Sylvester Stallone is a legendary actor who achieved stardom with his superhit franchise under the name Rocky. The actor reached his greatest commercial success with his character Rocky Balboa in the movie Rocky, released in 1976. The franchise has a cult following, and fans watch the franchise with much nostalgia to date. The thrilling action scenes, the teeth-gritting fights, and a sweet love story were woven together beautifully in the project.
The story of the superhit franchise follows the life of an underdog and his struggles to win the world heavyweight championship. The movie involved numerous real fighters like Antonio Carver, but he refused to work with boxing legend Mike Tyson.
Sylvester Stallone refused to work with Mike Tyson in Rocky Balboa
The Expendables star has worked with numerous athletes and real-life fighters like Dolph Lundgren in his Rocky franchise. Nevertheless, when the boxer icon and athlete Mike Tyson asked to feature in the Rocky movie franchise, Stallone was unsure. As per the reports, Tyson wanted to feature in one as a possible antagonist for Stallone in one of the franchises.
Rocky Balboa was the sixth film in Stallone’s Rocky franchise series. The feature was supposed to release 16 years after the fifth film Rocky V, which was not well received at the box office. Due to the average performance of Rocky V, Stallone wanted to do things differently with the next Rocky Balboa film.
The film could have been a massive success if the actor was pitting against real-life boxing legend Mike Tyson.
When the boxing star Tyson heard about the sequel to Rocky, he campaigned for a part in the movie. But Stallone was not highly interested in potentially going up against Tyson, even for a shooting fight. Stallone shared with Contact Music (via Boxing Scene),
“Mike wanted to fight me in this film but I thought it was a bad idea. I know I’m not that young, but I’m still too young to die. I said, ‘Thanks, but I don’t think that would be a very good idea. Thank you very much.’”
Since Sylvester Stallone was aware of the excellent fighting skills of Tyson, he wanted to avoid confrontation in the boxing ring.
Sylvester Stallone offered this role to Mike Tyson in Rocky Balboa
Escape Plan actor further shared that Mike Tyson kept calling his office saying he wanted to be in the film fighting with him. Hence Stallone finally offers a role to him in the film as he said,
“Eventually, I relented and said he could be in the audience. Then I never heard from him. Suddenly, when I turn up in the ring he’s there at the side. I turned around and said to the crew, ‘Can you make sure you keep that son of a b**** out of the ring. If he gets in he’ll kill me.’ The man’s a killer.”
Even though Stallone did not fight with Tyson in the ring, he decided to cast a real boxer for Balboa for the perfect fight in the ring. Former light heavyweight champion Antonio Carver was chosen to play Mason Dixon in the film, who was Rocky Balboa’s last opponent in the movie.
Employing real fighters in Rocky Balboa was a conscious attempt by Stallone to distinguish it from previous movies of the Rocky franchise.
Source-Showbiz Cheat Sheet
