Rocky (lost deleted scenes of boxing drama film; 1976)

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Theatrical poster.

Status: Lost

Before the release of the 1976 modern classic boxing drama, Rocky, that catapulted star/writer Sylvester Stallone into superstardom, director John G. Avildsen deleted several scenes from the film, the most notable ones are:

In the "women weaken legs" scene, it continues as it shows a television news crew coming in to interview Rocky at the gym, only to have Apollo Creed and his team arrive to show it was a publicity stunt. As Apollo playfully insults Rocky and hypes the upcoming fight, Dipper (the young upstart boxer who took Rocky's locker) walks up and challenges Rocky to a fight right in front of Apollo and the cameras, claiming that Rocky has taken his heavyweight contender chances away. Dipper then tells Rocky to then bow down and kiss his feet, and Rocky responds by punching him in the ribs, breaking them and laying him out on the floor. Apollo then begins to consider that he's up against more than he bargained for. Call sheets for the latter half of the scene don't seem to exist, along with behind the scenes photos of the scene which shows a visibly upset Avildsen arguing with the producers, which leads one to believe that the rest of the scene may not have been shot for time or money purposes.
In the scene after Adrian presents Rocky with Butkus, the dog, she then talks to Rocky about the hate mail he's been receiving, she then reveals that she's bought him a custom-made shirt reading "WIN, ROCKY, WIN", which he would then be seen wearing during his training in Mickey's gym (which was also cut).
The original ending, which would've had Rocky and Apollo's fans carrying them out of the ring on their shoulders after Apollo's narrow victory. Rocky then goes backstage looking for Adrian. He finds her behind the curtain at the back of the arena, and the two walk off hand in hand towards the dressing room. Ultimately, Stallone found this scene unsatisfying, and so reshoots were done a week or so later with the now memorable ending. Despite this, the portrait of Rocky and Adrian walking off together was the widely used poster shot.

Many years after the film was released, around 1990, Stallone claims that he made inquiries to MGM as to whether he could use some of the deleted footage for the then-upcoming Rocky V. MGM responded that those scenes along with all the other deleted Rocky material had been incinerated sometime in the 1980s. So it is highly unlikely that this footage will ever surface.

Gallery

Rare color photo of the deleted scene between Rocky and Dipper.
Rare photo of a deleted scene between Rocky and Adrian.
Rare photo from the original ending.