In a TMZ special, Arnold Schwarzenegger reveals his Machiavellian subversion of Sylvester Stallone.

In a televised interview from TMZ on Tuesday, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who were titans of Tinsel town in the 1980s and early 1990s, disclosed that they grew so competitive that they turned to Machiavellian methods to become the world's biggest action stars.

The septuagenarian celebrities, who are now close friends, got together for TMZ Presents: Arnold & Sly: Rivals, Friends, Icons, an hour-long primetime special that aired on FOX on Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET. The two action movie icons, who were interviewed by TMZ founder Harvey Levin, talked about some juicy details of their former rivalry, their difficult upbringings, and which faces they would put next to each other on an imaginary Mount Rushmore for action heroes.

"Well, how much body fat do you have?" Schwarzenegger recalled the complex rivalry throughout their discussion. "I had dropped to 7%." I then declared, "I was down to 10 percent—it turned into a contest with my body." Then he began using machine guns—like, enormous machine guns. I was chasing after him. This is how it happened because he was chasing after me. Then I had to kill 87 individuals while he [Rambo] killed 80.

Schwarzenegger attempted to undermine Stallone's career path as a result of the strong competition between the two box office sensations when their careers were approaching their zenith in the early 1990s. To be more precise, he describes how he made sure the mother-son buddy cop film Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, which starred Stallone alongside Estelle Getty from Golden Girls, was given the starring role. With the use of shady operatives, the future governor of California pretended that he, not Stallone, would play the main part in the project, which had been approved but at best appeared to have dubious appeal. It was a dream come true for Schwarzenegger that Stallone won the job.

Naturally, I felt like I was in heaven. He said, "I thought the only way I could catch up to him was if he stumbled." It was mental in nature. This is Hollywood in its entirety. when every film you make is just as good as the previous. I thought to myself, "If Sly would stumble..."

Despite being deemed “thoroughly witless and thuddingly unfunny” by Rotten Tomatoes, Stallone's 1992 comedic crossover attempt did manage to gross a respectable $72 million worldwide. Even still, it's not quite as iconic as Kindergarten Cop or Schwarzenegger's Twins.

Even though the TMZ special is filled with the actors' self-aggrandizing remarks and pats on the back, the two former megastars nevertheless manage to make compelling arguments about their position as big screen heroes who defined a period and broke box office records in Hollywood. 

According to Stallone, "We came along with a certain era." "A true action movie didn't exist; the movies were in a state of transition. You witnessed gunplay and an automobile chase. There was no action where you genuinely stated, "This guy moves from start to finish." He was taking action. He is bringing about action. We therefore kind of started something that, in my opinion, doesn't exist now, at least not in the same form as it did — something akin to a man against the world. It's more like group against the outside world now.

When Harvey asked Arnold Schwarzenegger to choose the two faces that would go with their own to be carved on Mount Rushmore in an action movie, he chose Clint Eastwood, who is both an acting pro and a director who is now working. Bruce Willis, a celebrity who shone on screen as brightly as they both did in their own eras, completed Stallone's cast.