Sylvester Stallone revealed he had a brush with death after filming a scene with Dolph Lundgren portraying Ivan Drago in Rocky IV.
The Hollywood icon outlined the incident in the new Netflix documentary ‘Sly’ currently streaming on the service.
Stallone returned for the fourth installment of his hit franchise ‘Rocky’ in 1985. He hired Lundgren, a then-unknown but freakishly tall actor, to play a Russian boxing abusing the system.
While filming the movie’s epic end fight scenes, Stallone was clocked by Drago [Lundgren] in one of his ‘make it look as real as possible just hit me’ orders.
Drago obliged, and Stallone ended up in the hospital fighting for his life.
Sylvester Stallone hospitalized by Dolph Lundgren
“Dolph Lundgren – he pulverized me,” Stallone stated. “Later that night, my heart started to swell. This happens when the heart hits the chest.
“Then my blood pressure went up to 260. They thought I would be talking to angels [to die]. Next thing I know, I’m in intensive care, where I’m surrounded by nuns. I thought, ‘OK, that’s curtains.'”
The Rocky Balboa star was in ICU for nine days and said he prayed for “one more round.” However, it’s not Stallone’s first time something like this happened.
It happened when Stallone shared the ring with Ernie Shavers, one of the biggest punching heavyweights ever. Stallone sparred Shavers in the 1970s to prepare for his Rocky debut.
Stallone told Jonathan Ross on a UK chat show that the session didn’t go well.
Make it look real
“They don’t know how to stop pulling their punches. That’s the whole point. They think, “I’ll follow through.
“Earnie Shavers literally almost beat me to death without trying. [He was] wearing 20-ounce gloves. Imagine if he was angry!
“I sparred with [Muhammad] Ali, and Joe Fraser gave me eleven stitches. That was in about two seconds.
“I was thinking about using him [Frazier] instead of Mr. T in Rocky III. I said, ‘Let me use a real fighter.’ That’s not a good idea.”
But as he explained in the documentary, his strict upbringing with a physical father prepared him to roll with the punches.
“I was no stranger to serious pain. I think it just became, ‘I’m not gonna break.'”
He fully recovered from the Drago smash, even though doctors reportedly compared the blow to a head-on collision.
“I did hit a bus – of sorts,” he added.
