Dolph Lundgren Shares His Regret About Injuring Sylvester Stallone on the Set of Rocky IV

Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren in ‘Rocky IV’.

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Key Points

• Dolph Lundgren reflects on a serious injury sustained by Sylvester Stallone during the filming of Rocky IV.
• “I don’t know if it was my body or exhaustion or my punches, I don’t know, but he did get hurt,” Lundgren noted.
• Stallone previously revealed he spent four days in an intensive care unit following the incident.

In a recent interview, Dolph Lundgren discussed the injury he caused to Sylvester Stallone during the boxing scenes of the 1985 film Rocky IV. This memory comes four decades after the iconic movie was made.

Lundgren, who portrayed the formidable Ivan Drago, admitted he was unaware of the severity of the injury he inflicted on Stallone until after filming had concluded. “I didn’t know it happened; we were both getting hit in that fight,” he said. “We shot for two weeks in Vancouver, and I got back to L.A. … the producer called and said, ‘Hey, Dolph, you got two weeks off.’ I said, ‘That’s great, what’s going on?’ ‘Sly’s in the hospital.’ I found out that way.”

Expressing regret, Lundgren reflected, “I did feel a little guilty. You know, he hit me too. He was the boss, and I did what he told me, which was good. Go really hard with the body, you know those Russian uppercuts. I don’t know if it was my body or exhaustion or my punches, I don’t know, but he did get hurt. I’m sorry about that.”

Dolph Lundgren; Sylvester Stallone.

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Stallone, reflecting on the incident in a 2021 documentary titled The Making of Rocky vs. Drago, recounted being flown from Canada to an intensive care unit in California after Lundgren “pulverized” him during filming. “I didn’t feel it in the moment, but later that night my heart started to swell,” Stallone recalled. He added, “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. I’m in intensive care surrounded by nuns and then after that, I had to go back and finish the fight.”

Rocky IV portrays Stallone’s character, Rocky Balboa, preparing to face Lundgren’s Drago, following Drago’s brutal defeat of Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) that ultimately leads to Creed’s death. The climactic fight between the two boxers is central to the film, culminating in a victory for Rocky. As Stallone noted in his documentary, the punch from Lundgren that injured him was the same that viewers saw in the finished film, stating, “How could you take that out?”

Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren on Nov. 19, 2015.
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