“I’m Going to Hell Now”: Sylvester Stallone Opens Up on His Boxing Practice With Pope Francis in Vatican City

Sylvester Stallone was never a real boxer, but that didn’t stop him from becoming one of the biggest icons in the sport. What began in 1976 with ‘Rocky’ resulted in a series of highly successful movies that delighted boxing fans everywhere. However, in a recent pinch, the legendary actor revealed why he shadow-boxed the pope!

The boxing movies he is so famous for are a thing of the past, and now he is focused on his latest appearance on the screen, albeit not the big screen. In recent times, Stallone has been busy with his reality show ‘The Family Stallone.’ It follows the daily life of Stallone’s family members. So, while promoting his show on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, which aired on YouTube yesterday, he spilled the beans on the time he shadowboxed the pope.

Sylvester Stallone was trying out the “Pope-a-dope thing”

Speaking about Stallone’s TV Show, Jimmy brought up how the latest season of Stallone’s show was shot in Italy during a big family vacation, leading to the Pope incident. In classic Talk Show fashion, Stallone responded with humor at first. He quipped, “[I was] Doing the Pope-a-dope thing,” referring to Ali’s rope-a-dope technique. 

This sent the entire live audience present in the room into a fit of laughter. So, the Hollywood star stated, “I’m going to hell now,” for making the sarcastic joke. However, when probed further about the incident with the Pope, Stallone decided to set the jokes aside and come out clean about the Pope incident. 

Stallone revealed, “The Pope, God love him, you know, [he] looks about 150. You know, on a good day. So he comes, and he goes, ‘I grew up watching your movies.’ I’m going…I’m like, ‘What?’” Upon revealing that even the Pope was a big fan of his, the ‘Rocky’ star was so excited that he decided to show the Pope some moves from the movie right there in the Vatican. 

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Stallone later added, “It’s the truth. He was fantastic, he had such a great humor. [He] takes a great body shot, he does.” In addition, the second season of his reality TV Show will air on February 21 on Paramount+. The show first aired on 17 May 2023 and has managed to get 89% approval from critics on Rotten Tomatoes while securing a decent score of 6.5 on IMDB.

As Sylvester Stallone gears up to release the second season of his reality TV show, he shared a glimpse from the show when he visited the Pope in the Vatican and shadow-boxed him. What are your thoughts on the matter? Are you eager to watch him shadowbox the pope?

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