Tom Cruise Knocked Rob Lowe Out Cold In Hotel Hallway Boxing Match When They Were Filming ‘The Outsiders’ In 1982

The Outsiders wasn't only that edgy, fun S.E. Hinton novel that many of us read early in our schooldays. It was adapted into a rather low-key feature film back in 1983, serving as the career launchpad for many in the loaded ensemble cast. The likes of Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio and Emilio Estevez were part of the gang in the Francis Ford Coppola-directed flick. So were none other than Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe. Cruise has gone on to become arguably the biggest movie star of all-time, and Lowe isn't doing so bad for himself either. In an clip from a Rich Eisen interview that made the rounds on Monday — also marking Hinton's 76th birthday — Lowe told a story I've never heard before about sparring in a hotel hallway with Cruise. Geared up with headgear and mouth guards, the two amateur pugilists would go at it, and I'll let Lowe take it away from here... "We used to box in the hallway of the hotel we were staying at during The Outsiders. So much testosterone! We’re 18-year-old guys stuck on location, so we would wear headgear, and we'd have mouthpieces, and but we would legitimately spar. And I just remember Tom was jacked. I'm like a pipe cleaner arm. I haven't started working out yet […] I look like Karen Carpenter. I'm not jacked. I hit him real clean, and I rang his bell — and the next thing I knew, I woke up. I was coming to on the floor. And he, like, completely knocked me out." https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9uqi69xpJ9/?igsh=OGhsazV1b3U2OGFk So from the early '80s onward, it's clear that Cruise could pull off close-quarters combat in real life as well as on the silver screen, where he's entertained us with such fisticuffs for years in the Mission: Impossible franchise among many other pulse-pounding action blockbusters. I've never heard of the Netflix series Unstable that Lowe is making the rounds promoting, but he actually co-created the show with his son, John Owen Lowe. The story is of the father-son variety and stars them both. It must be pretty decent since it got a second season. Anyway, I find it very funny imagining Lowe and Cruise as two young-gun hot heads dueling it out in a hotel for personal pride. If the way Lowe told the tale is 100% accurate, all due respect to him, but I can't blame Cruise for popping off. If Lowe rung his bell in the first place, even with head gear on, I feel like Tom was more than justified to snap back with a strong cranial counterpunch. You can't be willy-nilly smashing your costar in the face! You're in the movies for God's sake, fellas! Keep those good-looking mugs intact! The head gear can only go so far in protecting you! Regardless of whatever cosmetic work or skincare routine sorcery they've taken on over the years — or maybe they're just that naturally pretty — both Cruise and Lowe are aging with grace and still finding plenty of work as sexagenarians.