‘Show Me Some F–king Respect Man’

The topic of the ’80s action hero came up on his recent chat with Pete Davidson after the SNL alum shared how he grew up loving Sly because of his late father, who was a big fan of the “Rambo” and “Rocky” franchises.

Because of their shared love of all things Stallone, Pete’s grandfather called an old school friend, one Harvey Keitel, for a favor after 9/11.

“When I was a kid and my pop passed [my grandfather] called Harvey and he was like ‘He’s a big Stallone fan can you get an autograph or whatever,'” Pete recalled while talking to Bernthal. “Stallone wrote: ‘To Peter, keep punching. Sylvester Stallone.’ On the great Rocky III [poster] where he’s like a golden god.”

“And that was like the coolest thing I had for a long time,” Pete added.

Bernthal then noted, “Stallone just texted me last week and he signed it, no bulls—: ‘keep punching.'”

“That’s so awesome! And dude, I will!” Pete said in response. “I remember reading that and being like ‘okay,'” Davidson said, acknowledging how motivating those words were to him as a child after losing his dad.

“Meanwhile, he was probably taking a s— and being like ‘Who is this for? Peter? Whatever.’ But to me it changed my life,” he added. “And that’s what people don’t realize is how much that means to people.”

“The Punisher” star then went on to share another experience he had with Stallone from 2013 film “Grudge Match.”

“I had the the same thing with Stallone,” Bernthal began. “I loved the s— out of him and then we ended up doing a movie together and it was like cataclysmic, it was like a complete f—ing disaster with him.”

“My second son had just been born and it was a boxing movie. He was fighting [Robert] De Niro and I played De Niro’s son,” he explained.

“Oh Grudge Match! I love that movie!” Pete exclaimed. “Travesty to you! Heroic to me!”

“The Walking Dead” star continued his story, saying he was down in New Orleans for a costume fitting when he had to fly back home to Los Angeles.

“My son was born super early…he was almost 8 weeks early. He spent like his first two months in the NICU and like he wasn’t getting out of the hospital,” Bernthal shared. “He was like 3 pounds.”

“I was in New Orleans for the s— and I flew home basically because my son was getting out of the hospital it was gonna be like the first time I was gonna be able to like really hold him and be with him,” the actor continued. “When I landed in LA from New Orleans I get this call being like ‘Yeah Sly wants you back in New Orleans for boxing rehearsal.'”

“I’m like, ‘For what? For boxing rehearsal?'” But despite Bernthal protesting, he said he was told, “‘You gotta get back on a plane and you gotta get back for boxing rehearsal.’ Like I didn’t leave the airport. Like motherf—er okay cool.”

Back in New Orleans, Bernthal said he went to a warehouse that had been converted into a gym with posters of Stallone covering all the walls — “He had like posters of himself all over the walls. Like murals and s—.”

He said that De Niro and Sly were already in the ring. When he entered the gym, he said Sly called out to him, “Yo! You’re next.”

But once the two film legends were done, “Sly just calls it. He’s like ‘Alright everybody go home.'”

“And I’m like what the f— did I come here for?” Bernthal recalled, after missing his son’s hospital release and flying back across the country.

He said Sly then went in the back room of the gym. While Bernthal was frustrated, he got an offer from legendary stunt coordinator Greg Rementer, who was also working on the film, to spar. But as they are boxing in the ring, a woman came out from the back room where Sly was and started rummaging through Bernthal’s bag.

In the podcast, Bernthal told Davidson that it is against boxing gym etiquette to touch someone’s gear, with Pete noting that not going through someone else’s stuff is just a human thing.

Bernthal said he asked the woman what she was doing and she told him they wanted this Thai boxing liniment they spotted in his gym bag for Stallone because he apparently loves it. “‘Sly loves this s—. I’m giving him a massage and I’m gonna rub it in his back,'” he recalled her telling him.

When he protested, as it is hard to get, he said “she was like ‘but he loves this s—,'” and took it anyway. “He’s got like 40 posters in here he can go get that lotion,” Pete quipped.

Bernthal said 45 minutes later, Sly got out of the back wearing a suit and left the gym.

“And the woman comes out and goes like, ‘By the way we’re just going to go ahead and keep that lotion ’cause Sly really likes it,'” he recounted. “I still had my mouthguard and head gear on and I like ran out and chased him on the street and I’m like, ‘Hey Sly, man, like where I’m from if you want to borrow something from someone you like ask them yourself you know what I mean?'”

“He was like ‘Yo!’ and I’m like ‘No! You took my s—.'”

“He’s like ‘Yo, I let you box in my gym,'” Bernthal continued to recount. “And dude he was like, ‘F— it, I’ll give it back.’ And I was like ‘No keep the f—ing liniment,’ you know what I mean ‘but like show me some f—ing respect man!’ It was like so bad bro.”

However, after standing his ground Bernthal said he and Stallone got to a better place — concluding, “I will say that after that like me and him really did bond.”