Sylvester Stallone Says Arnold Schwarzenegger “Was Superior”: “He Had The Body, He Had The Strength”

Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger are best known for their action movies from the 80s. As part of the Netflix docuseries Arnold, Stallone is recalling his former bitter rivalry with Schwarzenegger and giving him props.

“The ’80s was a very interesting time because the definitive ‘action guy’ had not really been formed yet,” Stallone says. “Up until that time, action was a car chase like Bullitt or The French Connection, and a film all about intellect and innuendo and verbal this and verbal that.”

Stallone determines that it was with First Blood, released in 1982, that action movies changed saying, “You actually relied upon your body to tell the story. Dialogue was not necessary. I saw that there was an opportunity, ’cause no one else was doing this… except some other guy from Austria, who doesn’t need to say much.”

The Rocky star was referring to Schwarzenegger who acknowledged that he was propelled to best himself adding, “Every time he came out with a movie like Rambo II, I had to figure out a way of now outdoing that.” 

With films like The Terminator and Commando, Schwarzenegger became Stallone’s rival and “became incredibly competitive.” Stallone said they were like Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier “or great warriors that are traveling the same course: There was only room for one of us.”

Although they were both action stars, Stallone gives the edge to Schwarzenegger saying, “He was superior. He just had all the answers. He had the body. He had the strength. That was his character.”

“I had to get my ass kicked constantly, whereas Arnold, he never got hurt much,” Stallone added. “And I’m going, ‘Arnold, you could go out and fight a dragon and you’d come back with a Band-Aid.’” 

Schwarzenegger pointed out that “without Stallone, I maybe wouldn’t have been as motivated in the ’80s to do the kind of movies that I did and to work as hard as I did. I’m a competitive person.”