During his preparations for the World Tournament Dolph used to hit the bag at the famous "Gleason´s Gym" in midtown Manhattan, where some of the best boxers in the world used to train. A couple of the managers took one look at the tall, well built Swede. He could move, he could punch - he definitely looked the part.
"I guess they wanted me to become the next "Great White Hope". Gerry Cooney used to train at Gleason´s when he fought Larry Holmes. I was very drawn to the idea of boxing professionally but many of my friends adviced me against it - we like your face the way it is…."
Dolph turned the offers down, literally deciding not to sign his professional boxing contract twenty minutes before going to see his future manager.
Instead, he had started doing some modeling and a friend of his thought the Swede should try some acting lessons. "Come on - the way you look, there´s gotta be something you can do in the movies." Dolph cancelled his plans for the World Tournament and turned to acting.
A year later Dolph went for an audition for "some boxing movie" , he met Sylvester Stallone and the rest is history. Dolph gave up his academic career (he did get his Master´s degree) his martial arts career and his Swedish small town life to move to Hollywood. In a seventeen-year career, Dolph has starred in 25 movies. Nevertheless, Dolph has stayed in close contact with Kyokushin karate throughout the years. He has performed karate exhibitions at three World Tournament and on numerous other occasions. His long-time friend and teacher, Shihan Brian Fitkin, 6th Dan has helped his old student in most of his movies with physical conditioning and fight coordination. Dolph returned to his "home dojo" in Stockholm for a real challenge in 1998, when he passed his 3rd Dan promotion, suffering though a grueling Twenty Man Kumite" (fighting 20 successive opponents one after the other without a break) as well as 3 hours of technical examination.
Dolph actively also works with the Spanish Kyokushin Federation, since he & his wife own a home in Marbella, in Southern Spain. The couple and their two daughters spends their time between London and Marbella, where Dolph recently bought his 8 year old daughter her first karate uniform.
Dolph tries to sum up what martial arts has meant to him: "Karate has been so important to me, it's almost impossible to imagine myself and my life without it."
"It was through the martial arts that I confronted my insecurities, gained inner strength, broke through my own self fabricated barriers and came into my own as a person. Karate and physical training has definitely become a part of my life forever."
"I believe the martial arts made, and still makes me, a better person."
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