Sylvester Stallone's return to ring far from rocky - Boston Herald

NEW YORK — Sylvester Stallone wasn’t exactly on board with the idea of teaming with Robert De Niro as a pair of feuding boxers in “Grudge Match.”

“It was something I thought was absurd. No one wants to see another boxing film, especially when you’re approaching 160 years old,” joked Stallone, 67, at the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park Hotel.

“Then Robert and the studio heads called me and convinced me I was completely wrong.”

A sentimental comedy, “Grudge Match” casts Stallone as Henry “Razor” Sharp who ducked a de­fining title bout with De Niro’s Billy “the Kid” McDonnen­ 30 years earlier.

Stallone, who has lately kept busy with three action-packed “Expendables” films, quickly saw the upside with “Grudge Match.”

“People 60 and above will say, ‘I have unfinished business,’ and they don’t have the ability to right the wrong. That’s the advantage of fantasy; these guys get to correct the wrong” by getting back into the ring.

Director Peter Segal knew teaming Rocky and the “Raging­ Bull” star was essential.

“What attracted these guys is we’re obviously winking at their filmography. For this to work, the fight had to be taken seriously — and they were the only two guys who could do that.

“So if we couldn’t get these guys we had no movie.”

Boxing movies are so effective, he said, because “boxing is a metaphor for life. As life knocks you down, can you get up again?

“And there are only nine minutes of boxing here,” Segal added, “the rest is relationships.”

De Niro, previously paired with Stallone on 1997’s “Cop Land,” connects with a grown son who has his own son. Stallone re­connects with Sally (Kim Basinger), the woman who sent him reeling from the ring years earlier.

“They work very differently and they’re both hilarious,” Basinger, 60, observed.

“Stallone is a jokester and De Niro is quiet and sneaky — and I’m the only girl in here so it was a great thing for me.”

Chortled Stallone, “It’s one thing to see grumpy old men fighting, so what made this thing fly was the inspired casting of Kevin Hart” — as a fast-talking fight manager — “who brought in a whole new demographic. That was very clever.”

(“Grudge Match” opens Wednesday.)