Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger were among the biggest action stars in Hollywood in the 1970s and 1980s and were bitter rivals in the industry for a long time. Today the two actors have buried their hatchet and now even sat down together for an interview.
In the interview format TMZ Presenzts Arnold & Sly: Rival, Friends, Icons, the two talk about their careers and how their paths repeatedly crossed in Hollywood. Stallone revealed details about one cruel injurywhich he contracted shortly before filming Rocky II – and almost cost him his career.
Sylvester Stallone injured himself during muscle training shortly before filming Rocky 2
Arnold Schwarzenegger explained in the conversation that in the 1970s he worked together with the legendary fitness trainer Franco Columbu, who also encouraged Sylvester Stallone to achieve top performance for Rambo and Rocky II. Stallone revealed that a showdown with the trainer once got particularly out of hand:
I have to tell you about Frank [Columbu] tell. This guy is really eccentric. We’re working and then he says, ‘Let’s do a bench press competition.’ And I was like, ‘You win.’ And he was like, ‘No, join in anyway.’ So I start and there are actually only 200 [Pfund] on it and I’m just warming up, suddenly I hear, ‘Pow!’
United Artists
Rocky II
Stallone continues the story:
I fall to the ground and scream ‘Aah’. Franco says, ‘Let me see,’ and he rams his fingers all the way in. I tore my pectoral muscle off the bone. I mean, really bad. I heard it tearing and he rammed his fingers all the way in. I thought I was going to faint.
Sylvester Stallone worked his injury into Rocky 2
Shortly before filming began on Rocky II, this injury was more than inconvenient for Sylvester Stallone, as he was to step into the boxing ring again as Rocky Balboa in the sequel punching with his left fist
‒ exactly the arm on which he injured himself during training. In the end, however, he made the best of the situation and had a saving idea for his character:
So I’m going home. I feel like my career is over. I’m supposed to start Rocky II – directing, everything – in a month and a half. And I was like, I need to get this patched up. […] I can’t use the arm anymore so I’ll change it to Rocky: I will fight on the right. Completely illogical, but I was like, ‘I’m not canceling this movie just for that.’
Eventually, Stallone was able to return in front of and behind the camera for Rocky II and complete the film. In the coming years, the Boxer series followed up with four more films and was expanded with three Creed films as spin-offs from 2015.