In the big fight scene towards the end of the movie Rocky, there’s a bit of business about how Rocky’s eyes are swollen shut, so he says to Burgess Meredith, “Cut me!” Somebody uses a razor blade to do something that enables him to open his eyes and continue the fight. Of course, the action is hidden beneath somebody’s hand, but we can see blood running down the side of Rocky’s face.
Is this for real? Where, exactly, do they cut the eyelid? Are they cutting through the eyelid, or just enough on the surface to get it to open somehow? How do they cut the eyelid without cutting the eye? Does this happen in the real world of boxing, and has anyone ever been blinded by it? Yeee-owza!
I’m not sure exactly what happens in the movie, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t his eyelid. More likely, he took a nasty blow to the brow (the ridge at the top of the eye socket), which resulted in a lot of swelling. By cutting this open, it would let the blood flow out instead of accumulating, resulting in the eye “swelling shut”.
I just want to jump in and note that my esteemed feathered colleague is correct, the cut was done not on the eyelid but in the swollen area above the eye to release blood and let Rocky’s eye open.
As for “does this happen today”: given that todays referees will stop a fight at the first signs that one fighter has worn through another’s vaseline layer, nope, doesn’t happen. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing; the early stoppages that are happening today are probably saving lives and prolonging careers, but it sure does make a spectator feel ripped off at the end of a fight.
Like Max Torque said, they don’t cut nowadays. Instead, they use frozen metal plates to compress the area and reduce any swelling.
I don’t know for sure, but I doubt that they ever cut fighters’ faces, since any opponent would try to open the wound further, which would force the ref to stop the fight.
I move on grounds that Burgess Meredith’s name has already been mentioned that Max Torque’s post be edited by a mod to use the phrase “fine feathered fiend.”