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'Rocky' Spinoff 'Creed' Goes Old School With Some Chicken-Based Training

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Rocky’s Mickey may have passed on, but his prized pupil is keeping alive some of his most idiosyncratic training methods.

Director Ryan Coogler’s Rocky spinoff Creed is currently in production in Philadelphia, and new photos of the stars on set indicate that it will have a key nod to the 1979 sequel Rocky II. Michael B. Jordan stars as the son of Rocky Balboa’s late rival and pal Apollo Creed, while Sylvester Stallone returns as Rocky, the mentor of the young contender.

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Fans of the earlier movies will remember Mickey, the wily old trainer played by Burgess Meredith, making Rocky chase a chicken in a back alley in Philadelphia. Rock quips that he’d rather eat the bird, but Mickey tells him that if he can successfully nab the chicken, he’ll be able to “catch greased lightning.”

In Rocky II, the Italian Stallion took part in the off-beat drill as he prepared for a title fight rematch with heavyweight champ Apollo, giving the scene some nice symmetry with the evidently more rural re-enactment that is being shot for Coogler’s film. (Rocky, you’ll notice, appears to one-up Mickey by timing Jordan’s character with a stopwatch.)

And, good news: It looks like Jordan catches one:

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Watch the original scene below:

Photo credit: Bobby Bank/Getty Images