
At the beginning of each Rocky movie (Except for the first and sixth one) it shows the ending of the fight that he had in the previous movie. Why wasn't the ending of the street fight shown in the beginning of Rocky Balboa? It was obviously not shown because the street fight was pathetic.
The producers of the Rocky movies wouldn't let Stallone make a sixth Rocky film until he paid them a certain amount of money. Chartoff and Winkler probably did that because they lost their shirts after the fifth movie was released.
Even a big Rocky supporter said that Rocky V stunk. I believe that this movie is worth watching but it isn't a very good movie. Back in the eighties I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined that Stallone would make a Rocky movie that had a street fight. I give this film a 2 star rating.

Clearly low point of Rocky series...I think Slyvester Stallone wanted to do something different to end the series but it backfired badly...premise of having Rocky lose everything from Paulie making bad decision before leaving for Russia to train for Drago fight (in Rocky IV) was bad idea...Rocky trains Tommy Gunn but relationship sours and streetfight between the two ends, climax to film was also bad idea but again I suppose you can credit Stallone for wanting to try something different...bottom line is people want to see Rocky fight and win even if its from Alien from outerspace