Dolph Lundgren is revisiting the day he delivered a near-fatal punch to Sylvester Stallone while filming "Rocky IV."
Earlier this month, Stallone revealed that Lundgren "pulverized" him during the scene in which their two characters fight it out in the boxing ring.
"I didn’t feel it in the moment, but later that night my heart started to swell," he said in a YouTube video. "My blood pressure went up to 260 and I was going to be talking to angels. Next thing I know I’m on this emergency, low-altitude flight."
Lundgren opened up about the incident in an interview with Fox News.
"I was 10 years younger, and in very good shape those days and we ended up hitting each other quite hard," he recalled. "When we wrapped in Vancouver where we shot the last fight he ended up in the hospital. I think he was off for about two weeks."
Although it was a serious situation that he was not downplaying, Lundgren said that action film stars are prone to taking the occasional hits.
"You know, we all end up incurring all these injuries being an action star. I suppose that was one of the more interesting ones he's been a part of," Lundgren said. "I'm glad he made it. Good for me."
Lundgren and Stallone have since become good friends, and today they still joke about Stallone's near-knockout in the 1985 film.
"Ah, we laugh about it. We both got hit in the face in that picture," Lundgren said. "In those days there were no effects so if you wanted a head shot when the sweat flies out of your hair and blood comes out of your mouth you had to shoot it. You had to do it. So we both had to take those shots, but we joke about it sometimes."
Lundgren also spoke about the incident in a previous interview unearthed by The Hollywood Reporter, explaining that Stallone told him how to play out the scene.
"All I did was obey orders," he joked. "He was the boss. I did what he told me. We came back to L.A. and the producer was like, 'Hey Dolph, you’ve got two weeks off — Sly’s in the hospital.'"
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.