Rocky IV almost killed me, Sylvester Stallone says of punch that put him in ICU for four days
Certain that he would soon be 'talking to the angels,' he was flown from Vancouver to a California hospital
“He pulverized me,” Sly Stallone says of the massive punch from Dolph Lundgren that got him square in the chest, slamming his heart against his breastbone.
But Stallone, now 75, says “I got really injured during the fight and I had to be flown into intensive care to California from Canada.” Filming of the Soviet fight scene was being done in Vancouver’s PNE Agrodome.
“I didn’t feel (the punch) in the moment, but later that night my heart started to swell,” he says. “My blood pressure went up to 260 and I was going to be talking to angels, next thing I know I’m on this emergency, low-altitude flight.”
Stallone says he stayed in a Santa Monica hospital intensive care unit for four days — some reports say eight days — before returning to film the rest of the final fight scene. He decided to leave the punch to his chest in the movie: “How could you take that out?”
However, producer Irwin Winkler describes the incident in his autobiography, saying that “Sly took a punch from a stand-in fighter and ended up in the emergency room with his blood pressure dangerously high.”