Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Unbelievable Story of Sylvester Stallone's Dog

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Sylvester Stallone was once so broke that he sold his dog to make ends meet. He eventually purchased the dog back after the success of the Rocky movie.

On December 12, Disney Plus invites you to go behind the scenes with Taylor Swift in an exclusive six-episode docu-series. I wanted to give something to the fans that they didn't expect. The only thing left is to close the book. The End of an Era. And don't miss Taylor Swift, the era's tour, the final show, featuring for the first time the tortured poets department. Streaming December 12, only on Disney Plus. So this is a dog, and this dog is more famous than you, or me. Because after he gets sold off by his owner, he actually gets saved by one of the greatest boxers in the world.

So how did this dog get so famous? Well, the dog, well, we'll just call him dog. One day, when dog is a puppy, he gets adopted by this guy, Sylvester. And dog loves Sylvester. They get along great. And now, Sylvester, he's an aspiring actor living in New York, and he's trying real hard to make it in the movie business. But unfortunately, for Sylvester, there's a problem. He has a condition. He was actually injured during birth, and as a result, part of his face is paralyzed,

and his eye kind of droops and he's got this speech impediment. So all that makes him really hard to cast. But despite all that, he still wants to make it big in Hollywood. So he goes on audition after audition with his droopy eye and his slurred speech, and he gets rejected a lot. And he does some local theater and a couple of non-speaking roles in some small movies. But it's not enough to pay his bills. So as Dog grows up, Sylvester works odd jobs to keep both of them fed.

And they eventually grow to be best friends. And Dog doesn't care about Sylvester's speech impediment. He loves him. So when Sylvester moves to Los Angeles to seek out more acting roles in Hollywood, Dog, of course, goes with him. And there, Sylvester gets a few more acting roles, but nothing that can really pull him out of debt. He's still really broke.

And by this time, Dog is grown. He's 120 pounds. and he eats like a beast. And poor Sylvester, he doesn't quite have enough money to keep feeding him. So then one day he meets a guy hanging out in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven and that guy offers to buy dog. And Sylvester really needs the money, so he makes a tough decision. And he sells dog, his best friend, for around $60,

hoping that one day he can get him back. So now, poor dog, he lost his best friend and he has to go live with this stranger. But we're gonna pause this for a second. We'll get back to him. Because now we got to talk about this guy, Bleeder. In Bleeder, he's a working man, he's a liquor salesman in New Jersey, but most importantly, he's a boxer. He works during the day, and he boxes at night.

And he's not the best at boxing, but he's pretty good. And he's boxed his way all the way up to become state heavyweight champion of New Jersey, which is pretty cool. But one day, Bleeder gets an opportunity that's going to change everything. His manager gets a call from a well-known boxing promoter named Don King. And Don King is looking for a fighter who's willing to get into the ring and fight the current heavyweight champion of the world. A man named Muhammad Ali. Because Muhammad Ali has two huge fights coming up.

And he's basically looking for an easy match in between those fights. Some chump he can beat up real quick. And specifically, Don King and Muhammad Ali are looking for a white guy. And this is because the state of race relations in the United States at the time. Like a black boxer versus a white boxer, it would stir up. up a lot of emotions in people, and it would be quite a spectacle, and they would all make a bunch of money. This is like the original rage bait. But anyway, Bleeder gets this opportunity to fight the world champ, and he doesn't know what to do.

I mean, he sees himself as a working man, and he's supposed to get into the ring with the best fighter in the world? But Don King offers him $100,000, which is more money than Bleeders ever seen in his life. So, of course, he says yes. And he knows he can't win. I mean, the betting odds against him are 40 to 1. but it's important to Bleeder that he proves to everyone that he belongs there in the ring with the greatest fighter in the world. So then boom, Bleeder quits his job and he starts training full time.

And he puts everything into this for months. And then Fight Night comes. And everyone's there. 15 million people are watching live. And Bleeder and Ali, they're ready. And they get in the ring. And then ding, the fight starts. And off they go.

they go a few rounds with Bleeder throwing as many punches as he can. But unfortunately, Ali is just a different class of fighter. He's too fast and he dances circles around Bleeder. And then more rounds go by. And Bleeder is trying his best, but he gets tired. But screw it, he fights even harder. But a lot of his punches just whiff by Ali and the ones that do connect don't even phase the champ. Ali is just too good of a fighter. And no matter how many shots Bleeder throws, every punch is met with a counter punch. And eventually, Ali starts really fighting and he starts wailing on Bleeder. But much to everyone's surprise, Bleeder eats all those punches.

He doesn't go down, no matter how many shots Ali throws at him. And then he starts to notice something. The crowd in that arena, they seem to be cheering not for Ali, but for him. They're cheering for him because he's the underdog. And he's actually doing much better than anyone predicted he would. And then right around that moment, something crazy. happens. Suddenly, Bleeder throws a couple of jabs and then a hard right and then, boom. Oh! He knocks Muhammad Ali to the ground and the crowd goes insane. Now, supposedly, Ali only fell

because Bleeder had stepped on his foot, which there is evidence of that being true. But that actually doesn't matter because no one in the crowd sees that. No one watching at home sees that. All they see is arguably the greatest boxer on the planet getting knocked down by a nobody working man. They see an underdog who has just proven that he belongs in that ring. So then Bleeder and Ali fight it out for six more rounds, with Ali knocking him down in the 15th and winning by TK. So ultimately, Bleeder loses. But that's not the most important part of the story. The most important part of the story is how this all affected Sylvester. Because back in Los Angeles, Around the time Sylvester had to sell his dog, he's just chilling at home one night.

And he decides to go out to a local movie theater. Because at that theater, they would be live broadcasting the big championship fight between Ali and Bleeder. And so he sits down in the theater and he watches that fight and he sees, not a chump who lost, like everyone predicted he would, but he sees an underdog working man who got in the ring and gave it his best shot. And Sylvester is so inspired by this that when he sees Bleeder knock Ali down, he gets an idea for a screenplay. And so he immediately goes home and he starts banging out this screenplay, writing it by hand. And it's an underdog story about an average Joe who gets

the opportunity of a lifetime to box the world champ. And while the average Joe doesn't win, he does knock the champ down. And Sylvester, of course, calls the movie Rocky. And he's so excited in about three and a half days, he's written a draft of the whole screenplay. And he's stoked about this screenplay. He shops it around town to some places and he gets some feedback, but he can't get anyone to produce it. But then one day he goes on an audition for a movie. And he fails the audition and doesn't get the role, but he does talk to the producers afterwards. And he's like, Hey, I wrote this screenplay, you should read it. And the producers are like, far out, groovy, or whatever the fuck people said in the 70s. And so they read the screenplay and they love it and they

agree to make the movie. But unfortunately, since Sylvester's kind of a nobody in Hollywood, he has to waive his writer's fee and accept a super low rate. So he sold his movie idea, but he's still kind of broke. And to make things worse, he still really misses dog. He hasn't seen him in six months since he sold him. So he tracks down the guy who bought him six months before. And according to Sylvester, he's like, hey, I'm making a movie. I got a little money and I want to buy my dog back. And the guy, he's like, I. But he tries to charge him a large amount of money. Some sources say 15,000, some sources say 3,000. And Sylvester's like, I don't have that kind of money. But then the guy's like, all right, I'll give your dog back if

you put me in your movie. And so Sylvester's like, yeah, boom, you're in the movie. And so finally, after all this time, Sylvester gets dog back, his best friend, and they're super happy. And of course, as you know, Sylvester goes on to make the Rocky movie. And he actually puts dog in that movie. He also, like he puts dog, he promised, puts the guy who gave dog back to him in the movie. And the movie goes on to be a huge success. It's nominated for 10 Oscars. It gets an assload of sequels and becomes one of the most iconic franchises in Hollywood history.

And Dog goes on to appear again in one of the sequels, Rocky 2. Which means this dog is officially more famous than you or me.