Tony Bellew nearly got into a real fight while playing ‘Pretty’ Ricky Conlan in the first Creed film.
The former WBC cruiserweight champion launched a new career in acting when he signed up to play a major role in the Rocky spin-off, which has spawned three movies and included an expensive cameo from Canelo Alvarez.
Tony Bellew famously rocked Michael B. Jordan when he caught the actor with a punch during filming.
That was an accident, but there was someone else on set who ‘The Bomber’ tried to fight for real.
Tony Bellew recalls real fight on Creed set
In March 2015, it was reported that Tony Bellew had attacked one of his castmates on the Creed set.
The heavy-handed Englishman has finally explained his side of the story more than a decade later.
“I nearly had a fight at Creed 1. A real fight, yeah,” Bellew said on the Winners Talking podcast.
“There was another boxer there. I was doing the knockdown [scene], where I get knocked down in Creed 1, round 12. He said, ‘Take the shot better’, and I wasn’t having a good day.
“He said it to me with an attitude. Once again, brother thought he was from the only place that has ghettos in the world. He thought he could speak to people disrespectfully or whatever. I said, ‘Who are you talking to?’ He said, Yo, I don’t like your attitude.’
“Boom! I jumped out of the ring and went for him. Sylvester Stallone was in between us.
“I was like, ‘I’m gonna kill this guy’. The set got shut down for an hour.
“The set at that stage was $300,000 a day… I f—– it up for an hour because I was going to kill this kid.”
Tony Bellew went after the wrong guy?
Malik Bazille, who played a character named Amir in the first Creed film, has outed himself as the man Tony Bellew tried to attack.
According to the boxer, comedian, and actor, Bellew’s anger towards him was a case of mistaken identity.
“We’re on the set of Creed and the studio heads are there, it’s a long 14-hour day,” Bazille said on The Fighter and The Kid podcast in 2021.
“Ryan Coogler – the director – he’d do these weird spots where he would watch playback and this time he was under the ring, no one can see him.”
From his position out of view, Coogler barked directions at Bellew by repeatedly telling him to ‘Sell the body shot’, which the now-retired boxer thought was coming from an overzealous and disrespectful background actor.
Bazille continued: “We cut. I’m chilling and talking to the extras. I’m chopping it up and he goes, ‘Malik, don’t ever tell me to f—— sell a body shot. I know how to f—— sell a body shot’.”
After that, Bellew jumped out of the ring, carnage ensued, and the cops were called.
Bazille concluded: “Literally, people called the press, the police, because the extras thought, ‘Oh, we love Malik, Malik looked like he was about to get killed’.
“I was in the trailer. We had to be separated the whole day. We had to go in separate vans back to the hotel, we stayed in the same hotel.
“This is the funny part of the story. I’m in the front seat and I’ve got security and all that. Andre Ward goes, ‘How does it feel when you’re about to get you’re a– beat and still survive?’”