Al Bernstein was excited to feature in Rocky II, before he was banned from doing so.
In his Hall of Fame career, the American has cemented his status as one of the greatest commentators of all time.
His palpable passion for the sport plays a prominent role in making fights so exciting, which is exactly why Sylvester Stallone wanted him in his movie.
However, when the analyst wasn’t allowed to do it, the man who portrayed the legendary Rocky Balboa was not best pleased.
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Al Bernstein ended up in Rocky V under bizarre circumstances
Unsurprisingly, Sylvester Stallone is a huge boxing fan, with the actor regularly trying to get the stars of the sport into his movies.
Stallone once had to stop Tony Bellew from having a real fight on the set of Creed, and went above and beyond to get Al Bernstein into Rocky II.
However, the popular broadcaster wasn’t allowed to get involved, and it rendered the star of the film furious.
In an exclusive interview with Bloody Knockout, Bernstein explained: “That movie was a lot of fun to do.
“Here’s a good side-story, I was supposed to be in Rocky 2, but they had the USA Network mic flags up for the announcers, and ESPN, who I worked for at the time, didn’t want me to participate in the movie when they had the USA mic flags in front of me, so they wouldn’t let me do the film, I couldn’t do the film.
“If you look at the credits at the end, Sylvester Stallone was annoyed with them for not letting me do the film, he just had an actor there, being the color commentator, and he made his character Al Berndini, he did an Italian version of my name.”
Luckily, in the end, Bernstein finally got his opportunity to appear in the franchise, featuring in the fifth film.
The 74-year-old added: “The Rocky V experience was fun. I was supposed to call the fights. I was there for a week, I had a week allotted for them, and they kept pushing the fight scene back, and eventually, I had to go. I wasn’t going to be in the movie at all.
“At the press conference scene, which I ended up being in, they needed to entertain the extras. The director, John G. Avildsen, said, ‘Why don’t you get up here, and they can ask you boxing questions, they’re all fans of yours, and that’ll kill time. I was doing that just to help them.
“Then, Avildsen came up and said, ‘Why don’t we put him in the press conference scene’? So, that’s how I ended up in the movie at all.
“I would’ve ended up on the cutting room floor completely, never having done anything, but somehow I got in there. It’s always fun to do films.”
Al Bernstein says whether prime Manny Pacquiao could’ve beaten Floyd Mayweather
While Bernstein had a tremendous time starring in such an iconic movie, nothing has compared to his time covering the real action.
Throughout his career, he watched Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao produce spectacular performances without fighting each other until they were both in their late thirties.
While the American eventually won a comfortable decision when they finally battled it out, could things have been different had it happened earlier?
Now, Bernstein has given his take on how a prime Pacquiao would’ve handled Mayweather.