Low blow, cinematic division

 Well, February, that pothole-strewn asshat of months, is off to a bang-up start. It's gone and killed Apollo Creed, is what it's done.

And, yes, I know, it was Ivan Drago who killed Apollo Creed. But that was only in the movies. In real life, on the other hand ...

In real life, Apollo was Carl Weathers, or Carl Weathers was Apollo. Didn't really matter which, because Weathers made that fictional character as real as you can make a fictional character. And now Weathers himself is dead, passing in his sleep at the not-all-that-aged age of 76.

Movie heroes are nothing without memorable villains, which is why "Die Hard" is as much about Hans Gruber as John McClain, and "Batman Returns" is as much about Heath Ledger's Joker as Christian Bale's title character. And therefore "Rocky" isn't "Rocky" without Apollo Creed -- who was never so much a villain as a likeable foil, and even became the hero to Drago's villain in his cinematic signoff.

And so a moment of silence today for Apollo's creator, Weathers, who of course went on to portray a million other characters in the movies and on TV. Yet he will always be Apollo in the public mind, more than anyone else.

Know how we know that?

Because even the man upon whom Apollo was loosely based thought so.

An absolutely true story, which Weathers related more than once: It seems he was sitting at an outdoor cafe in L.A. one day when down the street came this huge entourage. And at the center of it was the real-life Apollo, Muhammad Ali.

Whereupon Weathers suddenly heard this: "APOLLO CREED!"

It was Ali. And the two of them wound up shadow-boxing in the street, to the delight of onlookers.

Now both of them are gone. Which means, sadly, that a movie line has become more than just a movie line, but a requiem of sorts.

Ain't gonna be no rematch.