Stallone just told the NYT podcast he almost fought Schwarzenegger back in the day — best way to get the full rivalry story?
Caught the clips from Sylvester Stallones new interview on the NYT The Interview podcast — he says he and Arnold almost came to blows a few times in the 80s because they could not stand each other. Then today Dolph Lundgren is telling the story about hospitalizing Stallone with one punch on the Rocky IV set. Is there one good documentary or interview that covers the whole Stallone-Schwarzenegger rivalry era? I do not want to piece it together from random YouTube clips.
1 answer
- The NYT Interview episode itself
Honestly the best source is the episode itself — it is a long-form sit-down, about an hour, and the rivalry stuff is not a throwaway clip, it is a whole segment where he talks about how threatened he felt by Arnold in the 80s. The podcast feed is free on every app. Pair it with the ESPN 30 for 30-style oral history articles about Rocky IV (Dolph has retold the hospital story a few times now, and the details line up across tellings). The docs about 80s action cinema tend to skim the rivalry in five minutes; the podcast gives you the actual psychology.