The Rewatchables - ‘Rocky IV’ With Bill Simmons, Cousin Sal, and Kyle Brandt

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

If The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Cousin Sal, and Kyle Brandt can change, you can change! We head to Russia to rewatch the 1985 classic ‘Rocky IV,’ starring Sylvester Stallone, Carl Weathers, and Dolph Lundgren. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want to hear over 150 episodes of the rewatchables, they are all available exclusively on our Spotify feed for the rewatchables. You can still find all the new ones from the last 60 days on all platforms. But if you want all the old ones dating back to 2017, go to Spotify and you'll be able to listen to them for free. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative studio with AI-powered image and video generation. Build for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast, because the asks aren't getting smaller. And the timelines? Ooh, yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Learn more at Adobe.com slash Firefly.

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An exhibition! Rocky Four, next. He could have stopped the fight. He could have saved his best friend's life. But now the one thing he can't do is walk away. He's had one professional fight and one man is dead. To P.P. He's going to have to kill me. You can't win.

4 rated DG now playing check newspapers for a theater near you all right the dream team is here cow brand cousin sao circling this for months and months it's finally happening one of the most important movies of the last 40 years rocky four let's start here it's a movie that ended the cold war yeah i defy you guys to tell me otherwise here here's the timeline movie comes out late 1986 and 1987, two arms summits between the U.S. and Russia led to a breakthrough with the signing of the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty. Then we had another one in 1989. Bush and Gorbachev, they signed another arms control treaty.

1989, Soviets officially say, we're not intervening in Eastern Europe anymore. Germany, the wall comes down at a year. 1989, Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan. December 1989, Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush declare the cold. Cold War over at the Malta summit. And then in 1990, we team up with the Soviets against Iraq and the Gulf War. Cal Brand. Unassailable case.

If I could change, you can change. Everyone could change. End of the Cold War. It's unbelievable, Bill. And I would also take it backwards. 1984, the Olympics in Los Angeles, the Russians say, we're not showing up. We're out. 1980, the Olympics in Moscow, the U.S. does not show up.

So the sporting world of Moscow, Russia, and the U.S. is at an all-time low. And we did indeed learn if you can change. Everybody can change. And they did in the final 30 seconds of this movie. It's amazing. I don't know, Bill, where are the P-tapes in your timeline? I didn't hear it at all. Did you just forget that part of it?

I like the Cold War. The Cold War was better than any other war we had. Why did Rocky Four up to end the Cold War? Well, I think they just needed a plot. That's true. We both have high school kids. I don't remember my daughter coming home and saying, hey, I learned something amazing today. Rocky Four ended the Cold War.

But that's what happened. More importantly, this is one of the all-time most re-watchable movies ever made. It was almost intentionally made to be rewatchable. And I still feel like if I'm looking for a movie that straddles being actually entertaining, but then also being unintentionally hilarious and just ridiculous, it's this. and Top Gunn in the finals, right? Is there, Sal, is there another movie that is as entertaining and ridiculous as this movie? No, I think it's right up there.

It kind of maybe start, forget about the Cold War, putting an end to that. It might have started the good, bad movie. It might have started that whole genre. How can you not get excited coming out of the Rocky 3 montage, right? It just gets your pump. You're not going to lose. You get everyone's attention in the first five minutes. And then ridiculous things like the robot and the, you know,

If we could change, they could change. You're not going to get crazier than that in any movie, less believable. But they pulled it off somehow. I think, Bill, when Top Gun and Rocky Four are in the ring trying to settle this thing, I think all of a sudden it's, oh, my God, that's Roadhouse's music. And they run in with a chair. And I think Point Break might be hiding under the apron to come out and settle this thing. But it barely qualifies as a real movie.

Like in the 80s, there was a time when the USDA was trying to get ketchup was a vegetable for school lunches. And they're like, hold on. That's not a fucking vegetable. It's really just a package of montages, music videos and musical numbers with like eight scenes put in. And they're like, call it a movie. We love it. And God damn, is it good? Yeah.

It's got this really weird hole that I probably started noticing 10 years ago where Apollo's dead. Rocky gives the terrible speech at the funeral, which really, they could have maybe done three more take. of that. And then all of a sudden there's a press conference for the Drago fight. There's no, there's no buildup. They, they're just throwing newspaper clippings at us. You have to watch this movie 200 times to realize he's giving up his belt to go fight to Russia. It feels like that could have been a scene. Well, it was, it was a scene. It was actually a scene that was deleted. That was one of the, I think there was like two or three scenes that were deleted when he goes to in front of the committee and says, no, no, no, if you go to Russia and fight for free and all

this, you're going to lose your title. It was a scene. They cut it out. And like you said, they covered it with newspaper clippings and headlines and stuff like that. Rapid fire newspaper clippings. I'm going to say they needed that scene. And by the way, it's not like this movie had too much dialogue. I mean, there's 25 minute stretches where there's four lines. I'm pretty sure we could have used that. What it did, what cutting that scene did was make the fact that Adrian wasn't aware of any of this until the press lined up on our lawn. It made that much more ridiculous. Like he did all this on his own. He were, it was, oh, it's such a good thing. I know we'll get to it. But, whoa, how much you're getting for this? Nothing. Where is it? It's what, when is this being

taking place? Christmas. Oh my God. Where? Russia. Are you crazy? How are you getting there? I'm walking. Well, what if this is a crazy? What? You can add and add and add. And the fact that this went on behind her back. is all arranged. It's so spectacular. What a leap. Kyle, what happens to you if your wife just finds out that you're filming four months of good morning football in Russia for no money? And it's actually going to cost you money to go. These athletes will find out that they're cut via Twitter, like they don't even find out from their team. Imagine your wife, like, I don't even, I can't even not tell my wife like what movie I was watching this afternoon. The fact that I was telling that I'm going to go to Moscow, I'm going to go to Moscow for like maybe two months,

six weeks, stay with the kids. I'm also fighting the guy who just killed Apollo. It's going to cost us to get there. And she finds out by the media that is somehow allowed up to the front door of the Balboa house. It's incredibly traumatizing. Bill, I know for years, you as well as many others have been like, Adrian, you're wearing me out. Give me a break. This is the first time I watched the movie.

I was like, I think Adrian should be pissed. He didn't tell her shit about what he was doing. He didn't even run it by her. Rocky, Rocky, will you be injected with any diseases before the fight? Malaria. my God, this sounds worse and worse. Russia, Christmas, no money, malaria. What do you think like the week leading up to the press conference was where he's like, I got to make a call. I'll be right back. And she's like, what are you up to? Nothing.

It's just like, why would he tell her? How does it not come up? They're spending time. They're eating dinner. They have a child. Yeah. And the whole, listen, the money thing, it could something that could fall under what's age of the worst bill. But let's not forget that He does it for no money. And literally like an hour after the fight, he's completely broke in the next movie. It has no money to his name. Maybe at the very least someone could be like, all right, rock, I respect it. I respect.

Why don't we do this and give it to a foundation in Apollo's name? And you're going to make 25 minutes of no money. Dude, you idiots. What are you doing? It's just bizarre. I mean, so I, you know, there's a bunch of reasons why we love this movie. Yeah. And I wrote once upon a time, it straddles this invisible balance.

between the unintentional comedy, but like being absorbing, which as you mentioned, like roadhouse, point break, all of these movies that came after were like, yeah, we should figure out something like that, we'll throw a montage in. We have Dolph Lundgren as the evil steroid-up, just sneering Drago, just this great character. I didn't think they'd be able to top clubber laying.

I feel like they did. We're going to get to that in a second. You bring Brigitte Nielsen in. She's got this Russian accent. It's so Betty, Betty, bad. She's the Betty instead of the very, all that stuff. You have the training scenes, which we'll get to. You have just an improbable boxing fight.

The rules are just out in the fight. Like, he's getting knocked down. He's just getting back up. I love it again. One of my favorites. No refs counting. He shops the referee. Yeah.

It's just ludicrous. But I wanted to throw some either wars at you guys. Right. Who you got? basically. So we'll make these quick. We'll go through because we have so much to get to. All right. Who you got first? Training montage one or training montage two? So training montage one is the Vince de colo. Number two is Adrian's already shown up. The John Cafferty, hearts on fire,

leading to him climbing the 25,000 foot mountain in boots and like a kind of a light jacket. training montage one or two Sal, who you got? I'm going to go too because it answers a lot of questions of why like Adrian you know, the two, I wondered the whole time,

why did Adrian go to Russia? That was ridiculous. Was there a special on Southwest? I can get you to Kiev for $139 because as Kyle brings up, this costs them. This whole thing cost them. Two, why is

why is Bert Young invited anywhere? Why would you invite him out to a bar let alone Russia. He's unhappy wherever he goes. He almost calls a race riot in L.A. You know he's going to be pissed off. But then in the second training montage, you see that they sit in the rickshaw that Rocky has to push. And it's like, oh, that's why they're there. They need more weight. They need like 600 pounds in there. Yeah. So I'm going to say too. What's amusing, Bill, is that people often refer to the Rocky training montage. They just think it's one. No, no, no. As you're pointing out, there's two. And there's also a drive

montage, which he's looking back on his past training montage. So there's really three. But in this purpose, I would take two as well because I like the beard. And of all the tree chopping, all the rock tossing, all the sledding. The moment that fires me up maybe more than any other is when he rips the picture of Drago off the mirror and then you see his face. I'm like, fuck dear, do you. We're going to knock him out.

I love the second one, hearts on fire. I also had the second one and him climbing the mountain kills me every time I mean that is not a small mountain and it's not like he's bundled up he has no hat on he's got no earmuffs

he's got doesn't seem like he has gloves his jacket is like a jacket you would buy at like Banana Republic because it was on sale and then he's got normal boots and he's just fucking scaling the mountain unbelievable he's got that he's got a climbing it

like Ghalum, you know, like a schiegel or an orangutan and he's wearing his Hugo Boss jacket all the time. And then just, I mean, it's triumphant as hell, the Drago and then cut right to the ring. It's a great moment. Do you think that was stunt double or real Stallone? I watched it closely. It's all wide on helicopter from the top and they keep putting to him probably like on the ground or something. I like to think it was Stallone. It would have been Cruz if Cruz was Rocky Bowman. Oh, Cruz would have learned how to climb the up. Maybe it was Cruz. It could have been Cruz. It was a little bit. It was a fluffy jacket. The thing I'll say is I love how he ditches the car, right?

Like those are the Russian guys that are following him. Who, by the way, you may hate them and you may think it's a fun game to ditch them and lose them when you're running. But also, they know how to get back, right? You just climb the mountain. What are the odds? Like 15% chance you get back to your terrible shed there from that top of the mountain? Great.

You have to yell Drago, which, by the way, I don't even know he should have yelled. He should have yelled Apollo, right? Not Drago who cares about Drago being what he yells there. But didn't he see the Sopranos? You don't get back from a top of a snowy mountain or the wilderness. Really bad, bad call. That was the original ending as he just disappears when he climbs the mountain and there's no fight. The movie ends.

And that's the end of his legacy. Next, who you got? Kyle, bearded Rocky or clean-shaven Rocky? I think bearded Rocky is badass. I love it. And I was watching it closely last night because I'd think that I distinguished how long they were there. It's one of those unanswerable questions, though, Bill. Like, how long were they there?

I think it was like maybe six, seven weeks because it's a healthy beard. So I like bearded Rocky. And as I was watching it closely, I'm pretty sure it's a prosthetic. Like Stallone didn't grow a beard. I think it was glued on. But I like it anyway. I look close. I think it's fake.

What do you have, Sal? The bearded Rocky, because it lends itself to the single coolest moment in the movie in which he's doing those crazy sit-ups, which you talk about a stunt double. I look very frame by frame meticulously looking at that. And that is Sylvester Stallone. And those are fucking hard to do. I mean, I couldn't even come close to doing one. But that was, that was, I thought I was watching like magic when he was doing that.

Not Magic Johnson either. Real magic. I also have bearded Rocky. I love bearded Stallone and Nighthawks with Billy D. Williams. I like when he has a beard in general. The prosthetic thing. I don't know. Stallone's Italian.

I feel like he could have fired that up in two days. Maybe just look fake. But I would have kept the beard for the fight. I think that was one of his big mistakes. The beard could have added an extra edge. They don't allow beards. And yet they allow someone to box another person who's two feet taller and like 80 pounds heavier. So maybe they let it slide.

They were like, if you have a beard, we're not paying you. Oh, no, we're not paying you anyway. They may have thought he looked like Yaakov Smirnoff too much. It would have been tough. What a country! Was he maybe the stunt double, climbing the mountain? Who knows? Might have been.

Next two you got, Kyle, Pauley or Duke? All right. So Duke has a moment that reminded me of rewatchables. Bill, I know you love the scene when he meets somebody as the very solemn scene by the mirror and say Apollo was like a son to me. And when you guys talk about heat and you always refer to that moment when Tom Seismore really goes for it with De Niro, when he says to me, the action is the juice.

Right. He's like, I'm in a scene with Robert fucking De Niro. And this is going to be looked at for the rest of the time. my life. I feel like that was Duke's Tom Seismore moment in this. It's just me in rock. No women, no boxing, no villains. And I think he really nails that scene. You know what you need to do. Do it. And he says it again, do it. He wins me over on that scene. Well, and he's been in four Rocky movies. This was like, finally, he sees the script and he's like, finally, I get to play chess. Yeah. And then I get a pep talk. Sal, who do you have? I, you know what? It all depends on whether

you believe Duke would have been that much into training Rocky for this. The last we saw, he was like throwing the towel. He was so upset. It seemed like an unforgivable act that Rocky wouldn't throw in the towel. And then, like you said, because everything was cut out, the next thing you do is you see him at the press conference. You see him Apollo's like a son to me. Everyone's fine with Rocky giving the speech at the funeral. But to me, if you believe that, it comes down to two lines. It's hit the one in the middle. I see three of them. Or Pauley's line. of, remember what I said about I would want to be you no matter what? Forget about it.

I think, I think Polly wins the day with that, plus all the robot nonsense. I go, Paul. I think, is, is Pauley like one of your five favorite movie characters of all time, Sal? I love him. I feel like deep down he is. I think he's like 119 years old, too. I try to do the math on it. He is not going anywhere.

Next one. Robert Teper, Survivor, or John Cafferty in this movie. Who do you got, Sal? This is very strange to me, because I thought for sure, before rewatching it last night or two nights ago, Robert Tepper was, and Robert Tepper does the scene that Kyle talks about the car scene.

There's no easy way out, right? When he's driving, it is, I thought for sure that was Frank Stallone. I was like, oh, this is Rocky, just trying to get his brother. This is Stallone,

trying to get his brother some dough because this is an unnecessary, it's not a fightsy, it's not a training montage, but it is Robert Tepper. I'll go hearts on fire, though. I think Stallone was, had odds with his brother. His brother doesn't have a song or anything in this. If you look

87 over the top, he's got something. Obviously, he's got something for three. 85, 86. I think something happened. Didn't let him play any reindeer games. Well, here's the thing. I always thought for years and years that Hearts on Fire was Frank Stallone. As I was doing the research yesterday, find out it's John Cafferty famously of Eddie and the Cruisers. I carried that movie. And I thought I knew every single thing about this movie. I feel bad for Frank Stallone. I think most people felt like that. One of those songs was Franks Stallone.

Maybe they had a falling out. I'm telling you they did. I bet you didn't like Bridgett Nielsen or something. It's like if all the sudden Ron Howard just turned to Clinton's like, sorry, there's no part for you, buddy. You can't be in this. What the fuck? I'm in every movie.

I'm going to go no easy way out for an autobiographical reason. You guys, this was as a child. This was the first Rocky movie that I ever saw. I never saw those other ones. So when he gets in the Lamborghini and his driving, I was like, what is all this shit he's looking at? Who's that lady? Who's this dead old? I didn't know Mick.

I didn't know any of them. So that was like your cliff notes for the Rocky whole franchise as a kid. Plus when the drums hit, like that song absolutely kills. I love No one. No one. It's the best. I was watching it in my room, my bedroom last night with my wife who was just not barely watching. And when that came on, about two minutes.

minute saying I was just like, God, this song's fucking great. And she just kind of looked at me with the disgust of somebody who's been married to me for 22 years. Like, you've watched this movie 100 times. How does this still excite you? Well, Bill, don't you think there's something like... It's a great four minutes.

And there's also something in movies, angry gestures. You can flick a cigarette. You can flip a table. There's something about the angry gear shift that really gets me going. He hits about six of him in that thing into fifth gear. It gets you going. Like every movie doesn't. Every moment. he also, he's going about 70 at one point,

but then decides to just look sadly away from the road toward like the glove compartment. After he shifted seven times, you're like, Rock, he's definitely going to crash. What time is that? What time? Okay, we'll talk about that later. Yeah, it seemed like late at night.

Yeah. I have Robert Teper. I love that part. Next question. Was it East versus West or Man Against Man? Ultimately. What do you have, Sal? Well, it was man against man.

And, you know, Rocky in one of his, you know, the smartest moments of the whole franchise says to Apollo, is this you against Drago or is this you against you? Apollo gets mad. He doesn't even know how to answer that question. So I'm going to say, I'm going to say man against man, but it's a really good question. What do you have, Kyle?

It is a deep question. It's a deep scene, too. I'm watching that scene last night. I'm like, Carl Weathers is great. I found myself just, I thought he was excellent in this movie in all his little scenes. And so I think it's man against man too. I also think it's the best written scene in a not a well-written movie. And Stallone is into it.

I feel like that was the 10th take on a late night. And I feel like it is man against man. Could it be both? Why can't it be both? Why does Survivor ask us to choose? Well, maybe it was a rhetorical question and it was both. Oh, interesting. All right.

There's an incredible cameo from Warner Wolf in this movie. And Sal and I went to high school in Connecticut. Sal was in New York. Warner Wolf was iconic locally. But the keyword there is locally. And when he popped in in Rocky Four, it's inexplicable. He has no lines. He has four lines total.

But two lines that were two of the funniest lines. I said, my buddy Gus and I watched this movie, I don't know, 700 times. And we would just say the lines to each other in everyday dialogue. These were the two best ones. the two iconic ones. I can't get over the size of this Russian. Or this is bizarre. Creed is over the hill and the Russian hasn't fought anybody.

Sal, Warner Wolf's best line, which one? I think I wrote those down. Yes. I can't get over the size of this Russian. I think you have to put that in there. Warner Wolf was known. I watched him on ABC and then CBS and he would do his plays of the month, right? And they would have wrestling in them.

It would have like, Oh, he's great. Jimmy snook a jumping off of Andre the Giants' shoulders. And then he would make fun of the weatherman and say, and Mr. G was at the game. And you'd see a guy in a bear costume in the audience. But yes, you were right. It was very local.

And they just needed some filler lines from Warner Wolf. God bless him. I have no association with Warner Wolf. Never saw him until this movie. However, Bill, that is something that is coming to my friend's lexicon, too, such that, like, anytime you encounter something big, like if you go to the restaurant and they bring the biggest burrito you've ever seen, you will immediately say, I can't get over the size of the burrito.

It's totally transferable, including in like really dirty ways and porn and all that stuff. We say that movie, that line constantly. Yeah, I have that one as well. Kyle, what made you sad? Are Mickey's death or Apollo's death, ultimately, if you had to pick one? Oh, definitely, Apollos. I mean, Mickey was an old man. You know, his time had come.

He dies. He died like in the throes of battle. Like Apollo just died because he was an idiot and Rocky was an idiot. and it was completely unprepared. And do you call out, Will, or you call out, Bill, the, what was it called, like the, the epilogue or the, what's the word for when you speak at a funeral? Ulogy. Newlogy.

Yeah. Like, Rocky's eulogy, I was sad about Apollo and then I was just annoyed because it's the most tedious, poorly written eulogy ever. Like, couldn't, did he write that on a napkin between takes or something? It's one of the most heartless scenes after four films of friendship. So it made me sad, and then Rocky kind of scratched the record. I think I would have been. sad or about Apollo, but there was no greater example of foreshadowing.

There was no way he wasn't going to, before we saw the ending, we knew he was going to die, right? Mick, as old as he is, it was kind of a surprise. And I don't like that Rocky lied to him on his deathbed or death, whatever that thing is called. You know, he made him think that he beat, he beat Clubber Lang in two or three rounds, whatever it is. So it just made me sadder for Mick. I thought Mick was sadder as well. Stallone pushes it over the top with the, uh, and the, uh, and the. he's just cry,

babbling, but unintelligibly, and it really pushes over top. Then he's, I think he looks sadder at the funeral. At Apollo's funeral, he kind of had a vibe to him like, hey, this wasn't my fucking fault. I told him not to fight this guy.

Right. He was like 80% sad. All right, next one. Two more. Drago's training in this movie, which you could say was really cutting edge. In all these different ways, they're bringing all this sports science in that we've now had for the next, you know, 34 years.

Or everything we've heard about LeBron's training as he gets ready for these, all the different things he does spends millions of dollars on his body. Who had a more efficient training system? So I think it was Drago. Did they just show one instance of steroids? I get, they only showed one injection, right? And he was unfazed by it, which is funny, too. Like, he can't even, you can't even take a needle and, like, wince a little bit.

But beyond that, it was all hitting these machines and registering 2,100 pounds per inch. Treadmill. Right. Some good treadmill stuff. Oh, my God. He's running like Daniel Jones, but without the falling on his face there, I think, I think Drago's training was more efficient. Anybody who's ever touched the incline button on a treadmill at LA Fitness immediately thinks

of Drago. That thing gets here and gets here. And then it's accompanied by the very strange guttural noises of Drago. And my wife's never seen the movie before. She's like, is he deaf or something? I go, no, no, no. That's just how he screams when he's into it. I think it's Drago and I don't even like the punch.

I will say, I hate that they included the steroid shot. It's almost like they felt they had to because steroids were hot in the 80s and they wanted to take a shot at the Soviets. It's more fun when you just think that Drago is a natural monster who eats the spinach like your Popeye instead of the- set of the steroids. I hated that. Oh, but they have to lend to the villain thing, right? Like, if you think he's doing it legitimately, then Rocky just gets battered by this mad Russian.

LeBron has the Versa climber, that thing. Have you ever heard of that Versa climber? Oh, yeah. It's basically like the 2020 version of all the stuff Drago's doing. I'd probably say Drago. I think just in the mid-80s, there was just less to work with. Is there a Taco Tuesday equivalent for Drago? I guess not. That'll put it over the top. $28 million budget made over $300 million. It's amazing. That is a...

Yeah, go ahead, Sarah. You're about to say it. Go ahead. Oh, highest grossing film in the Rocky series, which surprised me. Well, also highest grossing sports movie for 24 years until the Blindside came along. Wow. Interesting. Do we think Blindside is a sports movie?

Yeah, it's got Nick Sabin in it. Phil Fulmer's in it. You know, there's like weird, awkward cameos. I'll take it. Roger Ebert. What's he got? He didn't like it, right? Two stars.

Said, quote, the Rocky series, finally losing its legs. It's been a long run, one hit movie after another, Rocky Four is the last gasp. A film so predictable, the viewing it is like watching one of those old sitcoms

where the characters never change in the same situations turn up again and again. That honestly hurts my feelings. And also, it's very true in not the way he, means it. That's exactly why we like this movie. Right. It's a film so predictable that viewing it is like watching one of those, yeah, yeah, that's exactly why we like it. Gene Siskel, three and a half

stars out of four. Really? Yeah. There you go, Gene. Really liked it. Really thought it said some good stuff. Gene wanted to get in the next one. That's why. He's like, I got to be a Rocky 5. Hey, so water wolf. He's like, fuck this. Yeah. We're going to take a break. Then we do the categories. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zep bound. terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zepound contains

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or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99-7-9. or visit zepbounds.lily.com. All right, special new category just for this one is before we get the most rewatchable scene. This category is called Most Delightfully and Ridiculously Improbable Moment. Okay. Here are the nominees. Rocky takes the Drago fight in Russia on Christmas for no money and never tells his wife.

Rocky climbs a 20,000 foot mountain wearing a light jacket and running boots. Rocky gets knocked down 75 times in the Drago fight. the Russians start cheering for Rocky in the last couple rounds of the Drago fight, or Gorbachev standing up at the end after Rocky's speech, because he's just so impressed by the wit and wisdom of the American. Kyle, most delightfully and ridiculously improbable out of those five. Wow, what a smorgasbord, Bill. I'm going to go right in the middle, and I'm just going to say,

Rocky getting up after getting knocked down 75 times, including a couple of times when he gets up for less than a second and gets knocked down again, the boxing in this movie, I think we'll get into, is a really strange cocktail of bullshit and ludicrous sports replication. And I think it's the boxing. Even though those Soviet people, I think, would be terrified

to applaud Rocky and cheer for him. I think it's still the boxing. I'm going with the Soviets. It's appellate. I had Corbachev standing up. If you didn't have that in there, I wouldn't have had to think about it. But the fact that they turn on Drago in the first place. And why?

Because he started to bleed. Who gives a shit? He's up 30 points on the card. He's battering Rocky every round. He's winning 10-8 or 10-6. It's ridiculous. Simmons, you brought it up. Rocky's getting up.

The referee's not even counting anymore because he figures that he's going to get knocked down off his feet three times. Why would the terrified Russian? crowd turn on Drago. And this is before, obviously, the promoter comes and Drago takes him and throws him, which I guess I could see them having a problem with. But the fact that they turned on him before that makes little sense and less sense of anything. I have that as well. Yeah.

I think in 1985, there is no way whatsoever that the Russians are cheering for an American. I don't care if it's like a 12-year-old in there against. You can take the biggest underdog of all time. This is a year removed. This Kyle mentioned earlier of them not going to the Olympics because they hated us so much. It's just never happening. Bill,

can I just ask a question? I had this later, but do you think if this happens in real life, like Rocky beats the Russian, the whole arena goes for it and he gives the speech draped in an American flag, Rocky is likely killed, like when he leaves the ring.

I mean, like there's a KGB bomb in his car, or it's just two slugs in the back of the head in the dressing room. They kill his whole family. I don't think they're letting this happened. I think if he went down like this, I think Balboa has killed the second he leaves the ring by the Russians. There's no security with him. Doesn't appear to be anybody from the United States government accompanying him. He's got Pauli. And Pauli's probably packing. But I think

Rockies a dead man after this movie. I don't even think they wait for that. I think Paulie is poisoned as he's launched by the fire drinking his vodka. Like, okay, we spiked your vodka a little. Sorry, your brother-in-law is dead. I think that happened. I think so too. Before he even wins. I would say it's even less realistic that the ref wouldn't have been paid off to like do an early stoppage, like 14th round, right? One of the times Rocky goes down, he just comes in, Earl Hebner style. Yeah. Says it's over. This is done.

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Most rewatchable scene. So I'm just going to go through all these fast and we can go through them one at a time. There's eight rewatchable scenes. Creed's entrance in the Drago fight living in America. The entire Drago-Creed fight, not long. You can't win leading into no easy way out. Duke's Pep speech, the two training sequences, Drago-Creed round two, Drago-Creed-15th round, and then the speech.

So, all right, one at a time. Creed's entrance. We get the Ledmilla-Draggo Marianne Creed greeting, which I really enjoy. Great scene. really just, I thought Brigitte's best work in the movie. We got James Brown, which really, I think this might have been his last great moment. It's a little like getting old in the tail. And he's basically doing Eddie Murphy's impression of him.

So hot in the hot tub. He's going back to the band. It's it. Dallas. It's just, and they're just following him. The confused Drago faces fucking kill me. They're like, no, no, Dolf. Look more out of your.

He's like, hi, does this work? Yeah, yeah, just glance around. Like, you don't know where you are. And then Apollo dancing. And everything about that is just lights out. And by the way, great song and fits into the patriotic theme, right? Live in an America. Right.

It's the best place to be. What did I miss? Anything? Dolf Lundgren has said in interviews at that moment where his, the ring lifts and it opens up from the top, he gets emotional and he cries thinking about it. Really? I don't know why that's the case. You think a tough guy like that out of anything else.

That's the part of the movie that tears him up. But yes, it's exactly the reverse of the Rocky 3 where Rocky is not taking the training seriously. And we saw what happened to him. This is now going on with Apollo. It's all great stuff. And the fact that James Brown toured, this is not a joke, toured with the robot after this movie. Was sick of the robot? Yes, he toured with him look it up.

He had him as like an opener or some shit. Wow. Oh, my God. There's a cool little moment right at the end bill that I love when. After he sings, living in America, he just says, I feel good. Even though he wasn't singing, I feel good. And then he turns around and he high fives Apollo, like, in the ring. And I was like, those are the two coolest guys in the room.

I love that moment. It's great. I don't know what's going on with the actual fight venue where there's like cocktail tables. Not a crowd. It's like in the Golden Globe theater. Yeah. It's just like, what is this? It's an exhibition, Bill.

The entire Drago Creed fight is our next one. You have Leroy Neiman's intro with all the Apollo nicknames. destroyer, the king of sting, the count of Monte Fisto. You think you got a name? Patience, David. What's done? The master of disaster, the one and only Apollo three. He rattles off like seven of them.

Count of Monte Fisto. You have them meeting at the ring, and then him be like, put your hands up. And he's like, you villas. Come on, get your hands up, man. You need a interpreter. It's time to go to school. You will lose. You will lose as 34 years and counting of like you can just drop that any video game you're playing, whatever.

We get Warner Wolf. We get the end of round one, which I don't know how the fight's not stopped. He takes like 20 in a row. And then after the bell too. And then Duke comes in. It's supposed to be an exhibition. What are you doing? We get throw the towel.

Duke's really in. Like, he's turning. Throw the towel. He's going nuts. Then throw the damn towel. And Rocky freezes. Paula goes down. What started out as a joke turned into a disaster.

Goose pumps. The weird synthesizer music. And then Rocky looking up. And then Drago just sneering at him if he does. He dies. He does. That is an incredible. or five minutes.

Absolutely. Well, I don't think you missed anything except that. Like, after a minute, Apollo was probably up 10-9. It was probably his round, right? A minute into the round. But the great, my favorite part of it is, and I think you touched on it, when they go to hit gloves and he hits him. And the way they shot it, it was perfect.

It was like hitting like an anvil. You weren't moving Dragos gloves at all. And it's the first time that Apollo realizes he's in deep shit. Yeah. Yeah. I got two things, Bill. the, and if it was happened now and Drago would knock out Creed, the, if he dies, he dies, would be the tweet that he sends from his dressing room and it would blow up and controversial

and people would be so mad about it and he would have 10,000 retweets. If he dies, comment, he dies. Great tweet, very concise. But also, there's a great moment there that leads to a theory of mine. When Apollo was about to die and getting the shit knocked out of him, Nikolai, who runs their operation, gives a, draggo's wife. a drag of his cigarettes. Do you remember that like really sexy moment where he gives her a cigarette and they smoke it? I believe the two of them are sleeping together. And I think there's a whole thing

going there. And I think that lends into Drago at the end of the movie when he lifts him up and throws him. I think there's a lot of frustration. And she has weaseled their way into this inner circle of the Soviet Union. Because she's sleep. You don't do that with someone like that unless you're sleeping together. It's really sexy way they do it. That's my thing. Wow. It's let me say it's a amongst the most lazy naming of a character I've ever seen, Nikolai Koloff, which we know, Bill, as wrestling fans, Nikolai Volkov is a wrestler, Ivan Koloff as a wrestler,

and like, let's just combine the names. Why do we have to give this any more thought? It's Nikolai Koloff is his name. So do you think Stallone spent more time coming up with that name or on Apollo's eulogy? It's probably about the sentence. Let me ask you real quick. I think he was sleeping with Drago's wife, too.

I apologize if this is one of, categories, better exhibition, thunderlips and Rocky or Creed. And was that one of your things? No, that would have been a good who you got at the top. I think the thunderlip scene is perfect. I love it too. I think that's like just the best six minutes. I love it.

That might be the best six minutes of any Rocky movie. I'm all in. Plus, it literally created Hokomania. After that, it's like we were off. Yep. Next one, we talked about the You Can't Win montage. Yep. I guess we didn't talk about the You Can't Win speech.

So it comes home, she's got all the lights off. It's like, how can we make her a bigger wet blanket? We'll just make it dark. Put on the unsexiest nightgown, whatever you have, and stand at the top of the stairs, be disappointed, and then try to just cut the guy's legs out and tell them like, you're going to die, you can't win. Right.

Leading to the Lamborghini montage. But Kyle, you found some simple. here for Adrian, which I was not expecting. I haven't watched the movie start to finish in a long time. And I've always hated that scene like we all have because it's like, who do you think you're talking to? Who do you think you married? We're standing here in our 12-bedroom mansion.

You're on your 2,000 thread count sheets that I paid for with fights I wasn't supposed to win. You're telling me, I can't win. And yet it's a preposterous husband-wife move that he pulls where he agrees to fight Drago in Russia for weeks and weeks and weeks for no money without even literally telling his wife. Like, that's divorce material. That would never, ever happen.

And I'm starting to come over to the other side of Adrian. Like, I'd be pissed too. Yeah. This is spectacular. And I think, Bill, you hit on it. So when is Adrian her sexiest? It's on the beach when she's convincing Rocky that he has to fight for them and for Mick and for everyone and for what Apollo's doing for them training.

What do we got? We got money. What do we have? What do we have? I'm afraid, all right? You want to break me down? You want to hear me? I'm afraid.

But that's that. So this is the antithesis, right? She's going to be as unsexy as she could be. You could tell like she's got her grandmother's robe on. And the way they shoot this scene, have either of you with your wives ever had a conversation so serious where one of you is at the top of the steps and one is at the bottom. It's not like, hey, we're going to do some screaming here. We don't want the kids to hear. We got to go off to another room. But no, wait a minute. There's going to be artistic shadows involved in shooting Rocky at the bottom of the steps. So let's have this out right now. And she says this is suicide. You can't. can't win. And then he mumbles something. I had to play it back a couple of times. He mumbles something that only she can really understand. And then she's like, all right, go. And you know what? You're downstairs already. Just go in the car and drive off somewhere. Unbelievable scene. There's some incredible mumbling in this scene. You actually have to turn on the closed captioning to understand half of Dragos lines about a third of Stallone. The next one, next most rewatchable, Duke's pep speech we talked about. Apollo was like my son. I raised him.

And when he died, part of me died. But now, you're the one. You're the one that's going to keep his spirit alive. You're the one that's going to make sure that he didn't die for nothing. Now you're going to have to go through hell. Worse than any nightmare that you ever dreamed. But in the end, I know you'll be the one standing. It's just amazing.

I have the sports movie Pep Talk Pantheon. this is in there. Paul crew at the end of the longest yard. Tony DiMato in any given Sunday, the halftime speech. The Vision Quest chef right before the Latin Swain match. And then Pele convincing the allies to go back, even though they can escape.

Please, that's. You know how much is getting mince to us. Please. Let's play. This is way up there. This might even be number one. Plus, it's like, as Kyle pointed out earlier, you know, Duke

and fringe character for the first two. Three, he gets a little shine, but not that much. And then this was like his big moment. But man, it's great stuff. There were a Twitter movement

going into this movie and it would be called Let Duke Cook and like give Duke something to work with. And I bet you he workshopped this scene for months and he got it right. And he gets to have, as you pointed out, that cool little checkmate friend

where he beats the Russian guy. So Duke is a complete badass in this thing. I love it. It's pretty great. Wow, I'm surprised you didn't mention the aforementioned Adrian on the beach scene. I mean, that is a spectacular scene back and forth. But as far as Duke goes, yeah, I think the only thing that would have made it better is if he let off with, hey, your brother-in-law is face down in his own vomit. We're okay with that? Also, let me tell you about how much of a, I think you're my son. But yeah, it was a great speech. It's so good. And I think Stallone is just so in awe of what Tony Burton brought to the table there that, When he's walking away, he says, thanks, Tony.

He doesn't say thanks, Duke. The guy's name is Duke. He calls him Tony. He says, thanks, Tony. He says, thanks, Tony. He kept it. No, his name's Duke. Tony says David Real Life.

The load just forgot. Training sequence number one, we mentioned, which really sets the tone of, like, there's a new age training going on over here with Drago. And now we're also the old school training here. We're going to chop some wood. Vince de Kola is the, guy who did the music for that song and then the one later during the fight, round two on and the Drago fight,

not mentioned is one of the greats. Like there's a lot of Harold Faltermeyer buzz from the 80s, some other ones. Loggins. Yeah, Vince de Kola just lost in history. I don't really understand it. I don't even have anything to add. No, that's still a song that people listen to. You can have that on your phone.

It's called Training Montage. It's a legitimately amazing song, and I don't think it works well without that song. Yeah, yeah. If you got one mile left to doing the treadmill, you're like, fuck it, let's start the weekend early. No, that song comes on, you'll do three more miles. I feel, yeah, powerful. I feel like it fell just short of the final countdown with the, with the,

very close. Right up there, right up there. Kyle does the treadmill and he does the drago noises. Uh, uh, uh, uh, and it's at a 90 degree angle to the floor. Uh, uh, uh. Trading sequence two continues the natural versus steroids, high comedy angle, has the mountain climb, John Cafferty.

And Duke, who's only training really just seems to be to say no pain, no pain over and over again. Pretently, though, no pain, no pain. Like maybe Mike McCarthy should try this with Zeke Elliott, Sal. How dare you? How dare you? That's Duke's version of the Jason Garrett clap. Just say no pain after every three and out. Let's start with the steroids with Zeke Elliott and move from there.

I don't know what we do with that team. My God. Next one, Drago. I couldn't put the entire Drago-Kreed fight. So Drago Creed heading into round two. That's the hit the one in the middle. What's happening out there? He's winning.

I see three of them out there. Get the one in the middle. Right. Hit the one in the middle. Yeah. And then round two. It just seems like we're headed toward a demolition. And he cuts him.

As he's punching him, Duke screams out he's cut. I don't know if he had ESP. They definitely could have waited a second. And then they just go at it. And the end of the round, Stallone tackles him. Barry Tompkins, who's great in this, it's a gunner war. No holds barred in Moscow.

And then the second Vista Cola song kicks in, and Duke does the whole, he's not a machine. He's a band. Cut it. You're hurting. You see? You see, he's not a machine. He's a man.

You're pravda. And it's just like, man, it's great. There's that moment that you exactly referenced. We just talked about this last week and with the NFL when the Raiders beat Mahomes. It was immediately like, he's cut. He's cut. He's not a machine. He's a man.

And there's two lines, I think, from that era that say, this thing is human. It's that one. And then it's Jesse Ventura and Arnold and Predator. If it bleeds, we can kill it. And they're both so fucking perfect. But that he's cut, man. if you ever, and then that kind of leads to another line I love, which is a few cheers now for Rocky Balboa.

We say that all the time. It's the best. Yeah. Gus and I, for as soon as we had the ability to text each other, I don't know what year that was. Anytime we're watching a game with a huge underdog where somebody hits a three, just texts like, he's cut. It's a bad cut.

Yeah, it just keeps going. What about that? But Drago returns the favor by saying his one. One of like six lines he has in the whole movie is he's like a piece of iron, a piece of iron. A piece of iron. That's that's the line they got out. They workshoped that like, good. Go, go with a piece of iron.

Dago's like, he takes more steroids than I do. The 15th round, crowd now cheering for Rocky. Drago chokes the manager because the manager's sleeping with Ludmilla as Kyle is uncovered. The big comeback followed by one of either. Tompkins are his sidekick who never gets a line on camera where you see his mouth moving Al Pandaro, whatever's name is. Somebody says, he's chopping the Russian down. And then Redis is about to knock him out.

It's like they realized Talia Shire wasn't in the movie enough. And they cut to her and she does the, you're going to do it. You're going to do it as one of the worst out of everything. It's so bad. She's so inspirational throughout the whole trilogy and before that. And just to say you're going to do it, it's like, no, they should have poisoned her and gotten around of that soon earlier. Don't you think, you know, in a way, though, Bill, like, Drago kind of becomes the pussy

at the end of the fight. Like, the second he's cut, he's like, oh, my God, I'm bleeding. And he's wincing from these body shots. Isn't the 15 rounds signify, like, one of the worst chokes in sports history that Drago could not finish this fight? Like, that's Nick Anderson on the free throw line. That's 28 to 3. Like, you couldn't put this little guy down.

It's actually pathetic. Yeah. Well, it leads to, Rocky gets mobbed in the ring by the Russians. The final speech, I guess I didn't like you much either. And then what you saw was two guys killing each other. Dramatic pause. But I guess it's better than 20 million. Solid point.

That's what got Gorbachev. Followed by the stand-up slow clap, which you could argue. Did this create the stand-up slow clap or was it Can't Buy Me Love? I guess Can't Buy Me Love was a year later. Yeah, it might have. Lucas has a good one too. That was a year later too. Oh my gosh.

Maybe it did. Gorbachev, who knew? I mean, it's crazy that the fans turned Gorbachev and not the other way around. They should have been asking permission. But, Bill, if I could add the last line, I think it's the last line and that the whole thing is my kids should be home sleeping, go to bed. It's like, what time is this fight? If it's 10 o'clock in Moscow, it's 3 p.m. in the U.S., it can't be too much later in Moscow.

Sal, I think he was heavily concussed at the time. I don't think he was going to say. Yeah, well, I'll tell you what, the brain damage was already there. They're both heavily concussed. He and Adrian for letting their kid watch this, Bill, we talk about parent corner and how bad the atrocities we have committed in letting our kids get away with the murder. But letting your kids, speaking of murder, there's a good chance your father's going to die. Just watch on TV with the robot in the background.

Oh, and you know what? Invite some friends too. Those parents are terrible parents too for letting their kids go over there and potentially watch a thrashing that led to death. The kid's so excited to watch his dad fight the guy who murdered Uncle Apollo. His godfather. Okay. Come on over.

Let's make some cupcakes. We're not nerd, you know. What do you think we are? Nerds? Yeah, that's it. So what was the most rewatchable scene? This is tough. This may be the toughest.

ever in this category. Well, you guys talk about this a lot and be watchable is that if you're flipping channels, if you come across something and just put the remote down, it's done. I think it's some combination of the training montage, whether it's two or one, it's about a nine-minute

sequence with montage, Adrian scene, montage. I would put that nine-minute sequence against anything in film history for watchability. You can give me the Layla scene in Goodfellas. You can give me the Mozart scene in Shawshank. I don't think there's anything as satisfying as those training and montage, both of them. I think that's the choice.

I agree. Really? I think, well, am I getting too much bang for my buck with the Rocky, just the Rocky Drago? Did you break that up into the fight? Yeah, I did second round or 15th round. Okay. So here's what makes me think, I will go a second round. And here's why, because of what we know about this movie.

Are we going to get into what, like, that Rocky, that Balboa spent time in the hospital? because Dolf Lungren hit him so hard in the chest, his heart, like, kind of like... Yeah, we're getting into that. Oh, we're going to get into that. Okay, knowing what I know now, I would say the second round. Okay.

Let's take one more break and we'll do the rest of the categories. This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Selling your car should feel like one less thing on your list. Not one more. With Carvana, it is. Just go to Carvana.com. Into your license plate or Vin and get a real offer down to the penny. No back and forth.

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Save on the stay Oh And free waffles are yours to claim Well I hope you like my little song Book Direct at Shoreshiltails.com All right, what's age the best Other than all the stuff we mentioned?

Sal mentioned how Drago has six intelligible lines All movie. Here are the six lines. I cannot be defeated. You will lose. I must break you. If he dies, he dies. And to the end, and you're dead.

That was it. Those were his six big lines. Your favorite of the six, Kyle. Well, I really like when he yells in Russian. Yashiba! Yusiva! And apparently Lungren learned Russian for like months, and he's a brilliant guy, as we all know.

I love after he throws in it, and the subtitles go, For me, Yusiva! That's my favorite. Okay. What do you have sell? It's such a chalk pick here, but I'm going, if he dies, he dies. I really do. It vaults him. We talked about who's a bigger villain, him or Clubber Lang.

That puts him over the top. What did Clubber Lang do? He wanted to take Adrian back to his apartment in Rocky 3. It's like, ooh, what an asshole. Now, Rocky, Drago is the ultimate villain with he dies. He dies. And look at Kirk Cousins. He even adopted it.

So it lives on and on in perpetuity. Fair. I must break you. It was just great in general. Great line. Rocky's jacket, my wife comment, my wife looked up from her iPad and was like, nice jacket. Should we get that jacket for you? I was like, why doesn't the Rocky 4 jacket exist that like Jay Crewe?

What's a nice jacket? I get jacket crushes. I also have one on Baines jacket and the Dark Night Rises. It's totally hot. I love it. And can I just piggyback on that, Bill? What's aged the best in terms of Rocky's fashion? How do we as a group feel about giant oversized aviator shades that your best friend

funeral who you killed. I think it was a very specific mid-80s choice. Did you like the Hugo Boss sweatshirts or no? I liked those. I like this. I like at one point he comes in with a robe that looks like he's scorpion for Mortal Kombat with his wife's bedroom. His clothes are wild in this thing, dude. Yeah. That's why, you know, Burr Young keeps it simple with the chicken catatotory stain wife beater T-shirt, whatever you want to say. But yeah, I like that you should give those ringer, like as a ring or Christmas gift, you should give those Rocky Jacket. it's out. Polly's arc of the four Rockies from being just the alcoholic, just scumbag

brother-in-law who's like basically a threat to his sister. And in Rocky 3 almost starts a race ride in LA. And then by Rocky 4, he's just like the cut man. Yeah. Need him with you. It's a huge fight. By the way, while we're on the clothes, he blows all the money. Oh, that's true. While we're into clothes and accessories, is there an uglier gift than Rockies, what he gives to Adrian, that freaking snake net. What the hell was that snake snake necklace? That's where my wife looked up. And at the end of it, it's a watch.

It's a watch piece. She's like, oh, this is so cool. I don't think Bill our agent James Baby Doll Dixon would give that to his wife. That's how gaudy and awful. Or Daniel's wife. The over-the-top steroids natural montage is age the best, just because

I'm going to say there's a 99.9% chance Stallone was on steroids for the entire mid-80s. I don't want to accuse him, but I'm just guessing, considering how jacked he was. Did you notice that James Brown was listed in the closing credits as playing the Godfather of Soul?

No. Not James Brown. Yeah, that's in there. Look for that. Living in America, Brown's first top 40 single at 11 years the last of his career. I think he took steroids too. I'm not going to lie, dude.

We talked about how the film was ahead of its time with high tech sporting equipment. That's actually true. So somebody calculated how much of Rocky 4 is montages. Yeah. Oh. Do you know the answer to this? What do you think the percentages?

The percentage of this film, which is about an hour 31, that is a montage. All right. So let's figure this out. So 12 minutes out of 90. I'll say 11%, 11%. I think it's, I think it's, I think it's closer to 20%. It's 31.9%.

What? Yeah. That's my movie. Come on. That's so good. Only 68% of this movie is not a montage. A half hour of montages? It was like almost 30 minutes.

Oh, yeah. And then another what's age the best. Creed having a bastard son that they don't acknowledge in this movie, but ends up leading to Creed the recovery movie in, what was it, 2015? the reboot. Right. You can kind of see, like, there is a little friction with him and Marianne in the movie. I feel like she knows about the kid at this point, but it's fun to go back and watch,

like knowing they might not have done it. What's the best for you guys, Kyle? Which I love the opening credits. I love just the two boxing gloves smashing them. Sometimes back in those movies that it'd be a long, drawn-out credit process. You just want to get to the punching. Immediately, there's a Soviet glove, an American. glove, they're going to punch into each other and explode, and you get right to the action,

even though the action is from Rocky 3, which is already more of footage that they're conjuring up to spin the clock. But I love the opening credits. You didn't see a lot of those back then. I'm going to go with that too. And I remember thinking, oh, great, we're going to see the end of this favor fight. Remember the favor between Rocky and Apollo? And they land and it goes on the Leroyneemann, the painting bar. I really were going to see, thought we were going to see that to completion. Can we put odds on these fights or are we getting to that later? We're getting that later. All right.

All right. All right. All right. I have for what's age is the best, I have in Dragha. He's aged the best. Incredible. I think he is like just an incredible bottle of wine from 1986 that it's like, don't open it yet.

It's still going to get better. We can still get 10 years out of this. What's age the worst? The patriotism from this movie is a little harder to identify with in 2020 with our Splinter Nation. Back then, it was really like everyone's on the same page. We have a common enemy. A little different when you rewatch it.

Another one stage the worst for me. You mentioned the top where they basically just show Rocky 3 again. So Stallone does this in Rocky 2, Rocky 3, Rocky 4, and then the Rocky 5, which we don't acknowledge. It's always a weird move to me where it's just like, hey, we're going to start the movie with the last four minutes of the movie you've already seen. I don't totally understand it. And even worse, when they do the marathons, they don't cut it out of the next movie.

Right. And then you're just, it's like, can I just watch 10 straight hours of Rocky? Do I have to see the same five minutes over again? It's not a fan. Can I say what I think is the worst, what some trope, catching bad news on the TV. And by accident. And Carl Weathers, as Apollo does this, he's in the pool with like three golden retrievers. They can't make that scene more ridiculous, but he's got a TV by the pool.

And it's like, somehow. Oh, right. Yeah, Drago is in America. I got to do something about this. We see this over and over. People are watching bad news on TV. Remember he watched in three. He's like, don't listen to him, rock.

No, do listen to him rock. And then they shut it off real quick. That age is the worst to me. I don't think they do that as much anymore. In other words, age the worst, sick of the robot. So Stallone has been talking about, I'm going to do this 30-50 anniversary cut on Blu-ray. And he's like, I'm cutting the robot out.

I was outraged. Me too. Can't cut the robot out. It's exemplifies what the mid-80s were like, that we thought it was a good. And how much cocaine probably everyone was doing at the time that people were like, yeah, the robot makes total sense. Let's do this. Sick of the robot, Kyle.

Your thoughts. Yeah, two things. I did a really nerdy experiment last night. And there's been so many people who count how many words Drago has in this movie. I counted how many words sickle the robot has, and it's more than twice the amount of dialogue that Drago has. I think also in addition to just the robot, what's aged the worst is like, Pauley definitely tried to take liberties with that robot, right?

Like he got into half a bottle of old crow, and he even has a line about, I'm going to get her wires tied when you get home, like, so she doesn't get pregnant? Like, it gets really creepy fast. Pauley making love to the robot late at night is age the worst for me. A lot of the Pauley dialogue with the robot would be. and fly in 2020. The robot, by the way, this is real, is a mention of a member of SAG, was in Days of Our Lives for an entire season, open for James Brown, as I mentioned, is in a Carly Simon video. I think you're right, Bill. It was way too much cocaine going on in there.

And the fact that the robot, now you want to bash the robot, but the robot was only really brought in by Stallone because it helped with his autistic son, right? So he wanted to give a nod to the manufacturer or whatever. And then it took a lot. kind of life of its own. I still like the robot. I'm pro-robot. Morewood's age the worst. The S-I cover of Drago and the magazine covers in general, just sloppy, hastily done. That Sports Illustrated, that was probably the best stretch of S-I covers from like 78 to 87, where they really did them correctly, and it just felt sloppy. Another one's age to worst. So the impact of Apollo dying in 1985 when you saw this movie in the theater. And they kept

that a secret for the most part. The impact of that versus the subsequent time seeing it. It was just a stint. Mickey dying and Apollo dying in the moment were absolutely stunning. No. Oh, I was so much for.

It was so much for. I mean, I guess it could have been. I wasn't a smart 15 year old. He could have been in a coma or something, I guess. But I mean, you knew it was going to go. It was so abrupt. It's like, oh, yeah, that's what you're thinking like coma. There's going to be a hospital scene.

No, we're at the funeral. He's gone. Stallone's got the oversized ray bands on. You talk about that. And then two movies later, he kills Adrian. You know, like he just keeps killing off the important people. That's right, I guess. Yeah.

The, uh, talk about, you know, kind of like bad officiating. Drago hit him like 14 times after the bell on that second round. I think for all the times to stop it or disqualify someone during an exhibition. That could have been one of them. There weren't points deducted from Drago in round five. No, no. Um, no other words, age the worst. Rocky just as a trainer.

So Apollo is about to have the fight. They're in the dressing room and Rocky does this. Should we even do this? You might get hurt out there. And he's like trying to convince him that to do it. Like the fans are out there where this is going, Rock. This is not a good pep talk during the fight offers no boxing advice whatsoever. You're right.

And then holds the towel and just freezes as Apollo gets punched it extra 14 times. You could argue he should be held liable for the death. Well, it's something we any of us couldn't have. done, right, as a trainer. But the fact that he says in the dressing room and Apollo's pumped, whatever, he's going to die. But he says, oh, you know, maybe we postponed this two or three weeks. Postponed this two or three weeks.

For what reason? Can you imagine Kimmel before the Oscars? But like, hey, Jimmy, this is a good idea. Maybe I don't think you're ready. What do we do? Right. You should try that next time you host the Oscars. Just right in the dressing room and be like, Jimmy, I don't know.

Let's postpone this. It'll be over Zoom. Yeah. Morwood stage is the worst. Brigitte's Russian accent we mentioned. Yeah. Adrian not going to Russia. Not going.

Oh, at first, not going? Don't like it, Bill. It's bold, right? Yeah. He's just killed Rocky's best friend. Now, Rocky, so let's say Rocky dies. So she's just in America watching it on TV. She's not going to go at all.

I don't know. Another one's age to where it's the anonymous color guy for Barry Tompkins. His name is Al Bandiero. I don't know. Somebody called in sick, I'm guessing. Like initially this was Joe Frazier or Larry Holmes or there was some real whatever and then couldn't go. They're like, ow, can he still had more lines than Drago. When Apollo climbs in the ring after dancing to living in America, he's got boxing gloves on.

They cut to them, him telling Drago, I want you, no boxing gloves on. Oh, wow. It's kind of thing you mention, it's kind of thing you notice after 130 times. I'm not there yet. And then the last one stage the worst for me is Brigitte and Sly. Married December 85, divorce, July 87. Oh, shit. Really?

Lots of, lots of stuff on the internet about her and Eddie Murphy and Beverly Ho's cop, maybe, Beverly's cop too, maybe going a couple rounds. Okay. Well, so Sly and she were married, though, for Cobra, like during the production of that. That was like the honeymoon project, basically. Yeah. And Bill, now they were. He shoehorned her in a rock.

Rocky 4 because they were dating. Uh-huh. Got married. The month Rocky 4 came out. Did Cobra. And then she does cop too. I don't know what happened with Eddie Murphy. We'll never know.

I'm telling you, there was something that went on that Frank Stallone didn't like. He stepped in front of it. And he was persona on Grata for 85, 80, early 86. And then they split up. I would have loved to have seen 2005, whatever Rocky, that would have been. Rocky against Flav or Flav with Brigitte Nilson. his corner. Right. Because they were hot and heavy back then. What a, what a life. She was married four times. I think four times. Yeah. She ended up on the surreal life. It was

Flav of Flav and Vern Troy, remember? Yeah. Vern Troyer was lit that whole season. And it was like, man, she should have stayed with Rocky. She also made an appearance in Dr. Drew's show. What was a celebrity rehab, I believe. Right. Casting what ifs, I couldn't find any. Not a lot of like dialogue about the casting of this movie on the internet. But Did find Peter Saterra said that he wrote Glory of Love as the end of this movie. And then United Artists passed it over and it got used for Karate Kid part two instead. When you look and we watch us. Sal love Chicago.

I don't know if you know. Oh, I love Chicago. So Sal already knew this. But when you watch the end of Rocky Four, they run back the John Cafferty song again. Uh-huh. In the closing credits. There actually is a nice spot there for Gloria Love. I feel a little bit too.

Bill, I'm a little bit distracted right now. I'm just thinking of Vern Troyer with his little pants down pissing on the floor in the surreal house. He had a rough run, Vern. Rest and peace. Yeah, it's tough one. Best that guy,

the Joey Pants Award. So, Nikolai, Dragos, trainer, is just a classic that guy. His real name's Michael Pataki. He's been in a whole bunch of shit. I think I didn't look this up, but Sal, wasn't he happy days? Pinky Tuscadero?

Oh, wow. I don't think. I try to look at his stuff. He does look like that guy. Yeah. He is in another one of our favorites, Night Shift. Right. Where he plays, right? Is it Night Shift? Where she's, Shelly Long is the prostitute. And he shows his ass in court. He pulls his pants down. That's him. And I think he plays a Russian in one other movie, like the cutting edge or one of those. But he's definitely one of those guys. He's all over the place. The Vincent Hanna, give me all you got a word for overacting. We praised him earlier, and I do not mean this as an insult. Carl Weathers really dials it up this movie. Because I think he knows I'm done in, what, 35 minutes?

I'm just going all in on every scene. He really, he's really fired up. He looks like he's had a lot of coffee. An incredible Dionne Waiters Award category for Best He Check. Here are nominees. Duke, Ludmilla Drago, Barry Tompkins, Sicko the robot, James Brown, Warner Wolf or Marianne Creed. Who do you have, Sal?

I haven't Drago, not eligible. I'm going to go with Marion Creed, who basically just had to look on confused and lovingly as Apollo. I'll never forget that look. Apollo goes one more look to her, and that's it. And he's going to go off to his death. But let's give it up for Marianne, who didn't have much to say before or after that movie. And that gets replaced by Felicia Rashad. So this is her one win.

Yeah. I remember when Dame Judy Dench won the Oscar for, she had like 16 minutes of screen time and they were all perfect. Apollo's wife, Mrs. Creed, those couple lines she has where she says like, I hope so. I hope we can remain friends. And then when she yelled, stop the fight, it's pure terror. And those are tough scenes.

They're like, they're isolated on your face. You do it a couple times and they move on. Every time she talks in this movie, it's great. And I have her above James fucking Brown. I like it that much. Yeah, she doesn't. want to have to take care of those freaking golden retrievers on her own. I need help with this nonsense.

I have, I pick James Brown. It's fair. Yeah. He comes in smoking hot. He just rips off vintage James Brown. At the end, does the kneel and the guy comes in with the bathroom. Does the fist pump to Apollo? It's just magical.

Well, I couldn't he, I thought the only thing that would have made it better, there's no doctor. There's no doctor on call, right? We need a doctor. How many times you have to yell, we need a doctor? If James Brown comes in and starts doing chest compressions, I think that puts him over the top. And why not at that point?

Recasting couch, every part is perfect. I wouldn't recast one piece. I have one suggestion. Okay. What if in the role of Ivan Drago, they could have swung a mid-80s on his way to superstardom, Arnold Schwarzenegger. What if?

I mean, he's already got the accent. I think he's too famous at that point, though, because Terminator had already been out for like a year. 85, I think he did Commando, so he's blowing up. But it would have been Sly versus Arnold. And arguably it would have been a bigger, I mean, definitely would have been a bigger movie. And I think Arnold could have done it. Do you think they had a rivalry?

And that's why Sly wouldn't even consider him. He's like, it's kind of me versus him. It's not going to be me versus him in this movie because then he'll take credit for the success. All that, right? Not only do they have a rivalry. I loved it. Yeah. Half-ass internet research.

Sal, you mentioned this. Sly and Dolf decided they were going to hit each other for real. seemed like a great idea. And then Stallone almost died from a rib shot. Yeah. Which I never really heard of. He got punched so hard in the chest, his heart swelled. Right.

Pressed into his breastbone. And he had blood pressure over 200. Had to get rushed to the hospital. They had to stop the filming for like three weeks. Air lifting from Canada. But that's never happened in real boxing. Right. From Canada to Santa Monica Hospital.

And then he stays there for eight days or they go eight days without shooting. Can you imagine in this day and eight? what that would have done. This movie would have made $500 million. That and in combination with Lundgren and Apollo Creed had, or Lungren and Assy and Carl Weathers had a beef, and they're like where Weathers almost walked off the set, right? Like he was throwing him across the ring too hard.

It's like, oh my God, this is so physical. And then Stallone had a broker piece between the two of them, which that should have been the scene in the credits. They should have been part of that. There was a four-day work stoppage. Yeah. Because Carl Weber's was so mad at Dolph Lundgren and they almost got in a fight. And then they had to talk, Weathers back into it.

Dolph said, I'll tone it down. I think Carl Weathers had to have been pissed. Yeah, sure. Like, really, can't you just, can't I just be in a coma? Right. I can't stay on this crazy. You have to fucking kill me. Yeah.

I know. I have to die. Colma would have to work. Pauli alive. In the Italian dub of the movie, Ivan Dragos line, I must break you, was translated as, I break you in two. Tesbizu and do,

complete with a fake Russian accent. It became the famous quote from the movie in Italy and entered everyday speech there. Wow. So right now there's an Italian Kyle Brandt who's texting his buddies after some football game

saying, to spizu and do and they know what they're talking about. We got a big fantasy matchup this weekend. To spizo and do, bitch. I must break you is so much better than I'll break you into it, right? Training scenes set in Russia, were filmed in Wyoming.

Fight was shot in Vancouver at the P&E Agridome. And then this is great. This is one of the best things I found. Tony Burton, real life accomplished chess player. Really? He defeated on the set of the Shining Stanley Kubrick, who was a master chess guy. They were playing between scenes and he apparently beat him.

So, yeah, when you watch Duke playing chess, There's a little extra intensity there. Took that rushing down easily. All right. Best Apex Mountain maybe we've ever had. Slice Stallone. So in 85, Rocky 4 and Rambo 2 are two of the biggest four movies of that year. I'm going to say yes for him.

Plus he got to marry Brigitte Nielsen, who was pretty hot in this movie. Yeah. I mean, once he got into that demolition man phase commercially, it was really big. That's later. It's significantly later, though. You're in the middle of two franchisans. that you created. And then, Bill, as you know, he tried to create another one with Cobra.

And that was going to be a third franchise where he's a cop. And he could still get that movie made. I actually agree that I think 85, 86 is his apex. What is over the top, 87? That's 87. Yeah, see, here's why it says Apex Mountain, because he, not only is he the biggest, I think he's the biggest star in the world in 85 for movies. He has so much juice that his next two movies are Cobra, which I,

we could talk about that plot for five hours. I still don't know. I don't know who the evil gang was. We're banging X's together. Yeah, I don't know what their incentive was. And then over the top, which is an arm wrestling movie about divorce. Those were his next movie. So how can you have more juice than that?

It's pretty good. I know you put Eddie Murphy, you give him a couple of two years spot as the number one. But this is nipping at the heels, I think. Yeah. So Eddie didn't make a. movie in 85. So I think Stallone, like, grabbed the belt. I don't know. It's a good, good battle. Cold War, Apex Mountain, or would you go with the Cuban missile crisis? Yeah, Adly Stephenson and JFK just working through that thing. I'm terrifying. I also like the movie

War Games as it pertains to that. But I think this is close in terms of movies, for sure. What's a better Cold War movie than this? Like Red Dawn, maybe, would actually come to the United States? But you say, I would say Red Dawn. You said it ended the cold. war, like it was not looked on favorably by, uh, in the Soviet Union, right? This movie, the way they were portrayed. Yeah. Well, they didn't want, they couldn't believe that some American movie had them rooting for Rocky at the end. They were right, what the fuck? I think it got banned in Russia. Um, I still think Cuban missile crisis. Uh, Dolf ongren, yes. Survivor. Hmm. I would say Rocky three for them. Because I had the tiger was a phenomenon.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's got to be. This is a good one. Warner Wolf. It's got to be yes, right? Sal, as you said, he was iconic locally. And was the guy who really paved the way for people to accept wrestling in a lot of ways. He was the first guy to play the clips. Let's go to the videotape.

He had the Warner Wolf show. Oh, that's the guy who said, let's go to the videotape? Let's go to the video tape. I didn't know that. I know that guy. He's a legend. Oh, that's cool. Okay.

Barry Tompkins was also calling fights for HBO during, the beginning of the Tyson era at the time because they didn't bring Lampley in yet. So this has to be his Apex Mountain. Vince DeColo, definitely. Sit-ups off the ceiling, Apex Mountain, Kyle? Well, I would ask Sal, you pointed out the sit-ups earlier. There's two. There's one where he's coming down

the hayloft when Polly's holding onto his feet. And then there's those amazing table sit-ups where he's moving onto the side of the table. I like the hayloft sit-ups. The ones are you referring to, which one were they, Sal? I had the indoors with the fire in the background and just Inside a barn, they have a fire. Inside the barn, right.

Yeah, exactly. That's a good idea. How about your sit-ups? What did you say? It was this apex mountain for sit-ups? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, fire in the barn. I hadn't even thought about that.

That might not be a good idea. It's the equivalent of Tony Soprano shooting a big pussy in a boat and now making a hole in the boat and they're in the ocean. Like 10 times. Yes, exactly. It's funny. There is a wow factor with Stallone in this movie that, you know, like Van Dam and, uh, and blood sport. Sure.

When he has that scene when he's on the balcony and he's just doing a split and it's like, if I lean over two inches, I just fall to my death and he's doing his like, you know, mind yoga stuff. And you're like, wow, that was amazing. The Stallone's sit-ups are like that. And this really, it's like, wow, that's just incredible stuff by Stallone. And that's only like a minute after Van Dan pulls down his maroon briefs to show his perfectly tanned ass.

Like, he's just, he's eating up scenery right then. And Stallone does look good. He's got the Rambo body. He shot the first blood body still just came right into. It looks amazing. That's great. My son asked, my son thinks the Russian national anthem is like secretly the best national anthem. Is this the apex mountain for the Russian national anthem?

Because they play like the whole one. They play the whole song. Or would you go with like a Nikolai Volkov with the Iron Sheik mid-A? What would you go with South? I think it was a year or two earlier. Nikolai Volkov and the Iron Sheik won the titles from, was it Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo? And you would hear Nikolai Volko. Unfortunately, it would get cut off a lot.

And then the Iron Sheek would grab the mic and say, Russia, number one, Iran, number one, USA, and he would spit. There's a couple other better ones, though. I think, first of all, in the original Nintendo ice hockey, when you would play the USSR, they would play the National Anthem. And punt for Red October, there's a glorious scene where they sing it. And Scottish Sean Connery is, let them sing. It's a beautiful scene in the submarine, too.

All right, so maybe not. wet blanket sports movie wives I'm going to say yes you can't win it's suicide yeah what's underrated bill is that she spends the whole first act of the movie also whining at Apollo for taking the fight

right saying why are you doing this now of course she was right but that gets swept under the rug because there's so much heat on Rocky she is more of a wet blanket than Booth is and Teen Wolf and that is like Mount Rushmore territory I don't care what the people on Twitter say it's the little little things with that when she walks away from

the table when Apollo is pleading his case. He gets up as a sign of respect. He gets up. Right, a gentleman. The other two, of course, Paulie's not going to get up. There's just let her go. She doesn't have really a good moment in this movie. Yeah, I know.

She had to have been bum when she got the script. You're going to do it! Tony Burton, Apex Mountain. I'm going to say yes. Good career, by the way. He was definitely a really good working actor, but that speech was phenomenal. Well, you got to show off his chest skills. Why not?

80s robots, Sal? Oh, interesting. What do we have to compare it to? R2D2? Yeah, yeah. Well, that's 70s, though. That's 70s, yeah. Originally, that's true.

It comes back to. Or the Terminator. Oh, right. Johnny 5? Yeah, it's definitely not. Al-Bandiero, I'm going to say yes, because I don't know what else he did. James Brown, no.

Eerie evil 80s synthesizer music. So it's basically Terminator. The scene when the, if he dies, he dies, whatever music's going on there. I think this might be it. This is like the most foreboding evil synthesizer music we created in the 80s. Yeah. Halloween has amazing, that's 1978, I think, the original Halloween movie. terrifying, but the 80s is tough to be.

It's pretty good. Frank Stallone's like, really, I just needed to buy a synthesizer? What the, can't get me in this movie? 80s movie montages. I think maybe just movie montages, Bill. I mean, we've seen spectacular ones. Name a better montage sequence in any movie ever than in the ones in Rocky 4.

I can't think of them. I think this is the one. I think this is the LeBron of montages. When you hit me with the 30%, That is spectacular. And when he's driving with his car, like, who thinks like this? So the montage is one thing if it's a training montage, right? We're just seeing it.

But the montage when he's driving in his car, these are the thoughts that are going through your head, right? How are you able to drive and think of Adrian at the pet store and then you get in your ass kicked by Clubberlang and then you burying your trainer? Like, you would not, you'd have to pull over to the side of the road. You would not be able to take it. It's fair. Picking Nets.

we've picked some nits already, but should Drago have faced murder charges for Apollo's death? Oh, interesting. Could that have been a move for a Vegas district attorney trying to make a name for himself? Yeah, like the Saul Goodman

of Las Vegas, yeah. Listen, if Miles Garrett does not get assault charges for caving in Mason Rudolph's head, I don't think he can do it to Drago. Fair. The Vegas law, the Vegas thing, when OJ went to jail for a few years for just threatening to get his memorabilia back.

Yes, you would figure that the nasty Russian might be brought up on a banslaughter charges. Polly in this movie, Sal, so not an alcoholic anymore or has it more under control? Was he in a program? How did this work with him? It didn't work with him. And I feel bad because he was like the Jim Carrey of 1986.

He was the physical comedian. We have to do the Polly. Okay, so the first big Pauley physical comedy moment is the kid spraying whipped cream in his face, right? Yeah. And then the second moment is a lazy fall on the snow. And it's like, all right, great. You did it. Yeah, he like repeats. They use the same line. They kind of loop it over and over. Bert Young, there you go. He's got, he's the physical comedian. Yeah. By the way, I didn't have Bert Young for Apex Mountain because it's back to school with Rodney Dangerfield. God damn right. It's one of the great characters in the 80s. And we'll be doing that

movie at some point here. Another picking nits. True fact. Soviet heavyweight's not allowed to box professional fighters during the Cold War. This movie took some liberties with that one. Really? Just was not allowed. Yeah. Ah, okay. We talked about how they didn't explain why Rocky didn't defend the belt and

mentioned how there was the scene where he visits the U.S. boxing board. It's in the trailer. My guess, so Stallone directed this and was obviously at his height of vanity. There must have been something he didn't like about how his face looked in the boxing board scene. because there's no other reason to cut it. It's not like this movie was too long. It's an hour and a half. It's such an important way to advance the plot.

They're just like, nah, use the newspaper clipping. It's good. And then there's some major picky nits with the time in this movie. So Adrian says to Apollo when she's talking about fighting that he's been retired for nearly five years. Rocky says earlier when he brings Adrian the terrible bracelet, that they've been married for nine years. But in Rocky, too, they get married,

and then he fights Apollo basically within a couple months of the marriage, right? Right. So if he's been retired for nearly five years, did Apollo have other fights after the second Rocky fight? Interesting. I think he had a couple other ones. And Rocky still makes sense.

Because Rocky comes back with a Shiner, right? That's the very first scene. So he's training for something. I guess. Well, some people think that's the end of Rocky 3 when he comes back with the Shiner, which also doesn't make sense. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Time is just all over the place, not to mention Rocky 4, he comes home and his son is 8 years older, and we'll never know what happens Rocky 4 to Rocky 5. Yeah.

Where his son becomes a teenager overnight. We see him. He's with his three friends. He's eight. One of the many reasons Rock 5 never happened. But I never understood the time continuity in this. Any other nitpicks for you guys that we haven't mentioned? We talked about no doctor on site for the... No doctor's at a fight. Somebody call the doctor. You're in a boxing ring, dude. Yeah, where is he?

There's no nitpicks. I want to go over the odds, though. I would love to go over odds. I got that coming. Which is quickly, best quote, I'll give you these five. Throw the damn towel. What started out as a joke has turned into a disaster.

You can't win. He's chopping the rushing down. If I could change, you can change. Everyone can change. What's your favorite quote of the movie, In this giffable time of ours, I love, throw the damn towel! I love it. I had that as well.

Yeah, I'm in that too, and that's a, I think I've used that gift three times. Oh, sure. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? No. Probably an answerable question. All right, Sal. Quibi, maybe, no? Quibi, R-I-P.

R-P, Quibi and Apollo. All right, Sal, what was the gambling line of Drago Creed? Okay. Exhibition. Here's the thing. It's an exhibition. What was it supposed to be? How many rounds was it supposed to be?

Do we know? We never find out. I think 10 rounds. Oh, was it supposed to be a 10 round exhibition? Okay. He was unproven. He's a magnificent specimen, but unproven in that he's never really fought anyone. And he's going against.

Now, in real life, he's 28. Lundgren and Callweathers is 39. Do I have the math right there? Or he's 38, 10 year difference. I would say Drago a slight favorite, only 180,

minus 180. Well, I guess it comes down to what happened with those mystery fights that Apollo had after the second Balboa fight where it's like, did he lose to an up-and-coming club or Lang? Like,

what was going on there? Right. What do you have, Kyle? For the odds? I don't speak that language. Okay. I don't know.

You guys tell me I'm deferring. If South says minus 180, that's what I'll go. Maybe it's light. What do you think, Phil? I think Apollo's favored because I think the Drago's unproven. And we always see this. We always talk about this as a betting angle with boxing or MMA. The older guy who you basically pass performance makes the person a bigger favorite than they should be.

Gotcha. And I just think he'd be like a minus 150 favorite. But then late, right before the fight, Drago action. some betting syndicates come in and boom that line. So then the next, can we go back one? I don't want to do really, but I just love this. The favor fight. What's the line on the favor fight?

I taught you everything you know. You taught me everything you know, almost everything. I would say Rocky minus 130 because he's been training. Apollo hasn't been training, right? Yeah, but this is what Apollo's had in his mind for how we have no idea. So Apollo might want it more, but I think you're right. I think minus 150 right in there. What do you have for Drago Balboa?

Drago Balboa. In Russia. Yeah. It has to be. Heavy, right? Yes, because this man punches three times as hard as the normal right or that that in itself and that he almost killed a guy. And if we're saying Rocky and Apollo are about minus 150, 180 if they fight each other,

I'm going minus 750. 50. Wow. Maybe higher. What do you think? I was going to say minus 550. And I also think young Sal parley's Drago with some favorite of that NFL week.

Crazy, crazy bowl game. I can't believe you like, how did I lose a Drago? He was up 17 points of the card. It's on Christmas. I have like 14 Moneyline Parley bowl games with Drago. It was the 85 Bears. So, you know, they're playing the Packers. Heavy favorites have to take that out.

Oh, my God. Kyle, how high was the mountain that Stallone climb? Like, you're honest guess. Not like the fun. Oh, it was 20,000 feet. How high actually was it? Because I was looking at it. I think it's like 12,000 would be my guess.

Well, I'll make a regional reference. If you were to take Runyon Canyon and go to the top part of Runyon where all the dog shit is and the actors and stack like, I think like it's eight Runyon canyons. Like, it's at least eight. And I think we tapped onto it. Like, how long does it take him to work? walk down that mountain. And does the search party eventually go out looking for Balboa in Siberia? Because that's really, there's like got to be wolves and shit out there too, right?

Like that could have gotten icy. Plus frostbite. Yeah. He's not exactly. He's not exactly. He's wet. He's got no hat on. Sweatting his ass off.

He's running through rivers. Terrible idea. I change my mind. That's the most ridiculous. I know. I know. It's outrageous that it would happen. It would never happen.

Uh-huh. Sal, Ludmilla Drago's swimming career alluded to at the top. I saw that. What do you think? Were the world records? And do we think she cheated with steroids?

This is the height of the steroid swimmer. I'm guessing she probably had a world record or two and maybe a gold medal in 80. They took it away? No, they kept it because you could cheat back then. Are Russians, I don't even know with female Russian swimmers. Do they thrive? I don't know. Kyle, what sport?

You think she was backstroke? Was everything medley? What do you think she was? 100% butterfly. all shoulders, all deltoids. I actually looked it up, and the Russians did win many gold medals in swimming throughout the 80s. Really? And I do think she roided.

There's a subtext during the press conference, and one of the reporters says, how do you account for Drago's great strength? Are there steroids? And she has this, like, really tense look over to Nikolai. She's a user too. Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, wow.

100%. Um, Rocky and Apollo. This was a question I got in a mailbag way back when. Was this the original? bromance, sell. Oh, interesting. Let me think about that for a second. Yeah, I think so.

Although he was very upset with him most of the time. If you think about their relationship, he was mostly yelling at Rocky. Right? I don't know. Yeah. Love, hate. I was thinking it might be bosom buddies because those guys live together and dressed and drag to be around girls and save some money.

Maybe that was in Hank's and Peter Scolari. I don't know. I don't know the answer. Kyle? Bush Cassidy and Bush and Sundance, maybe. That's a good one. Yeah, no, that's it. Let's run into bullets.

You're my guy. That's the answer. Butch and Sundance. Sal, is this a better movie if Adrian changes her mind before the Drago flight decides to fly to Russia, but the KGB shoots down her plane? Better or worse movie? Yes, although you can't get that. Well, okay.

What makes the movie? Is it the end line we could all come together? Because that is out the window. True. If the plane goes down. Shit, I would like it better. Yeah, you're right. That does screw up the speech.

I would like it better. Kyle, what do you think? I like that movie. I don't think we take them both out. Apollo, Adrian, the kid gets killed. It's just rock. That's it. All right.

All right. This is, I know, I'll save this one for the end. Kyle, what was the final scorecard heading into the 15th round? Okay. So it's 15 rounds, 10, 10, 9 if you win the round, 108 if there's knockdowns, and 107 if there's multiple knockdown. Okay. So do we think that Rocky won the round with the cut?

Because he was probably knocked down several times in that round as he was each, but he just finishes with a flourish. So that's really, all the other rounds are 108, or I don't even know if they do 107. but I do think that Rocky wins that round. So 14, I think it's 14. I don't even know how to do the math. I know Drago wins every round 10 to 8 except obviously the final round and then the cut round. I think he loses 10 to 9.

What do you think, Sal? 139, 126. I had, I figured, I tried to figure it out. I had 135 to 109 heading into, I gave Drago every round. Every round, even the cut round. Yeah. Because he got, Rocky got knocked down seven times in the round. Crowd still turned on it.

Crowd turned on me. It was a 26 point lead going into the last round. Crowd dates him. So what were the CompuBox numbers was something that we always joked about this movie? And then Compu boxes, Dan Canibio actually tried to figure it out. Really? According to his data, in the first three minutes, Drago landed 61 of 72 punches, 71% of his jabs.

Rocky, after he opens the cut, lands 17 of 18. Wow. And then Rocky finishes the fight by landing 36 of 37 punches to finish it off. So that's all we have. Is this the greatest? A lot of people in Stallone hails us as the greatest fight. That was the greatest movie fight of all time. Because they were really hitting each other.

I guess. I mean, there were still plenty of shots that you could tell we're fake. Many, many you could tell. There's also a part of the end where, we're, Balboa just does the ultimate warrior thing where he's like, just lets you, you can hit me and it doesn't bother me. He just drops his gloves

and just takes the punches. Right. It's insane. That was always Rocky's weirdest move, which was basically, I can't feel your pain anymore. Right. So come on, man.

Come on. And the guy would just tee off. Ten times in a row, right in the face. It's fine. It's a strategy. Yeah, he puts his hand atop clubberlangs Mohawk,

like to measure him, but not do anything. Last question. question. This is going to break your brains. Okay. Kyle. Yeah. What piece of memorabilia would you most want to own from this movie? You could have anything in it. They've saved everything.

Okay. Well, I would take two, my 10th anniversary with my wife, and I would give her the snake watch that Rocky gives Adrian at the beginning. And I have a theory. I mentioned earlier, the Aviator shades that Rocky wears to his best friend's funeral. I looked on the Google images. I think those are the exact same shades that he wears in cobra. So those things are now iconic. And Bill, just to get a little meta with it, you mentioned now that he did Rocky 4, he allowed him to do Cobra. Now that you're doing Rocky 4 on rewatchables, does it enable you to do Cobra on rewashedibles? Because that's well past time. Wow. The answer is obviously yes. Yes, sir. Great choices about, I thought you would go for the treadmill, though. I was expecting

Really good. Put that in your place. Sal, what do you have? You can have anything. Anything from this movie? If Polly's liver is unavailable, I am going to, my answer is different from what would fetch the most

if you had it at an auction. I think some of the things that Kyle brought up and you've brought up would be pricier. I want the bloody towel. Oh, that's a great one. I want the bloody towel. It's like Kurt Schilling sock. Schilling sock.

It's the same kind of thing. That's great. Yeah. So do you think that? a bloody towel would have the highest financial upside. No, I don't. I think you can make a case. It would.

Really? Because you could have like, they'd have the picture of Stallone holding the towel signed by Stallone, authenticating that this was the actual thing. That's pretty good. I thought you were going to say the robot. Well, if the robot, yeah, I know. How much would the robot go for?

I guess it's a lot. Depends on which voice it has. The sexy voice. The other stuff you could say are like the gloves. The trunks. that yeah the trunks James Brown's robe yeah after he does his thing the towel is good

I'm in on the towel if there was a way to authenticate this was the towel from throw the damn towel that has to be the best prop right? Yeah I'll take the mountain too but shipping would be really all right guys who won the movie this for me

I think you walk out of this movie or if you see it for the first time in your living room, the second it ends. All you're thinking about is, holy shit, Drago was amazing. I think it's Dolph Lundgren, totally unproven newcomer, but you leave that movie, being like, that guy is a movie star and some sort of muscle-bound alien. We've seen a lot of other people in it. I think Dolph Lundgren won the movie. It's funny because if you came out of this movie, you would have thought he would have been

the next guy, right? Like, somehow Van Dime, Market corrected him. You're right. Like, why wasn't Dolf Lungren in Bloodsport? Yeah. He tried. He did a few things, Red Scorpion, and then he's doing Punisher and all that shit, but he didn't have the major movies. Like, Van Damme, he didn't get to do Time Cop, put it that way. He was too smart, too, right? He had other shit going on. And he was like, I really don't need this. But yeah, it didn't afford itself. I'm with you. I say Lungrin, only because, you know, obviously Stallone's great in all these movies. Let's go movie villains of all time. If you put Darth Vader 1, if you go throw Freddie Kruger in there, Drago is top. three or four of all time. So he's got up on the movie. That's pretty good. I had, it was either Drago or America as my final. The United States of America. America wins. Because, you know, the patriotism from this movie, I think it really banded us together and ended the Cold War. But I'm

with you. I think it was Ivan Drago. Wow, Sal, the bloody towel thing really. Really? This is why you're one of the best. This is why you're elite. That was a great one. I thought you were going to say the robot and you just come out of nowhere the bloody towel. This was great. So fun. You know, if we can change and they can change.

Then what? Yeah. I mean, just an iconic, awesome movie. Kyle Brandt, thank you. Sal, thank you. Good to see you guys. Good job by you. Yeah, too.