Was There A Rocky Balboa G.I. Joe Figure

The 80’s were pretty awesome, and two prime examples of that are Rocky Balboa and GI Joe. Yes, I know Rocky came out in the 70’s, but it was huge in the 80’s. Except for the 5th movie (the one that doesn’t count), and from this day forward we will not mention it again at Stray Monkey Headquarters. Luckily, Rocky Balboa made up for that horrible excuse for a movie.

Now to the exciting part: the above pictures are from an un-released Rocky G.I. Joe figure. Yes, Rocky Balboa almost followed in the footsteps of Sgt. Slaughter and William “The Refrigerator” Perry to become celebrity G.I. Joes. “Almost” is the key word though, so here’s the story.

The Background

In 1987, Hasbro was going to put out the Rocky Balboa figure, and even had prototypes and packaging art made. The Rocky character also made it into the G.I Joe comic books (Marvel Comics’ G.I. Joe Order of Battle #2).

While Sylvester Stallone was trying to work out a deal with Hasbro, he was also negotiating with Coleco for a Rambo series of toys. He ended up going with Coleco and Marvel printed a retraction in the comic books stating that he would not be a new addition to the Joes.

The great part was that they released the Cobra version that was going to serve as Rocky’s nemesis as “Big Boa”. Unfortunately, they couldn’t license the Ivan Drago name either, but I would have bought one on eBay if they did. Check out more info on Big Boa at YoJoe - a great site about the Joe toys.

About the Author

Ray Abel

Founder

Ray is the founder of Stray Monkey, and as a shameless plug he wants to remind you to check out the Research the News podcast.