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The Behind the Scenes Pic of the Day is gonna eat lighting and it’s gonna crap thunder!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with today’s Behind the Scenes Pic!
A lovely lady requested some Rocky in the BTS column, so who am I to deny her? Especially when I have such great shots to share.
Here’s some very rare shots from the final fight between Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed featuring a beat-up Sly Stallone and not-so-beat-up Burgess Meredith between takes.
The black and white photography is stunning. I love these images. Thanks to Jordan Krug for the rare pics! Click to enlargen!


If you have a behind the scenes shot you’d like to submit to this column, you can email me at quint@aintitcool.com.
Tomorrow’s pic is from a movie featured fairly recently, but the time is too right not to acknowledge it.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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Click here to visit the complete compilation of previous Behind the Scenes images, Page Two
Readers Talkback
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May 10, 2012, 11:47 p.m. CST
He doesn't know it's a damn show. He thinks it's a damn fight!
by ExcaliburFfolkes
Now drop this bum and let's go home.
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May 10, 2012, 11:54 p.m. CST
I read somewhere once that they actually shot the Rocky fight scenes round by round in reverse order.
by ExcaliburFfolkes
Because it was easier to start out the actors in full fight-ending bruised and bloodied make-up and then remove it a little at a time until completly gone, instead of stopping to add it between takes. Anyone know if this is true?
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May 10, 2012, 11:56 p.m. CST
Man, I'd like to frame that first shot and hang it on my wall...
by Somerichs
fuckin awesome...
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May 11, 2012, midnight CST
@somerichs unfortunately...it would probably be illegal to print it out at KINKOS ;)
by DementedCaver
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You're a tomato!
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May 11, 2012, 12:07 a.m. CST
excaliburffolkes, you dropped my favorite line of the movie right off the bat
by Tim
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I know that line's off Stallion II, but it's so clever and you know exactly what Apollo means when he says it. Anyway, yes, these photos are amazing, seriously, wow. What a movie.
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Tommy "Machine" Gunn? After Apollo (twice), Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago. This is the baddest mofo ya got? Are you shittin' serious? Rocky Balboa was not a love letter to the first Rocky movie but more of an apology for Rocky V.
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When I was younger I loved it for the boxing/underdod story. Now that I'm older, I realize it's much more a romance movie than a sports movie.
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May 11, 2012, 1:29 a.m. CST
Rocky would have been a more authentic film if the final round of the fight was different
by The Krypton Kid
Rocky should not have dominated the final round. Totally bogus and unbelievable. The fight should have ended with Apollo dishing out incredible blows and combinations, with Rocky withstanding the punishment and saying, "Give me your best! Give me your best!" Rocky didn't have to dominate Creed, he had to go the distance. The notion that Rocky could dominate Creed is absurd and only written to ensure a sequel and satiate Stallone's notoriously enormous ego.
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May 11, 2012, 1:50 a.m. CST
I will always have the outmost respect for Stallone, he held so tight to his script and vision of the project although he was broke and could have chosen to bow to the studios
by Franck
instead he held tight and fought his way in all the way to the Academy Awards. For this only he will always have my vote.
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May 11, 2012, 1:52 a.m. CST
Apollo's trainer seems to get at least one memorable quote per film.
by ExcaliburFfolkes
Trying to talk Apollo out of planning the rematch in Rocky II: He's all wrong for us, baby. I saw you beat that man like I never saw no man get beat before... and the man... kept... coming... after you. Now we don't need no man like that in ours lives. Let it go. Let it go. In Rocky IV there was the pre-training peptalk to Rocky, and the immortal the Russian's cut: He's worried! You cut him! You hurt him! You see? You see?!? He's not a machine; he's a man! Want it more than he does! No pain! No pain! Even the pre-training peptalk in Rocky Balboa was pretty good.
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ROCKY is a perfect movie, it can't be improved. One of the few that exist where everything went right. It was lightning in a bottle. You're wrong anyway. Rocky doesn't really dominate the round. Apollo has broken ribs and has never gone the distance before. He is broken, exhausted, and just trying to survive the fight. They kind of circle each other for most of the round. But at the very end of the last round it looks like Rocky is going to knock Apollo out because he is landing a lot of punches and has Apollo on the ropes, and in a lesser movie he WOULD have knocked Apollo out and won the title. But the bell rings right when you think that's going to happen. And then in the movies final masterstroke, the tie-breaking judge's decision and the announcement of Apollo winning the fight is only barely audible in the back round as Adrian tells Rocky she loves him for the first time and Rocky says it back. Because that is what the movie is about. As pomofo astutely pointed out above.
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And this is pretty good. This movie is fantastic, and I really loved how Rocky Balboa brought it all back around. As far as I am concerned, the first and last films are the ones that matter. In the last one, we once again have the Champ in the same position he was in the first time, he can't possibly win, but goddammit, what else can he do? What the fuck else can he do? He's a fighter. That's why he's awesome, and that's why all the other middle films are less awesome.
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May 11, 2012, 3:54 a.m. CST
The scene in Rockys apartment when Mickey visits to ask Rocky to let him train him & Rocky lets go with a tirade is more powerful than the punches..
by cameron
..I just wish we got to see more Rocky and Copland quality acting from Sly instead of crud like Driven or Expendables...
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May 11, 2012, 4:23 a.m. CST
How about some behind-the-scenes pics of Mr. T in Rocky 3?
by Knuckleduster
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Thank fuck you don't write movies. Call Doc Brown, Rocky needs a re-write...
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One time I saw two guys kissing in the park and I thought it was the gayest thing I ever saw. Then I saw Rocky 3. The scene with Rocky and Apollo on the beach was so romantic. *sob*
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This is such a great, quotable flick with some great acting. The scene with Burgess Meredith and Stallone in his apartment is great. Another great scene is when Adrian finally stands up to a drunken, belligerent Paulie and screams "I'm not a loser!!!" At its core, I think it is a story about people finding their dignity. Finally, I think that the ring announcers really add to the entertainment value of the fights, more so in Rocky II then Rocky. They have some great quotes. My fave from Rocky II is "Balboa's gotta be in great shape to withstand that butchering and, I'll tell ya, that's just what it is--plain old butchering"
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May 11, 2012, 6:51 a.m. CST
its absolutely realistic that Balboa could hurt him the last round
by gooseud
Actually let me rephrase that. Realistic? No. Possible? Absolutely. Body shots are not like head shots. A perfect body shot is absolutely debilitating for minutes at a time (google De La Hoya/Hopkins). The miracle isnt that Rocky dominated the last round, its that Apollo could even get up off his stool. Thats why Rocky is genius, Apollo could have been a one dimensional douchebag villain, but he actually has incredible skill and heart.........just not quite as much heart as Rocky. For it to matter that Rocky goes the distance, then Apollo has to be a total badass, and he is.
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May 11, 2012, 6:52 a.m. CST
Regardless, one of the biggest goose bump inducing moments ever......
by gooseud
is when Apollo knocks down Rocky and thinks he has it won in the 14th........and slowly turns to see Rocky back on his feet telling him to come on in. The look of total incredulousness on Apollo's face, you could see it 100 times and it is still amazing.
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not "lighting"
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True, I love their awe when Clubber Lang is walking to the ring for the rematch in Rocky III. "Look at that...awesome...just awesome."
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I just rewatched the real Rocky V, and it was funny where he met "little" Marie in the bar, and was talking about that line.
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May 11, 2012, 7:13 a.m. CST
See, Rocky was so dumb in the first movie he got confused with the eggs and light bulbs.
by Grammaton Cleric Binks
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...there is a bit where Burgess Meredith looks like he says "Fuck," when Rocky goes to the can as he's pleading for his chance. It's just before Mickey leaves, and it looks and sounds like they just muted it, possibly for rating purposes, but I hear that "Fuck" every time I watch 'Rocky.' The way Mickey conveys his suffering for the sport he loves, the way HE hasn't got a pot to piss in either (other than his run down gym) and the belief that the best days are behind him, well it makes me fucking shiver. And the pay-off when Stallone does his rant about him not ever coming to his house, punching the door, then running after Mickey to apologise, that's just one reason to love this movie. It's Stallone's script, but Avildsen handled it beautifully. Also Bill Conti's score should get a mention, because without that, this movie wouldn't be the same.
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Wholeheartedly agree regarding that look on Apollo's face.
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The only real problem is that the way the fights even in the first film are portrayed, these guys would be dead. Rewatch some of them -- in the sequels it may be worse -- and virtually no punch is blocked. They're almost all full force, direct punches, usually to the face. It may be awful to admit, but because of that I think the fight in Rocky Balboa is more realistic than the original films' fights.
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May 11, 2012, 9:11 a.m. CST
Rocky was just discovered in a 16th century Vatican painting.
by Grammaton Cleric Binks
True.
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May 11, 2012, 10:33 a.m. CST
The boxing scenes in The Fighter make the boxing scenes in the Rockys (all of them) look like the fairy tales that they are meant to be, but damn,
by openthepodbaydoorshal
like fairy tales, they strike something primal and emotional within us.
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While Rocky's supposed to be a fairy tale and not realistic in any way, the last round clinches it. The final round in the first fight goes roughly 1:25. There are no cuts or time lapses that account for it.
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May 11, 2012, 4:14 p.m. CST
nightarrows, that line was in an early draft of the script. Stallone should have kept it.
by The Krypton Kid
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Agreed. For me, it was the best scene in the movie. It showed Rocky's heart, passion, and compassion for another human being. The payoff is brilliant and nobody utters a word. Conveys everything you need to know about the moment. Rocky's rage at being passed over by everyone, how he has swallowed his pride his whole life and how he comes to realize that he and Mick are much the same. With no words. That is great film-making.
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awesome acting
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JAWS
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Yeah with regards to the fight in Rocky Balboa looking better or more realistic. Stallone said in the 'making of' that they decided to base the fight in a more realistic manner. They didn't use any sound effects for the punches this time either. In fact Stallone said he felt that some of the fight scenes in the previous movies were wrong or not as good as they could have been.
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