20 Iconic Movie Scenes That Nearly Killed Their Stars
10. Sylvester Stallone: Rocky IV
Watching this classic even for the 20th time, at one point you still feel like Rocky won’t win against the brutal Russian, Ivan Drago and there’s a story behind it.
After several movie-style fights where none of the punches thrown were real, Stallone decided it just looked terribly fake on camera and the two action heroes agreed they would engage in legitimate sparring in order to catch the authenticity of the fight and emotions on film.
Lots of real punches were thrown during that match and you have to admit they do look pretty damn awesome and badass, so the idea worked. However, for the last punch when Lundgren was supposed to knock Stallone down, Rocky told Lundgren to hit him as hard as possible. Lundgren delivered a punch that caused Stallone’s heart to swell and sent him straight to intensive care for 8 days in Santa Monica.
Luckily, Stallone finally recovered and this fighting scene went down in history where it was supposed to be. Later he stated that Dolph was so skillful and strong a fighter that he could fight in the real life heavyweight leagues.
