i want you to hit me as hard as you can
sylvester stallone is among the biggest icons of our time
from rocky to rambo very few actors have had as profound an impact on the pop culture as he has
well into his 70s he's still in demand in action films and in terms of longevity very few people
can go toe-to-toe with the italian stallion rocky balboa never heard of him look it's the name man
the italian stallion here at joe blow were pretty massive stallone fans which brings us
to what we hope will be a long lasting all-new show here on joe blow videos
sylvester stallone revisited yes from the makers of james bond revisited
where we take a look at most of the major films in his filmography exploring what makes them great or
not whether they stand the test of time or not and what they did for sly's legacy to start the
series off we're going to take a step back to the year 1981 stallone was struggling to establish an
identity outside of the rocky franchise he'd had huge hits with the first two movies in the series
so lucky what you did was a miracle you're the luckiest man on the face of the earth i want you
to know that stallion look look but many of his other films hadn't quite worked the big budget
union epic fist for norman jewison saw a sly cast against type as a fictionalized jimmy hoffa
contrary to popular belief it actually did okay but his follow-up paradise alley which he also
directed and sang theme song to was a notable flop while rocky 2 brought him back into the limelight
he had only middling success with the very very underrated nighthawks opposite rooker hauer and
billy dee williams which was butchered by its home studio universal pictures trimming out all of the
extreme violence which made it such a hard-edged film at this point sly flew to europe to work
with the legendary john huston on the soccer prisoner of war drama victory where he co-starred
with Michael Caine and Pele unlikely in casting against type as a trio of soccer playing inmates
according to michael Caine's biography stallone was writing rocky iii the entire time they
were making the film and more or less kept to himself of course anyone who knows sly's career
knows that a few months after rocky iii hit theaters he finally had a major non-rocky hit
with first blood which established his other iconic character rambo but first blood wasn't
on the table when he started rocky iii and his career was at a low ebb thus the third installment
of the franchise was an all or nothing attempt to catapult sly back to the a-list the film famously
is about rocky needing to find the eye of the tiger to defeat his hulking adversary clubber lang
played by the iconic mr t it's hard not to draw parallels between this film and stallone's life
just looking at sly compared to his other films you could see that his face has changed a little
with his drooping eye having been fixed to some extent bert young's polly even comments
on this early in the film saying rocky's had his face all fixed up handsome an even more insane
transformation was going on with stallone's body in the film he famously drops down to a lean and
mean weight almost a middleweight as one of the announcers says and sly's body fat in the film hit
a remarkable 2.8 percent madness he also said he ate only 10 egg whites and a piece of toast a day
having a fruit every third day his training a two mile jog in the morning followed by
two hours of weight training a nap during the afternoon followed by 18 rounds of sparring
another weight training session and swimming he got down to 155 pounds sly himself commented on
the autobiographical elements of the film later on the whole point of the movie is that rocky gets
his ass kicked by cleverlang because as mickey tells him early in the film you got civilized
he's no longer that scrappy philly southpaw mickey warns him about this but rocky decides
to go all out when clubber provokes him to prove he's a champ but turns what's supposed to be his
retirement match into a garish spectacle with public workouts where you can spot brother frank
stallone as a singer and sly's ex sasha as the woman who asks him for a kiss much to adrian's
displeasure just how over the top rocky's life has gotten is pointed out by the opening montage where
we see rocky has become this civilized commercial pitch man even showing up on the muppet show with
real footage of sly hosting he actually did host the muppet show and jim henson over dubbing all of
kermit's dialogue to mention rocky balboa instead of sylvester stallone he's even got his own arcade
pinball machine which was also the real deal you can see just how cartoonish rocky's world is when
he agrees to fight an exhibition bout versus a famous wrestler named thunder lips who's played
by hulk hogan fun fact vince mcmahon's father vincent fired the hulkster from the wwf for taking
this role but his son brought him back into the fall two years later as the centerpiece wrestler
of the very first wrestlemania his tag team partner who else but mr t
so rocky gets his butt kicked by clubber lang and mickey dies of a heart attack during the match
things are going real bad for rocky but to be sure he's gone up against the force of nature
with mr t making his movie debut as clubber lang originally a bodyguard from muhammad ali mr t was
a last minute addition to the cast when original casting choice ernie shavers didn't work out
it was t's idea to wear a mohawk and sideburns the perfect choice to make for a larger-than-life
trash chalking villain too trash-talking in fact because apparently at the premiere mr t's mom was
not too pleased about her son's behavior during the hey woman scene saying i did not raise you
to talk to a lady like that and storming out of the theater hey woman hey woman listen here
since you're a man ain't got no heart maybe you'd like to see a real man
i bet you stay up late every night dreaming you hit a real man don't you this is also the movie
that introduced mr t's signature line i pity the fool no i don't hate bad boy but i pity the fool
and i will destroy any man who tries to take what i got and let it be known that mr t after
this movie never again played a villain kids loved mr t and mr t himself always wanted to be a very
positive role model so in the a team he's a real nice guy so after rocky gets destroyed by clubber
lang and has to bury mickey he finds himself an unlikely ally carl weather's apollo creed his
adversary from the first two who comes along to explain that rocky's lost the eye of the tiger
offering to become his new trainer and thus one of the most iconic big screen romances is born
why'd you have to come here rocky heads to la to train with apollo and his trainer duke
played by the great tony burton who's in all the original rocky movies but was too
ill to be in creed although wood harris from the wire plays his son duke jr this is where rocky
iii becomes legendary with rocky going through a punishing training montage to get the eye of
the tiger it's not easy and this is where talia shire really shines as adrian giving him all
the encouragement he needs in the famous hoover food scene what's the truth damn it i'm afraid
all right you want to hear me say it you want to break me down all right i'm afraid
sly and shire really do have mods through chemistry so in the end rocky gets the eye
of the tagger and wins the fight putting clubber lag down pretty quickly for many rocky 3 ranks as
the second best in this series after the first as it's the perfect combo of the grit and soul of the
original and the larger than life aspect of rocky iv the film was a monster hit earning 125 million
domestically now a second sequel being a big hit was rarely seen in those days the law of
diminishing returns meant the franchises usually peered out after a movie or two the rocky movies
kept getting bigger and bigger like the double 07 series this combined with the success of
first blood put sly on a different level of stardom so let's break the movie down a bit
in terms of sly's performance not only did he push himself physically to the brink but he
also indulged in a little self-criticism and how through scripted direction he emphasized
how outlandish rocky's life had gotten for me as a director this might be stallone's finest
work for action the three main fights in the film are all great the thunder lips battle is
largely paid for humor but the first fight with clever lang is devastating finally his comeback
is as riveting as we all hoped the supporting cast is top-notch too with carl weathers again
saying this was his favorite of the series as he gave his character depth taliyah shire is aces as
always burt young is the comic relief with edge while burgess meredith breaks your heart and his
last turn is mickey mr t is great so great in fact that apparently he didn't think he should lose and
holds a grudge to this day another lasting legacy of the film is the soundtrack bill conte's score
is great but what does everyone remember from the movie survivor's iconic theme song i the tiger
in fact stallone wanted to use queens another one bites the dust but it was too pricey joe esposito
actually wrote you're the best for the movie but it was rejected only to turn up in the karate kid
it fell to survivor to come up with the theme song which after the rocky theme itself is probably
the piece of music most closely identified with the franchise one of the movie's biggest lasting
legacies is the rocky statue which still exists in philadelphia it was commissioned for the movie and
slide tried to donate it to the philadelphia museum of arts they didn't want this movie
prop but eventually after public outrage they caved and of course now it's one of the biggest
tourist attractions in the city rocky iii along with first blood did indeed kick off a second
wave of stardom for sly which would dwarf all he experienced in the first big things were ahead
for him and while some may dismiss this as the one in which he fights mr t it's a classic rocky
flick on the jonathan ross talk show cyrus has slowed himself giving a nine on ten and i gotta
agree with sly out of the possible ten sloanes this one gets nine stallones it's a knockout
you