Again - this doesn't even make any sense as an argument.
Balboa works as a film (and I think it does work) because it's Stallone essentially indulging in a public therapy session for all his mistakes and fuckups with not just that character, but his own stardom. There's a reason he picked that role to investigate those themes.
And what did he do after he made that movie? Slipped right back into his old, self-indulgent, egotistical, empty, sweaty bullshit. At which point Coogler had to resuscitate his reputation yet again.
This is the arc of Stallone's career: Incredible success. Incredible hubris. The long fall. The self-awareness returns, and with it some hunger. Then the make good. Then the success again. Then the hubris, the self-indulgence, the egotism...and people get sick of his shit again, and he doesn't understand why nobody gives a fuck about him anymore. So he self-reflects...
He's going to fuck Creed up. He can't not. This is what he does.