Dolph Lundgren Recounts Cut Fight Scene Between Rocky and Ivan Drago in CREED II That Stallone is Upset About
I really enjoyed Creed II, the 2018 film that followed Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), son of Apollo Creed and protege of Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), as he took on Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), the son of Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), who had fought and killed Apollo Creed in a fight decades earlier.
The Creed films are both great, and encompass the heart of the original Rocky films while telling new stories with fantastically rich characters. But even though the film was great, there was one scene that was cut that two of the stars were pretty bummed about.
At FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention this past weekend, Lundgren chatted with CB about the film and a fight scene we almost got to see between the iconic characters Rocky Balboa and Ivan Drago. Here’s how Lundgren described the scene:
“So Rocky comes down in the lobby, and we basically [say], ‘We’re going to go up there and talk to him, take some photos.’ [Rocky says], ‘I can’t let you do that.’ So then there’s a kind of shoving match, and I take a swipe at him, and then we end the fight in the lobby. It was fun. It was interesting, because I hadn’t thrown a punch at Stallone since ’85, because in Expendables, we’re on the same side.”
Lundgren went on to say that Stallone had “worked all day doing dramatic stuff,” and when he appeared in the lobby, he seemed to be “not in a good mood.” He continued:
“I could see people clearing out. I was like, ‘This is not going to be good, I gotta get in a fight with this guy now?’ He’s also producing the movie, he’s my boss, all of that. It worked out fine, we both enjoyed it. But I think the director decided he didn’t want the fight in there. For some reason, they took it out. I haven’t seen it cut together — I think it’s on the DVD or something. But Stallone was really upset, he wanted it in there. But I guess it broke the flow of the picture somehow, so there you go. Maybe next time.”
That’s too bad that we didn’t get to see a fight between the two! And although it did not end up in any of the bonus footage, Stallone did post a rehearsal of the scene on his Instagram back in February. Check it out below, and let us know what you think of the scene that almost made it in.