“You’re gonna be eatin’ a lotta leather for lunch.”
This deleted scene from Rocky V’s workprint takes us inside Mighty Mick’s Gym where Rocky is in the ring sparring with Tommy Gunn. What’s cool is that even in his retirement mode, we finally get a glimpse of Balboa fighting in the ring (versus the street fight later in the movie.)
Rocky offers a good piece of advice he learned from Mickey Goldmill years before:
“You gotta think about what you’re doin’. Mentalize. Cause if you can see it, you can do it. Mickey used to pound this into my head.”
Paulie’s over in the corner manning the stopwatch, and Jimmy Gambina is training Rocky Jr. on the punch mitts. When Jimmy tells Rocky to check out his son’s boxing skills on the mitts, Rocky uncharacteristically says nothing after glancing over at young Robert, then returns to his sparring session with Tommy.