Joe Frazier lost part as Clubber Lang in ‘Rocky III’ after Stallone needed stitches
If Sylvester Stallone would have gotten his way in the 1980s, Rocky III would have had Philly’s most famous fictional fighter going toe-to-toe with the city’s most beloved real-life heavyweight boxing champ.
Only problem is, Joe Frazier beat up Stallone too badly to be in the flick.
As Stallone explained in a recent Instagram post, the star hoped to cast Frazier as Clubber Lang, Rocky III’s villain, who was ultimately portrayed by Mr. T (a.k.a. Laurence Tureaud). Stallone initially “thought we should use a real fighter just to push the envelope to where fighting films had never gone before.”
“I decided to use the legendary heavyweight champion from Philadelphia, Smokin' Joe Frazier,” Stallone wrote. “He wanted the part very badly and believe me, I wanted him to get it too. Smokin' Joe Frazier fighting Rocky! This would be seriously entertaining — actually unbelievable!”
However, a brief audition/sparring match resulted in six stitches for the Rocky star changed Stallone's mind. The star compared entering a boxing ring with Frazier to “going into a lions cage covered in steak sauce and asking, ‘how do you think I will taste?’”
“I felt bad for Joe and did not want him to hurt his hands anymore and decided to call it a day,” Stallone wrote. “In retrospect, It was a wonderful afternoon meeting the legendary Joe Frazier and getting six stitches but it was also a brilliant realization that I needed someone like Mr. T in my life.”
While he didn’t get to beat Rocky on screen, Frazier did make an appearance in the franchise. Smokin’ Joe can be seen in the first Rocky, where he makes a cameo during Rocky’s fight against Apollo Creed, who tells Frazier “You’re next, Joe.”
Rocky III was released in May 1982, and became the fourth highest-grossing film that year, pulling in more than $124 million at the domestic box office, according to Box Office Mojo. The film also resulted in the installation of the famous bronze Rocky statue, which Stallone had commissioned for the film, at the top of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Frazier passed away in November 2011 after a battle with liver cancer. Philadelphia unveiled a statue of the heavyweight champion boxer outside Xfinity Live! in South Philly in September 2015.
Stallone followed up his Frazier post with another flashback from Rocky III —an anecdote that had the actor/director doing handstands to “get some blood back into my head” in order to “carry-on with the complicated fight choreography”:
