6 New Details Arnold & Sly Reveal About Their Feud

Netflix’s Arnold revisits the famous box-office feud between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone and reveals new details about their various battles. The 1980s gave rise to action movies that put a much greater emphasis on the physicality of their stars. In a sense, Stallone led the way thanks to First Blood and Rocky III, where he proudly displayed his oiled-up muscles while speaking as little as possible. The likes of Chuck Norris and Dolph Lundgren would follow a similar formula, but without any doubt, Stallone’s biggest feud was with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

There were the kings of action cinema during the ’80s and most of the ’90s, with the pair starring in high-concept blockbusters featuring no end of explosions, one-liners and testosterone. If Stallone killed X amount of bad guys in one movie, Schwarzenegger seemed to kill double that number in his next project. Arnold even tricked Stallone into his worst movieStop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, which was offered to him first; he feigned interest, knowing Stallone would pursue it. Netflix’s Arnold docuseries explores just how bitter their rivalry became at its peak.

Related: Sylvester Stallone Admits Arnold Schwarzenegger Was The Box Office Champion

6 Arnold Made Stallone His “Enemy”

Arnold explores both Schwarzenegger’s childhood and bodybuilding career and examines where his competitive streak came from. When he was growing up in Austria with his brother Meinhard, their father used to make them compete over just about everything. This included “earning” breakfast by exercising to picking the best flowers for their mother on Mother’s Day. This instilled a fierce urge to be the best in whatever he attempted, so whenever he came in second during a bodybuilding competition, he saw this as a failure. When he lost a Mr. Olympia to rival Sergio Oliva, he then made Oliva “the enemy” in his mind so could beat him the next year.

After Schwarzenegger found success with Conan The Barbarian and the original Terminator movie, he then made Stallone his next enemy. To his mind, Stallone was ahead of him by around a decade, so he needed to make up for lost time. In Arnold, Stallone also recalls meeting Schwarzenegger for the first time in 1977 after the latter won “Best Newcomer” for Stay Hungry, with Sly being thoroughly unimpressive by his future foe. Their mutual dislike would power many of their films in the years that followed.

5 Stallone Felt Threatened By Arnold

In Arnold’s second episode, Stallone gives an interesting analysis of action cinema before the ’80s. In previous decades, movies tended to revolve around dialogue scenes with one major car chase – like Steve McQueen’s Bullitt – or action beat thrown in. He believes First Blood was one of the first major action movies that told a story physically, with the near-mute Rambo primarily communicating with his expressions or body. Stallone felt that kind of action movie was his domain alone, and felt threatened by the arrival of Schwarzenegger into the same arena.

More than that, Stallone was irritated by Schwarzenegger’s “superior” onscreen persona. Whereas Sly’s heroes like Rambo or Rocky would get seriously injured or even tortured – which Stallone felt was important for eliciting empathy – Arnold tended to breeze through many of his movies. He always came out on top and with a funny quip, with Stallone stating Arnie’s characters could fight a dragon and walk away with only a band-aid to show for it.

4 Arnold & Stallone Competed Over EVERYTHING

In past interviews, both Schwarzenegger and Stallone have opened up about how competitive they got in their action movie heyday. Arnold covers some details that were previously known, such as how they would try to top each in terms of bodycount or who had the best body or muscles. Arnold digs even deeper, revealing the two were competitive down to the smallest details. If one of them looked particularly oiled up and sweaty in one film, their rival would be even more oiled up and sweatier the next time around.

If Stallone fired a single-shot rocket launcher in Rambo: First Blood Part II, Arnold wielded a four-barrel bazooka in Commando. The almost Freudian desire to don bigger guns led to Stallone firing a gigantic 12.7mm Heavy Machine Gun in Rambo 3. If Sly killed someone with a big knife in Rambo, Arnie then had to slaughter somebody with a machete in Predator, and so on. In one sense, this competition was quite petty and egotistical, but there’s something almost charming about just how petty it became.

3 Arnold & Stallone Couldn’t Stand To Be In The Same Room

If anyone thought the rivalry between Arnie and Sly was somewhat good-natured or blown out of proportion by the press, Arnold dispels that myth. Stallone is upfront about the fact they disliked one another so fiercely they couldn’t even stand to be in the same room, and that people would need to keep them apart. This is in sharp contrast to their present-day relationship, where they’re good friends; there are even four Schwarzenegger/Stallone movies, which were all produced in the 2010s. During the ’80s or ’90s, the thought of the two appearing together was almost unimaginable.

2 Stallone Admits Arnold “Won” Their Box-Office Fight

Now their former feud is long dead, the two stars talk about each other quite fondly in Arnold. Stallone even admits that Schwarzenegger won their box-office battle, stating that in the latter’s attempts to be number one, “… unfortunately, he got there!” Arnold believes his career peaked with 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which grossed over $500 million and was the biggest movie in the world. For comparison, Stallone’s biggest movie during the ’90s was Cliffhanger, which earned over $250 million.

1 Arnold Credits Stallone For His Success

Going back to Schwarzenegger’s need for an enemy to push himself, he believes his feud with Stallone was ultimately a major help in his career. He was envious of Sly’s success, and this is what pushed him to make the kinds of movies he made and work so hard. While it may have largely come out of ego and pride, Arnold and Stallone essentially pushed one another to achieve greater success. There’s a reason much of their ’80s and ’90 output became so iconic, and franchises like Predator, Rambo and Terminator have endured so long.