The Rocky franchise has a long line of memorable villains. From Apollo Creed to Clubber Lang, Rocky has gone up against some greats. Though perhaps his greatest opponent ever came in the form of Ivan Drago, who hailed from the Soviet Union. Not only was the dude a force to be reckoned with, physically, but he also managed to kill off friend and former rival, Apollo Creed, prompting a grudge match for the ages that still holds up today (even if Rocky IV as a whole doesn’t).

Drago was wonderfully (and stoically) portrayed by Dolph Lundgren, and given the history of the film and character, you know there was a lot of pressure in the upcoming Creed II, which will see his son, Viktor Drago, step into the ring with Adonis Creed, in a grudge match that spans two generations. But who could they possibly get who could match Lundgren as such an imposing figure?

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They decided to go with Romanian kickboxer Florian Munteanu for the job — a non-actor. So why did they decide to go with someone with no acting experience for this job? Speaking with IGN, writer and star Sylvester Stallone gave his reasons:

“Well, [Munteanu] unbelievable. You’ve heard these stories and most of them are usually BS, how they have these talent searches, and ‘we looked at 4000 people.’ No, you didn’t. We looked at like maybe 40, okay. But we looked at every large heavyweight in the world because you couldn’t use an actor. An actor can’t learn. In other words, we have Michael who’s an actor, so you need someone in there who has experience. Dolph Lundgren was a world champion kickboxer, so when you saw him move, it’s something you just cannot learn in a year.”

This quote means one important thing. That we can expect these fights to feel just as brutal and hard-hitting as anything we’ve ever seen. Very often in sports films, you can fudge the overall strength of the villains, but in this one, I imagine we’ll be fearing for Adonis’ life.

From the sound of it, Viktor will be a cut-and-dry villain, but don’t think it won’t at least have the slightest bit of ambiguity to him. Stallone continued:

“I looked into his eyes and I liked him. Even though he’s playing a terrible character, so there’s an ambiguity in there. I cannot tell you how many men, you know, were incredible specimens but the face wasn’t right, the look in the eyes. The body wasn’t right. But to get the whole package, that’s one of a kind. And I looked at everybody.”

Is it November yet? I’m ready to see this movie!

Do Stallone’s quotes get you any more excited for Creed II‘s November 21, 2018 release? Let us know down below!

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SOURCE: IGN