Burt Young's Most Iconic Quotes as Paulie

Burt Young recently passed away at the age of 83, leaving generations of Rocky fans remembering his best moments from the iconic franchise. Young played Balboa’s gruff friend (and eventual brother-in-law) Paulie across six Rocky films spanning four decades. With that many appearances, there’s a wealth of great Paulie quotes. Let’s take a look at some of our favorites from each film.

‘Rocky,’ When Paulie was Meaner

When Paulie was first introduced, he was a dark, gritty character. He’s borderline abusive to his sister (and Rocky’s love interest), Adrian. One scene involves Paulie having a meltdown over Adrian ruining a turkey by over cooking it. Burt Young would earn an Oscar nomination for his performance as the forlorn but humorous character.

Of course, Paulie’s best quote from the original 1976 film involves one of the more iconic sequences in the series. Paulie works as a butcher and allows his pugilist friend to use slabs of hanging beef as punching bags while training to face off against champion Apollo Creed. . After Paulie watches Rocky pummel one of the dead cows, his remark leaves fans in stitches. “You do that to Apollo Creed, they’ll put us in jail for murder,” he quips.

‘Rocky II’

The second film in the Rocky franchise is a bit of a retread, with the hero facing off once again with Apollo Creed in a rematch. However, Burt Young still gets a few zingers in there as Paulie. During a press conference, Paulie sizes up Apollo saying, “His lungs he’s gonna punch out.” Apollo takes issue with this, replying, “Now who is that? Al Capone?” Paulie looks the champ over before retorting sardonically, “I don’t sweat you.”