Steve Austin Talks Stallone Botching Their Fight Scene

This summer Steve Austin spoke with fitness instructor C.T. Fletcher about various topics, mostly on working out and manly motivation.  Austin and Fletcher got around to movie talk and boxing, at which point Austin recalled an anecdote from the first (and best) Expendables movie.  His fight with Sly Stallone was a tough one.

A long time ago I had this little chump change part in The Expendables.  I was in a fight camp, down there in New Orleans.  For three weeks, man, I’m sweating my motherfucking ass off learning the fight.  And he’s [Stallone] a cool dude, right?  So I’m number 32 on the call sheet, he’s number 31.  He directed it, he wrote it, he starred in it.  You saw the fight scene they put together, so Sly could look at it.  Well I’m in there learning that fucking fight scene like Einstein equals MC squared.  So when we went down to that dungeon, that old bunker in New Orleans, I knew the fight.  But see here’s the thing, Sly approved the fight, but he didn’t know fight.  So when we started, we butted heads.  And I put a gash in his head, he needed two stitches in his head.  But see here’s the thing, when number 31 and number 32 butt heads in a fight, it’s number 32’s fault [laughs].  So fighting for the camera really is a pain in the ass for me.

Tough, but good.  But it kind of highlighted the flaws of the other movies.  Barney Ross got beaten up by Dan Paine, but didn’t have too much trouble with Mel Gibson or Jean Claude Van Damme…? Cool movie though, the first Expendables.  A real treat.