Originally, the climatic fight wasn’t choreographed, but when Stallone and Weathers got together for their first rehearsal, confusion reigned. Avildsen asked Stallone to map out each punch of the fight, and the next day he had more than a dozen pages of lefts and rights written out. The actors rehearsed that, like a dance, for weeks, referring at times to 8mm footage of their rehearsals to see what needed to change. 
