Watch: Rare ‘Rocky’ Behind The Scenes Fight Choreography Footage With Stallone and Carl Weathers

Rocky never-before-seen footage has recently emerged showing the two main actors in the classic film choreographing their climatic heavyweight bought. See embed below.

Rocky, the low-budget boxing opus written by and starring Sylvester Stallone in the title role, and Carl Weathers as Heavyweight Champ Apollo Creed, was nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 1976. It won three: Best Picture, Best Director (John Avildsen), and Best Film Editing. The highest grossing film of that year, Rocky also spawned five sequels.

Many film fans feel the best of the sequels was Rocky III, in which Rocky Balboa goes toe-to-toe with “Clubber Lang” (portrayed by Mr. T).

Stallone, now 66, has launched a new action movie franchise with The Expendables, and a musical version of Rocky is scheduled to arrive on Broadway in 2014.

If you’ve ever watched any of the “making of” documentaries for an action film, you know that fight sequences have to be carefully planned and rehearsed for a variety of reasons such as proper camera angles, flow, and safety of the principals, who likely have spent months training before cameras started rolling. The original Rocky — which transformed Sly Stallone into a Hollywood superstar — was no different. As the Geektyrant website explains, “Fight choreography videos are always cool to watch because you never truly appreciate the amount of work that goes into the final sequence you see on screen. Boxing movies are almost equally as captivating because you can’t improvise the outcome. Every move has to have meaning and a result or the fight will look fake. So actors have to memorize round by round what they’re going to do. It can really grill an actor both mentally and physically, especially when you’re simultaneously directing the film.”

Rocky was officially inducted in the US National Film Registry and has been named in several lists as one of the best films of all time.

Watch Sylvester Stallone and Carl Weathers practice their boxing moves in this rare Rocky behind-the-scenes footage:

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