Speaker 1: It's the lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and carn
Speaker 1: S e O and JP sorrows.
Speaker 2: He's a lapsed fan and all my years and wrestling.
Speaker 3: You never seen anything.
Speaker 4: And it's the laps fan name like the one in
Speaker 4: the ring. Forget about Sado. He the real king of
Speaker 4: swing when the bell goes in and the kick like
Speaker 4: me throwing in the corner but gets lashed like stick.
Speaker 4: Even Jerry King can take off the crowd nodded in
Speaker 4: his head like it. Steve low Brown, would you get
Speaker 4: low down? We go even high up?
Speaker 5: Flipp you on your head, but you know cool driver
Speaker 5: speaking more and Dragon spits fire give you more shock
Speaker 5: than when Edge reat higher dropping more truth than the
Speaker 5: con of sniper. Bless you with a coconut, Roddy Piper,
Speaker 5: Jack and JP. He like j Y d drop the
Speaker 5: cupcakes and gold the brain. Bob means the best podcast.
Speaker 5: Frost start the close cloud if you are it's a classic.
Speaker 6: And pos you know sometimes class we need a palette cleansers.
Speaker 6: We're in the middle of the complete Hulkogan. We're bombarding
Speaker 6: people and we know we're about to hit him even
Speaker 6: harder than they could ever imagine. As the story of
Speaker 6: Hulkoguan unfolds. But you know, sometimes sometimes duty calls. Sometimes
Speaker 6: the solar system says, you know what something's happening out there,
Speaker 6: be it in wrestling or at the box office, that
Speaker 6: just requires our immediate attention for us to clear the
Speaker 6: decks and put something under the microscope. And I don't know,
Speaker 6: would you agree.
Speaker 3: Does the Smashing Machine featuring the rock count? Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: it absolutely does. I mean this is the this is
Speaker 3: the next Iron Claw, basically is what it is. You know,
Speaker 3: it's the same We're in that same vein where we're
Speaker 3: trying to create, you know, dramatic and award worthy combat
Speaker 3: sport picture motions.
Speaker 6: Yes, we're we're making film about the psyche of the
Speaker 6: combat athlete and leaving more unspoken than said. It's the
Speaker 6: Smashing Machine, and your co chairs have both seen it
Speaker 6: independently of each other, and our guest today, LAPS fan
Speaker 6: producer TJ. DeSantis of UFC Fight Pass fame, has also
Speaker 6: taken the film in and his deep and abiding knowledge
Speaker 6: of combat sports and this being the time period depicted
Speaker 6: in this film as far as the Pride ninety nine
Speaker 6: two thousand days, the Mark Kerr time period squarely write TJ.
Speaker 6: In your nostalgic Wheelhouse, this is oh yeah, this is
Speaker 6: your special spot.
Speaker 3: This is your nineteen ninety one WWA.
Speaker 7: But it's not quite in the special spot.
Speaker 8: My special spot is November two thousand and two to
Speaker 8: like early early two thousand and six.
Speaker 7: But yeah, it's it's there. Like the Smashing Machine. That's
Speaker 7: the thing too, Like I don't know.
Speaker 8: How to look at this film because like it's a
Speaker 8: dramatic motion picture, but to me, it was just like, Okay,
Speaker 8: are you guys going to screw up one of my
Speaker 8: favorite documentaries of all time?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: That's one of the great perspectives that you're going to
Speaker 6: bring here is that you know the documentary before the film.
Speaker 6: Boss has never seen the documentary, never.
Speaker 3: Seen it, ever heard of Mark Kerr before Boss, not
Speaker 3: before the Rock was going to play him.
Speaker 6: Okay, perfect. So we've got both sides. We've got someone
Speaker 6: that knew as much about Mark Kerr as one could
Speaker 6: ever expect, and someone had never heard of him before.
Speaker 6: And I'm somewhat in the middle. I mean, certainly having
Speaker 6: seen all of his fights and everything and having seen
Speaker 6: The Smashing Machine several times.
Speaker 3: So this is going to be good.
Speaker 6: This is going to be I think a really appropriate
Speaker 6: TLF treatment of this attempt by Dwayne Johnson to take
Speaker 6: his MMA mark Them and turn it into an Academy award.
Speaker 6: I look forward to seeing how that develops. But we're
Speaker 6: in the spirit of trying to make things go down
Speaker 6: easier these days, as we've been barred you from all corners,
Speaker 6: and we're proud to announce here before we get started
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Speaker 6: Smashing Machine, that we're going to welcome into the TLF
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Speaker 3: I would recommend taking it orally I do. I do
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Speaker 6: come through. I know, I know you're out there, all right,
Speaker 6: all right, Okay, so we got to start where we
Speaker 6: got to start. JP saw the movie Everyone Wants to know.
Speaker 6: Top of my thoughts go, I'm I'm gonna say this.
Speaker 6: So I did go see it with a friend, okay,
Speaker 6: and and I did it with a reason. I went
Speaker 6: to see it.
Speaker 3: I was going to go alone, but then I I
Speaker 3: I had some I knew somebody who was not busy,
Speaker 3: and I said, why don't you come with me to
Speaker 3: see the movie? Because I was like, you know what,
Speaker 3: I want somebody who's not in invested in the rock
Speaker 3: to watch this as well. Yes, And the first thing
Speaker 3: he said, when if we walked out of the theater,
Speaker 3: there's no way he's winning an Emmy. How unfair. And
Speaker 3: the fact that he said Emmy just also blew my mind.
Speaker 3: Emmy right, Yeah, I I, I mean, there are a
Speaker 3: lot of thoughts. The first one is I I just
Speaker 3: don't see why this story needed to be told. I
Speaker 3: didn't see I get I get the idea. And obviously
Speaker 3: he had a notable career, but having a notable career
Speaker 3: and having a notable life are two different things. And
Speaker 3: I just didn't find his story to be anything that
Speaker 3: we haven't seen a million times in uh, rock rocker musicals,
Speaker 3: a rocker biopics, drugs, you know, a rough relationship. You know,
Speaker 3: rise to rise to fame right away, he falls, he
Speaker 3: comes back and da da dah, and you know, sometimes
Speaker 3: they win, sometimes they lose in the end. And I
Speaker 3: just was like, this is the same story but with
Speaker 3: a different like I don't know, I'm not saying anything
Speaker 3: about the life of the Guygangs. I know nothing about him,
Speaker 3: but we'll get to that. In terms of the movie itself,
Speaker 3: I just was like, they, I agree with the critics
Speaker 3: in that it is the Rock's most transformative role. I
Speaker 3: agree that he was something I've never seen him do before.
Speaker 3: I don't know that it was great. I don't think
Speaker 3: it was great.
Speaker 6: If you could describe what it is you saw him
Speaker 6: do that he'd never done before, well, I mean.
Speaker 3: You've never really seen him like try to take on
Speaker 3: the persona of somebody. And again, I don't know, Mark Kerr,
Speaker 3: I don't know. We've seen him at the end of
Speaker 3: the movie. Spoiler alert for those not that it's a
Speaker 3: big deal. It's not even a spoiler. It doesn't do anything.
Speaker 3: It's just like you see him, you see him in
Speaker 3: the end in real life. And okay, so I guess
Speaker 3: in real life the guy does sound like Vince Vaughn
Speaker 3: as the Rock was doing, because that's what I thought
Speaker 3: of every time he spoke. I said, he's trying to
Speaker 3: do Vince Vaughn here, like, why is he trying to
Speaker 3: do Vince Vaughn? And then I was like, okay, well
Speaker 3: the guy kind of sounds like Vince von He sounds
Speaker 3: like that, and he's very friendly and he's very whatever.
Speaker 3: And I got to tell you the makeup and the
Speaker 3: get up, it just was so fucking distracting. I sent
Speaker 3: you a picture last week and I was like, it
Speaker 3: just kind of reminds me. He looks like Triple H'
Speaker 3: doing the Rock in ninety eight. All right, that's what
Speaker 3: it kind of frock the Croc, Like he looks like
Speaker 3: the Croc when he's got his full hair and the sideburns,
Speaker 3: and all right, we did it again. You can never
Speaker 3: see it. No one that ever heard you say that
Speaker 3: is ever gonna be able to watch this movie.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Sorry, that's that's what we inadvertently do every tangle time.
Speaker 3: That's what I look at and I see. And also
Speaker 3: then he shaves his head and he looks like Batista.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, it looks like like current
Speaker 3: day Batista with the big eyebrows and like, you know,
Speaker 3: his face is weird now Batista's and it just was.
Speaker 3: It was hard. But I want to say so there
Speaker 3: are compliments here because he gave a very subtle performance.
Speaker 3: He gave a very realistic performance. There was a lot there,
Speaker 3: and I'll say it's his best work, but it's not.
Speaker 3: I'll be surprised if he gets especially because this early
Speaker 3: and award season. I mean it's early, you know, September, October,
Speaker 3: that's like, that's early November December. To have a movie
Speaker 3: that doesn't do well in the box office, I think
Speaker 3: it's going to be forgotten come November. Honestly, I think
Speaker 3: people are going to forget about it. I think I'll
Speaker 3: tell you what. Emily Blunt was fantastic. Yeah, I thought
Speaker 3: she was excellent. I thought she was so she reminded
Speaker 3: me of a very toned down version, very toned down
Speaker 3: version of Sharon Stone and Casino. Sure, I don't know
Speaker 3: if you've seen that, but like she had that same
Speaker 3: type of vibe and I sense it right from the
Speaker 3: beginning of the movie. I said, she's gonna Sharon Stone
Speaker 3: this ship. She's gonna totally about the movie. I said
Speaker 3: this is what she's doing, and she's she's incredible, and
Speaker 3: I just it was it was there was a lot
Speaker 3: of trying. I didn't hate the movie. I didn't hate
Speaker 3: it all right, I definitely there I liked it. It
Speaker 3: just was choppy and it it didn't Yeah, it kind
Speaker 3: of like it steamrolled over things. Like to me, addiction
Speaker 3: is a very big thing for any especially for an athlete.
Speaker 3: It's like to be dealing with with with any kind
Speaker 3: of drug addiction, and they kind of just steamroll over
Speaker 3: that as if it's not a big deal, and it's
Speaker 3: like a it's kind of a almost as if it
Speaker 3: was so easy for him to and maybe it was.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was easy for him to get into rehab.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but it seemed way too easy for
Speaker 3: him to just kind of go into rehab and then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, you know, he's he's like clean
Speaker 3: and he's okay, and you know, just a lot happened,
Speaker 3: and I kind of wanted to see the process more.
Speaker 3: I wanted to see him in rehab. To me, that
Speaker 3: would have been more interesting than to kind of rush
Speaker 3: back out and start training again. And fight scenes were great.
Speaker 3: I didn't like the jazz music playing in most of
Speaker 3: the fight scenes.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was that was try hard a twenty four
Speaker 6: like let's juxtapos blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 7: It just didn't.
Speaker 3: They just didn't. And you know what, trying hard that's
Speaker 3: what it felt. Not even it didn't try too hard.
Speaker 3: There are movies that you see that tried way too hard.
Speaker 3: This was almost trying hard enough to act like we're
Speaker 3: not trying well. I think what's fascinating in a couple
Speaker 3: of fronts and return to TJ. You know TJ.
Speaker 6: If you've seen The Smashing Machine, one of the things
Speaker 6: that strikes you is that this, to JP's point, is
Speaker 6: probably so breakneck of a pace and flies through things
Speaker 6: that you know the viewer might want some more meditation
Speaker 6: on because it's it's damn close to a frame by
Speaker 6: frame remake of the documentary. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 8: So to be fair, I called it my favorite documentary.
Speaker 8: I haven't watched it in twenty years. I have a
Speaker 8: copy of it on DVD. It's one of the so
Speaker 8: like when Fight Pass launched, I got rid of everything.
Speaker 8: I got rid of all my Pride DVDs, my UFC DVDs,
Speaker 8: and I kept like a handful of DVDs that I
Speaker 8: was like, probably can't replace this one, and The Smashing
Speaker 8: Machine was on that list, and I wanted to watch it.
Speaker 8: I wanted to watch it before I went to go
Speaker 8: see the movie. I wanted to watch it after. Apparently
Speaker 8: I don't own anything that plays a DVD, which is unfortunate, amazing.
Speaker 8: And I also just looked on eBay these things are
Speaker 8: going well, they're not going for I don't know if
Speaker 8: they're being sold, but they're listed from anywhere at like
Speaker 8: a hundred and fifty dollars to three hundred.
Speaker 3: Dollars for a DT player. No, no, no, okay, okay. Yeah.
Speaker 8: So the things that stuck out to me that I
Speaker 8: recall from the documentary, uh, we're very gripping because it
Speaker 8: was like, uh watching something that lived somewhere deep in
Speaker 8: my brain but I had, you know, horribly uh misremembered it.
Speaker 8: But then again, I'm watching the rock uh act out
Speaker 8: these memories in my head. But yeah, I think when
Speaker 8: when you said JP, that's like, why does this story
Speaker 8: need to be told? It was such a groundbreaking documentary
Speaker 8: for the time, like it came out in two thousand
Speaker 8: and two. I bought a VHS copy of the documentary
Speaker 8: it was on HBO I bought. I bought a VHS
Speaker 8: tape that someone recorded off of HBO.
Speaker 3: I totally forgot it was on.
Speaker 8: What's funny about that is I got it like a
Speaker 8: week after. Uh it premiered on HBO. In the eBay
Speaker 8: sale was canceled because they had some sort of piracy
Speaker 8: goddamn piracy of people get that joke, you know, enforcement there,
Speaker 8: And uh, I still contacted the seller. I was like, Hey,
Speaker 8: I don't care if eBay doesn't give me shipping insurance
Speaker 8: or whatever.
Speaker 7: Can you just send the damn VHS? I need it?
Speaker 8: And uh so, I haven't seen it a long time,
Speaker 8: but you know when he asked the Pride doctor backstage
Speaker 8: if they have anything harder? Uh that was really gripping
Speaker 8: the shot. I don't know if it really looked like that.
Speaker 8: I remembered it much differently, but.
Speaker 3: I remember a dialogue just quickly.
Speaker 6: It's him asking the same question, but he doesn't have
Speaker 6: that smart ass remark to Emily Blunt.
Speaker 3: About oh, look, age, I guess they're just an advil.
Speaker 3: Just have to take adviil. He doesn't. Yeah, duy, Dwayne
Speaker 3: takes it a little further.
Speaker 6: There isn't that much shift follow up after, but he
Speaker 6: does kind of roll his eyes because because the Japanese
Speaker 6: doctor says you need certification to get that, and he
Speaker 6: rolls his eyes and they cut away fast. But it's
Speaker 6: actually I laughed out loud in that scene when Dwayne
Speaker 6: makes a joke about just a couple of advil and like,
Speaker 6: you know, what the fuck is this? You know, like,
Speaker 6: I'm not going to get high here, doc? So is
Speaker 6: it kind of like is it basically a beat for
Speaker 6: beat like remake of a lot of it is?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I mean the parts that that really stuck out to
Speaker 8: me is like, Okay, this isn't in the documentary is
Speaker 8: a lot of like the domestic stuff at home, you.
Speaker 6: Know, they don't have they don't have cameras when she
Speaker 6: takes the gun out, they just have Mark sitting in
Speaker 6: a chair describing the incident, and they they they show
Speaker 6: a picture of his gun, but they don't they weren't
Speaker 6: in the room when she tries to shoot herself.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just see that to me right there,
Speaker 3: it's like, why are you covering beats of a story
Speaker 3: that's already been told? Like you should be covering the
Speaker 3: beats that haven't been told yet. I know that I
Speaker 3: get it. You know, I've never seen the documentary. I
Speaker 3: don't even know about the documentary until this this movie
Speaker 3: was announced.
Speaker 8: But I.
Speaker 3: It's like, almost in a weird way, what they should
Speaker 3: do is and maybe they will do this, but you
Speaker 3: shouldn't do it now, honestly, because people are gonna watch
Speaker 3: the documentary and people are gonna watch the movie, although
Speaker 3: maybe they won't because it did so poorly in the
Speaker 3: box office, but people are gonna watch and they're gonna say, well,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, it's the same fucking story. And like
Speaker 3: I was saying, why don't you re release the documentary
Speaker 3: with the home video version of of the this movie?
Speaker 8: But it's I can tell you real quick, JP, they
Speaker 8: are doing a re release. I don't know if people
Speaker 8: know that. I don't even know if I was supposed
Speaker 8: to say that. I had a warm conversation with Mark
Speaker 8: the day after I saw the movie, and I'm supposed
Speaker 8: to interview him tomorrow.
Speaker 7: I don't know if that'll happen.
Speaker 8: He said he didn't have time to do the interview
Speaker 8: with me when we talked, but then we talked for
Speaker 8: an hour and a half, and I.
Speaker 3: Was like, why do we just about right? Yeah, but
Speaker 3: that's an mma fighters right there big time to be fair.
Speaker 7: I mean, that's the thing too.
Speaker 8: You guys probably know this. You've done some interviews lately.
Speaker 8: Like the idea of what an interview entails these days,
Speaker 8: it's much different. Used to be just jump on the phone.
Speaker 8: Now it's like I got to get a backdrop because
Speaker 8: we were doing video. And it's like, I can see
Speaker 8: why he didn't actually do the interview that day, because
Speaker 8: I talked to him while I was in his car
Speaker 8: the entire time.
Speaker 7: But right, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 6: So it's interesting that the documentary piece, I think, you know,
Speaker 6: it's obviously become rarefied. It's hard to find on DVD,
Speaker 6: and and if you and if you've seen it, you
Speaker 6: have definitely the perspective you're saying JP that you know,
Speaker 6: it doesn't really it doesn't really make sense that you
Speaker 6: would want to recreate it so faithfully. Now, I will
Speaker 6: say that I purposely did not watch the documentary again
Speaker 6: before the film because I didn't want to just be distracted.
Speaker 6: I had heard already that it's it's very close to
Speaker 6: the doc so I don't want to be distracted by it.
Speaker 6: It just echoing your film so blatantly. And when I
Speaker 6: went and munched it again afterwards the documentary, that is,
Speaker 6: after seeing the film, I was glad I did it
Speaker 6: that way because I was able to appreciate that Rock
Speaker 6: really did tap into kind of like this, this almost
Speaker 6: silent suffering of this guy. This guy is kind of
Speaker 6: like doing a little bit and that he's kind of,
Speaker 6: you know, he's got that like that little ting soft.
Speaker 6: He's a big, giant guy and he does what it
Speaker 6: takes to stay big and giant, but he also kind
Speaker 6: of wants to be like kind of empathetic and emotional
Speaker 6: and soft, and he you know, it's like he he
Speaker 6: he takes pride and not flying off the handle every
Speaker 6: two minutes, even though the things running through his veins
Speaker 6: tell him to do that. So I think he got
Speaker 6: that across, because it's probably probably the reason the documentary
Speaker 6: struck done like this is not just because he's such
Speaker 6: an MMA fan. It is because he probably sees a
Speaker 6: little bit of himself and Mark in the earliest days
Speaker 6: of his struggling to make it. I really felt that way.
Speaker 6: I felt like they have similar personalities. But I would
Speaker 6: ask TJ quickly to orient us to Mark Kerr, because
Speaker 6: listeners of this show might not know anything about the guy,
Speaker 6: and it's always nice to cross those streams when we can.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so it's interesting.
Speaker 8: I have a deep history with Mark that I didn't
Speaker 8: really even realize until he and I started chatting. One
Speaker 8: of the first interviews I ever did in MMA was
Speaker 8: when he's supposed to fight Wes Simms in Colorado. And
Speaker 8: I didn't ask her about this, but like this, this
Speaker 8: would be a story I would really like to know about,
Speaker 8: because like his career carried over, you know, much longer
Speaker 8: than what's covered in the film. He was supposed to
Speaker 8: fight Wes Simms in Denver and he waded in and
Speaker 8: I actually interviewed him after he weighed in, and he
Speaker 8: just didn't show up for the fight.
Speaker 7: I don't know what happened. Uh, you know what happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: That's part of what.
Speaker 6: Made this led not to interrupt you just quickly. That's
Speaker 6: part of what this documentary legendary too, because after it
Speaker 6: came out, Mark did a series of things. We're like, oh,
Speaker 6: I know what's going on there because you saw the doctor.
Speaker 7: Yeah, like he thought in Pride. After this and basically
Speaker 7: got d d ted and knocked out. That that was
Speaker 7: the joke. I get, not joke, but like the guy
Speaker 7: that he fought I.
Speaker 8: Think his name was Yoshihisha Yamamoto and yamamotos and I
Speaker 8: ddted him would really kersh on a double leg and
Speaker 8: knock himself out.
Speaker 3: On knock himself out?
Speaker 8: Yeah yeah, but like yeah, so, like I have questions
Speaker 8: for Mark, and I was upset that I wasn't in
Speaker 8: the last scene in the movie because after Mark finished
Speaker 8: his last pro fight, he Shannon Rich, who no one knows,
Speaker 8: but I encourage people to look up Shanne and the
Speaker 8: cannon and Mark's manager Ken Pavia, gave me a ride
Speaker 8: back to the hotel after Mark got beat up pretty
Speaker 8: badly by King Mo. And it was in a yellow Hummer.
Speaker 8: I don't know why Shannon Rich was driving a yellow Hummer,
Speaker 8: but I promise you I was in Shotgun that night.
Speaker 8: That should have been the final scene of the movie.
Speaker 3: I like that I didn't realize it was King Mo
Speaker 3: that was his last fight.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 6: He had one of those long tail ends to his
Speaker 6: career where it's like, okay, Mark, like it's really you
Speaker 6: really ned to start? Uh, JP did you know anything
Speaker 6: about Pride, Like what did you think of like the
Speaker 6: essence of this Japanese fighting.
Speaker 3: I do remember Pride, actually because I remember, I mean,
Speaker 3: you told me about Pride, honestly, like you you briefly
Speaker 3: educated me on on on on Pride. And I think
Speaker 3: the depiction of the fight scenes like that that whole
Speaker 3: world besides the well, I'll tell you what I you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know MMA as well as
Speaker 3: you guys do. I I've seen my fair share of it,
Speaker 3: I tell you. While I do appreciate to a degree
Speaker 3: like that there there was an essence of I like
Speaker 3: the way that it was shot. I liked the way
Speaker 3: that it was portrayed, except for the music. The music,
Speaker 3: I was but it just felt slow in a way
Speaker 3: like it didn't Yeah, like the punches looked like they
Speaker 3: looked like Hollywood punches, and I'm I've seen I've seen
Speaker 3: enough MMA punches to know that they don't look like that.
Speaker 3: They don't look like that at all, and they and
Speaker 3: yeah that that that kind of rubbed me the wrong
Speaker 3: way a little bit, because I would I would expect
Speaker 3: Dwayne to kind of take it to that next level
Speaker 3: and try to make it look more. I mean, I
Speaker 3: know it probably would be disappointing. I don't I wouldn't
Speaker 3: have been disappointed, but I probably would be disappointed to
Speaker 3: most moviegoers if a punch didn't land like a punch
Speaker 3: lands in a movie. But I just thought it looked
Speaker 3: it took away from the movie to me. Yeah, this
Speaker 3: is a We've seen it.
Speaker 6: Before, like films like Warrior, TJ and some others that
Speaker 6: have tried to portray MMA on the screen. And I
Speaker 6: know what JP's saying, it it's hard. It's hard to
Speaker 6: make fight scenes in a Hollywood movie look like a
Speaker 6: real fight in an octagon. And I did feel like
Speaker 6: there was kind of a disconnect, like kind of the
Speaker 6: the way the guy's head snapped back on punches, the
Speaker 6: way there was who a lot of wind up to
Speaker 6: the punches. What did you think of the depiction of
Speaker 6: Pride fight scenes in.
Speaker 7: This Yeah, I mean I didn't hate it. I expected
Speaker 7: it to be that way.
Speaker 8: You know, when when I watched movies, you know, I
Speaker 8: come from an MMA point of view, and like, I
Speaker 8: understand that things have to be over the top for
Speaker 8: you know, entertainment purposes. When I critique fight scenes in movies.
Speaker 8: It's more when it's like a martial arts sort of thing,
Speaker 8: it's like, well that doesn't work, You're not going to
Speaker 8: do that. But like you know, like not everything can
Speaker 8: be on Boch. Like, I think that's a nice mixture
Speaker 8: of both. You know, the Muay Thai movie, I think
Speaker 8: series now I don't there's like multiple box but like
Speaker 8: there's a lot of stuff there that they you know,
Speaker 8: implement real sort of fighting techniques. My issue with some
Speaker 8: of the fight scenes in The Smashing Machine was the
Speaker 8: first fight you see is Paul Varlins in IVC I
Speaker 8: think it is, or its World Ballet Kudo Championships. The
Speaker 8: guy that they used to have play Paul Varlins just
Speaker 8: looked like an overweight slub that was folding. And you know,
Speaker 8: Paul Varlins wasn't a great fighter, but like he was
Speaker 8: an intimidating figure, you know what I mean. Like you
Speaker 8: if I saw Paul Varlins walking down the street right now,
Speaker 8: I'd be like, Wow, that guy's scary looking.
Speaker 7: But I didn't like who they cast there.
Speaker 3: So you know, Rick Flair, how do I say, Rick
Speaker 3: Flair and Harley Race and the Iron Claw.
Speaker 7: Yeah, like those guys actually have like scenes.
Speaker 8: I'm just upset that a guy who gets beat up
Speaker 8: in twenty two seconds doesn't look like the actual guy.
Speaker 3: Well, no, what I'm saying, the guy, the the actor
Speaker 3: that Iron Claw didn't look anything like. I mean, they
Speaker 3: looked all yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 8: But those are iconic guys like Paul Varlins is I
Speaker 8: don't know, I can't think of a mid card jobb
Speaker 8: er enough.
Speaker 6: To beat Ralphaularlins actually did an ecw angle with Taz.
Speaker 6: We've talked about that before, That's right, Yeah, of course
Speaker 6: he wrestling fans might remember his his look, and he
Speaker 6: did some like shoot style wrestling matches as well.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, you're right.
Speaker 6: I mean, the guy that that Dwayne beats up in
Speaker 6: this movie is supposed to Paul Varlins looks like a
Speaker 6: guy selling you the big Green egg and hardware store.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: That wasn't even the worst casting job in my opinion,
Speaker 8: though it really bothered me that in the I think
Speaker 8: it was the ends and in a way fight for Kerr.
Speaker 8: The referee is Gary Copeland, who's commonly referred to as
Speaker 8: Mini Brock in the MMA community because he looks like
Speaker 8: Rock Lesnar but only five for four.
Speaker 3: I encourge you to google Gary Copeland while.
Speaker 8: He was a Pride ref in the movie, the only
Speaker 8: time I can recall an American being a referee for Pride.
Speaker 8: You know what, I know that's your laugh. I know
Speaker 8: that's your laugh to seeing Gary Copeland right now. But
Speaker 8: my insecure I'm too much of a hardcore is driving
Speaker 8: me crazy that I'm about to make a reference that
Speaker 8: nobody gets.
Speaker 7: But I mean, is that is that not mini Brock totally?
Speaker 7: Is it could be?
Speaker 3: Like it could be it's Brocks, like uh, you know
Speaker 3: stunt double.
Speaker 7: It's his munchkin, is what it is? Right, he's not
Speaker 7: very tall.
Speaker 6: I've got a bunch of them, like in a river
Speaker 6: under his mansion like Ompalompis or something.
Speaker 8: But that really turned me off though, Like that really
Speaker 8: turned me off because there was never an American ref
Speaker 8: in Japan for Pride other than maybe Matt Hume. And
Speaker 8: I think he did the Hoys Graciehiko Yoshieta match the
Speaker 8: second one because there was controversy in their first meeting.
Speaker 8: But like, I, oh, by the way, JP, you saw
Speaker 8: this with one person a friend. Yeah, I saw it
Speaker 8: with one more person than you. But we were the
Speaker 8: only three people in the entire theater.
Speaker 3: There was one other person. There was one other person
Speaker 3: with us. There was three people total.
Speaker 8: Okay, so we saw with the same amount of people
Speaker 8: in the sense that was probably other moviegoers.
Speaker 7: Three.
Speaker 8: I don't know is this is the second time I've
Speaker 8: been to a movie theater since the pandemic. The only
Speaker 8: other movie I saw was Top Gune because I thought
Speaker 8: I had to see that in the theater.
Speaker 7: Yes, but maybe Matt and A's are just dead now.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 8: And the worst part is I had to ask the
Speaker 8: two people why they came to see that movie, and
Speaker 8: like my social skills were not firing.
Speaker 7: Because I walked in the theater and I sat.
Speaker 8: I sat next to them because it was like a
Speaker 8: sign seating and I wanted to take my rightful seat,
Speaker 8: and uh, they said, are we in your seat?
Speaker 7: We moved. I was like, no, you're good, and then
Speaker 7: I just looked at them and went, why are you
Speaker 7: seeing this movie?
Speaker 3: And I.
Speaker 8: Need to add contacts and why I'm asking in the
Speaker 8: wife of this couple, she did not want to be there.
Speaker 8: It was very she did not want to be there.
Speaker 8: But apparently there were two retirees and they just go
Speaker 8: see a movie every Wednesday. So that was the one
Speaker 8: that they decided to go see. But uh, yeah, Gary Copeland,
Speaker 8: like I almost wanted to like look at this couple
Speaker 8: and be like, that's terrible casting, but I digress.
Speaker 6: But yeah, that's I'm glad you mentioned that. I forgot
Speaker 6: all about that. I caught him out of the corner
Speaker 6: of my eye and was like, Okay, that's uh, that's
Speaker 6: a fun decision. They they go through the thing. You know,
Speaker 6: I didn't realize that this would make for such a
Speaker 6: strange moment when you do a fictionalized, dramatized for of
Speaker 6: the documentary. But MMA fans know that the Pride two
Speaker 6: thousand Grand Prix Tournament does not end with Mark Kerr
Speaker 6: versus Mark Coleman. But they start to tease that he's
Speaker 6: got to fight his best friend.
Speaker 3: Boss.
Speaker 6: Were you like thinking, this's got to be the end
Speaker 6: of the movie he fights his friend because I they
Speaker 6: went there and it's like people are not going to
Speaker 6: be happy with how it turns out, because the thing is,
Speaker 6: it's it's not the first time they mentioned it in
Speaker 6: the movie.
Speaker 3: I mean they they mentioned it several times in the
Speaker 3: movie that there that like you know, imagine if we
Speaker 3: got you know, no No Da and I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: so this is something that's going to happen, and we
Speaker 3: may see the the the a friendship dissolved right in
Speaker 3: front of our eyes, and I was like, okay, this
Speaker 3: is this could be good. But then it doesn't happen,
Speaker 3: and it was kind of a letdown, you.
Speaker 8: Know what's funny about that? So I was not an
Speaker 8: MMA fan when the Pride Gram Prix happened. I don't
Speaker 8: even know if that was really a storyline. Could Coleman
Speaker 8: fight Kerr? That tournament was just so jacked up and
Speaker 8: messed up to begin with. I mean because soccer robas
Speaker 8: in the tournament, he fights Hoyst Gracie.
Speaker 3: But that's the only match. You made him a tournament jack.
Speaker 3: You made him in my No Mercy game. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: yep for that reason.
Speaker 8: Yes, so soccer Rob is gonna fight Hoyst Gracy in
Speaker 8: this tournament, but they're the only match that has unlimited
Speaker 8: rounds that could go on forever.
Speaker 3: Right, Wow, how is that fair?
Speaker 6: Because you had to make all these special rules to
Speaker 6: include Hoist because he had.
Speaker 7: His you know, was ninety minutes long. Everyone else us
Speaker 7: maximum twenty ninety minutes.
Speaker 6: It's total legendary shit. And that's so funny is films
Speaker 6: like this make you think that the main thrust of
Speaker 6: interest was Mark Kerr and and Mark Coleman and the
Speaker 6: Americans and everybody was there to see soccer Robba. Everybody
Speaker 6: was there. That's why it was such a phenomenon. And
Speaker 6: they don't really do what Dave Meltzer pointed this out.
Speaker 6: I thought it was a good point, kind of like
Speaker 6: how The Iron Claws struggles to get across how big
Speaker 6: of a deal the Von Eric's really were in Dallas.
Speaker 6: This really doesn't get across the enormity of the Pride circuit.
Speaker 6: They make Pride look just as big as the UFC,
Speaker 6: which at the time, you know, because they show some
Speaker 6: of Mark Kerr's UFC fights, which are very very limited.
Speaker 6: I mean that that's another reason why it's a strange choice,
Speaker 6: because it's not like even Mark Kerr had much of
Speaker 6: a UFC career. I mean, he certainly burst onto the
Speaker 6: scene there, but he was gone within two UFC events
Speaker 6: for Pride, and there was like a contractual squabble over
Speaker 6: that whole thing as the UFC struggled to really be
Speaker 6: able to pay fighters because they were off cable pay
Speaker 6: per view and only on satellite, so they weren't really
Speaker 6: raking in the kind of bucks to keep the top talent. Meanwhile,
Speaker 6: Pride was just gobbling up anybody who had done anything
Speaker 6: in UFC and throwing him in there with Japanese fighters
Speaker 6: like a Fujiita and hoping for magic to strike like
Speaker 6: it did with with Sakuraba.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that was also kind.
Speaker 8: Of strange real quick. I wish the film would have
Speaker 8: gone in a little bit more on maybe the interesting
Speaker 8: ties that I don't know how to say interesting ties
Speaker 8: that Pride had because like, this is a company that
Speaker 8: was basically ran by the Yukuza. Uh, there's some negotiations,
Speaker 8: you know, the scenes that are there, and again, being
Speaker 8: true to the documentary, I think that they, you know,
Speaker 8: did a good job and replicating that, but I mean,
Speaker 8: I would have loved for them to just include a
Speaker 8: little bit of you know, real life history and the
Speaker 8: fact that when you were negotiating with the people in Pride,
Speaker 8: like probably wasn't quote unquote dangerous if you were a foreigner,
Speaker 8: but like, I'm pretty sure that there was some discomfort
Speaker 8: to be had and talking about getting more money, et cetera.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's sending down so like a language barrier,
Speaker 6: but it's it's not a language barrier, it's a fuck
Speaker 6: you barrier, you know.
Speaker 8: I mean around this time, the owner of Pride, like
Speaker 8: a couple of years before this, like, was found in
Speaker 8: his office hanging from a noose.
Speaker 3: Yeah that was that was k One. Wasn't it wasn't
Speaker 3: Oh that was k One.
Speaker 7: You're right, right, but but but here's the thing. They
Speaker 7: all kind of run together. To me, the business was
Speaker 7: basically ran similarly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well went down. It actually collapsed. Pride collapsed and
Speaker 6: lost a television deal because newspapers and magazines in Japan
Speaker 6: started to publish articles about that. And the thing about
Speaker 6: it is that everybody knows it in Japan, but you
Speaker 6: can't confirm it. Once it's confirmed, everyone has to has
Speaker 6: to run away from it and wipe their hands clean.
Speaker 6: And therefore Pride was dead. One thing you do remember, boss,
Speaker 6: was when UFC bought Pride. I remember you're saying for
Speaker 6: some reason, you remember that.
Speaker 3: I do. I do remember that. And because wasn't that
Speaker 3: It wasn't that Mike Mike crazy? Was that? Wasn't that
Speaker 3: around brock Lessner's kind of two thousand. Yeah, didn't wasn't
Speaker 3: that the right? Wasn't that the the unification match? Didn't
Speaker 3: he have that unification match? Wasn't it the Pride former
Speaker 3: Pride Championship and the UFC Championship that was being combined?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 6: No, no, they were because crow Cop was coming over
Speaker 6: as part of the purchase and they were making the deal.
Speaker 6: Came before the purchase, before the purchase, and I think
Speaker 6: it of Noghera, whom.
Speaker 8: I think, uh, no, Ghara came after. I think what
Speaker 8: you're thinking of is Quintin Jackson. He fought Dan Henderson.
Speaker 8: I think that was after the purchase, and uh the
Speaker 8: worst part is the UFC kind of dropped the ball
Speaker 8: on that it was. The event was called Champion versus Champion,
Speaker 8: But if you were a casual MMA fan, you wouldn't
Speaker 8: know that Dan Henderson was there. I guess they called
Speaker 8: it middleweight champion. We call it white heavy.
Speaker 3: It was it wasn't a heavyweight, right.
Speaker 6: So when I'm when I'm looking at this on Emily
Speaker 6: Blunt Boss, I'm glad you brought her up because in
Speaker 6: the documentary, I mean, Don is a strong character and
Speaker 6: you get a lot of the same vibes, but you know,
Speaker 6: Emily Blunt take takes it to a whole different level
Speaker 6: in terms of like just she's not the she's not
Speaker 6: the star of the documentary, but she is like very
Speaker 6: much the star of the movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And I'm trying to like figure out, well, what is
Speaker 6: it about what she did that that that that you
Speaker 6: really appreciated. And I'm trying to figure out if that's
Speaker 6: her channeling the dock or going beyond the dock.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's it's a how to describe it.
Speaker 3: It's basically I saw her just being open. She was
Speaker 3: just open. She was open to receiving whatever was happening
Speaker 3: in the scene. Yeah, and she was then using it
Speaker 3: and she was reacting to it, and she was you know,
Speaker 3: it was a behavior thing, you know, her behavior was
Speaker 3: so it felt more fluid than Dwayne's. Dwayne's like you
Speaker 3: felt like Dwayne had a job to do in this movie,
Speaker 3: like he had a job to do to be this
Speaker 3: and this and this, and there wasn't as much there
Speaker 3: were times, i mean you're talking about how I'll allow
Speaker 3: the the advill moment, there to be almost a time
Speaker 3: where he was open because it did feel it did
Speaker 3: feel like it was ad libbed. And but she just
Speaker 3: she was electric. She was electric. It was almost like
Speaker 3: she was born to play this part. In many ways.
Speaker 3: She was just on fire. And I don't yah, I
Speaker 3: don't know what she was like in the documentary, but
Speaker 3: she was. And this actually was a problem with me
Speaker 3: again with the movie, is that I didn't like anybody. Yes,
Speaker 3: I'm glad Mark Coleman. Yes, I'm like Mark Coleman. I'm
Speaker 3: like Mark Coleman, I liked him. I'm like everyone else
Speaker 3: sucks like I don't want to root for Mark Kerr.
Speaker 3: He's a dick in many ways, and even when he
Speaker 3: even when he gets sober, he's still a dick. And
Speaker 3: she's awful, But she's at least entertaining because she's going
Speaker 3: to go psycho. And you knew she was going to
Speaker 3: go psycho, like you could. You could feel that, like
Speaker 3: there was there was an energy right from she gets
Speaker 3: on the screen. I was like, again, I said to myself,
Speaker 3: I said, she's gonna go fucking Sharon Stone Casino in
Speaker 3: this movie. But she's But I think she.
Speaker 6: Got stressed that awkwardness of being in the room when
Speaker 6: he's trying to be a fighter.
Speaker 8: You know that.
Speaker 6: That's one cool thing about Smashing Machine is it really
Speaker 6: showed you, like how impossible it is to pretend that
Speaker 6: anything else comes first besides fighting and the drugs you
Speaker 6: need to take in fight.
Speaker 7: Right real quick on that point.
Speaker 8: And this is my biggest takeaway, and this is something
Speaker 8: that's taken me a very long time to understand about.
Speaker 8: It's martial arts. It's the most selfish sport in the world.
Speaker 8: You have to be inscredibly selfish. And I felt like
Speaker 8: this movie actually drove that point home. And that was
Speaker 8: one of my biggest takeaways was we're not talking about
Speaker 8: the sport today in this movie because it's changed so much.
Speaker 7: I think they articulate that towards the end, but.
Speaker 8: The idea of what this sport is, I thought that
Speaker 8: that got pulled pretty well in the movie, you know,
Speaker 8: just sort of depicting the struggles in that moment where
Speaker 8: she's in the locker room.
Speaker 7: I trained for a very brief time. I don't know
Speaker 7: anything today.
Speaker 8: Anybody up the street could beat me up, but I
Speaker 8: will say that when I did train, I had a
Speaker 8: trainer that said, you know, there's three ways that you
Speaker 8: can lose in the sport, it's t ko submission or
Speaker 8: a decision. But what he wanted to drive home to
Speaker 8: everyone was you can also lose by submission due to girlfriend.
Speaker 8: And that was that was something that became like, I
Speaker 8: just thought about that in my head when that scene's
Speaker 8: playing out.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's this movie gave us a first glimpse at that.
Speaker 6: I remember thinking as a wrestling fan, lifelong wrestling fan
Speaker 6: and knowing the struggles of pro wrestlers when it came
Speaker 6: to you know, royds and painkillers and everything. That's that's
Speaker 6: a problem unique to wrestling in that because it's fake,
Speaker 6: they can't take injury time, you know, and they have
Speaker 6: to constantly be these comic book superheroes that recover faster
Speaker 6: than fast enough to stay on the road and stay earning.
Speaker 6: I thought MMA fighters because a lot of these guys
Speaker 6: collegiate wrestlers. I bet you didn't know Boss that Mark
Speaker 6: Kerr was very competitive on the nineteen ninety two Olympic
Speaker 6: track with Kurt Angle in the.
Speaker 3: Ninety six tracks as well.
Speaker 8: Not know that.
Speaker 3: I did not know that.
Speaker 6: Yes, they were basically rivals for that Olympic spot in
Speaker 6: ninety six where Kurt won the gold and in the
Speaker 6: Pan American Games as well. So all of these guys were,
Speaker 6: you know, collegiate wrestlers at a high level, and that's
Speaker 6: a pretty clean sport, you know, say what you will
Speaker 6: about it. And and so I found myself thing, well,
Speaker 6: at least these guys, you know, yeah, they're brutalizing themselves,
Speaker 6: but they fight three times a year a ton of
Speaker 6: time to recover that they're not going to have the
Speaker 6: chemical dependencies. And then I see this fucking movie and
Speaker 6: this guy is injecting new bane and one time he
Speaker 6: says in the dock, I do it ten I do
Speaker 6: it ten times a day. And the only reason he
Speaker 6: can fight and deal with the riggers that it puts
Speaker 6: in your body to train for a fight when your
Speaker 6: body is that big, is to just stay so fucked up.
Speaker 6: And that was like, oh God, this is going to
Speaker 6: be just like pro wrestling, isn't it.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, TJ.
Speaker 6: I mean, we've lost some legendary fighters and it doesn't
Speaker 6: end necessarily much differently than some of the sadder wrestling cases.
Speaker 8: No, I mean, I think pro wrestling is still much
Speaker 8: more dangerous and harder on a person because of what
Speaker 8: you mentioned what they go through night after night, but
Speaker 8: the parallels between pro wrestling and MMA from a business
Speaker 8: standpoint are too numerous to even throw your way in
Speaker 8: an example. And ultimately, the men and women that sacrifice
Speaker 8: their bodies for you know, the sport, it's the same.
Speaker 8: It's it's not apples and oranges, it's apples, and it's
Speaker 8: just apples apples.
Speaker 6: You know what I thought was strange shapy about the
Speaker 6: ending of the film. It's like you see Mark Kerr
Speaker 6: pushing the grocery card around and he's just a normal guy.
Speaker 6: And then they built this title up on the screen
Speaker 6: like he never made millions and now the guys make millions.
Speaker 6: And at the end, they almost wanted me to feel
Speaker 6: like this movie was about the explosion of mixed martial arts,
Speaker 6: and it's like, no, it wasn't. It was about a
Speaker 6: time period where all the biggest fights were in Japan
Speaker 6: and it wasn't big, and it wouldn't get big for
Speaker 6: so long after this. It was Oh, so I was
Speaker 6: supposed to feel this whole time like Mark Kerr should
Speaker 6: have made millions of dollars, he didn't have that many fights.
Speaker 8: Well again, I don't know numbers but Kerr was in
Speaker 8: the one percent of MMA fighters getting paid at that time.
Speaker 3: Right he was, he was fine, he was his six
Speaker 3: figures per fight, right, I mean, and I got that vibe.
Speaker 3: I mean it came across that, you know, there there
Speaker 3: are those there are times where where somebody, you know,
Speaker 3: you make a movie about somebody and you're trying to
Speaker 3: make them the person the subject of the movie more
Speaker 3: relevant than they maybe were. I'm not saying he wasn't relevant,
Speaker 3: but that's what it came across to me, as like
Speaker 3: it just was like, this is a guy that you
Speaker 3: that you you know that you should remember and da
Speaker 3: da da dah. And I say to myself, look, if
Speaker 3: I was meant to remember him, I remember him.
Speaker 6: Well, he's remembered because he led a camera film in
Speaker 6: shooting up right right right.
Speaker 8: There's that, but also too, like I that that's my
Speaker 8: biggest takeaway, Like I like Mark as a person, I
Speaker 8: like Mark as a fighter. Sure we're not talking about
Speaker 8: Mark cur if it isn't for this movie. And that's
Speaker 8: sad because you know, right, he is a guy that is,
Speaker 8: you know, a part of the the story and how
Speaker 8: MMA got here. And I think that's that's probably why
Speaker 8: I feel as good about everything as I do, because
Speaker 8: in mixed martial arts, we don't reciprocate.
Speaker 7: Uh, that's not the right word. We don't. We don't.
Speaker 7: We don't pay it back. We don't, we don't. There's
Speaker 7: no reparations for these fighters that gave so much.
Speaker 8: Really and again Mark, I don't feel bad for Mark
Speaker 8: during the time of his fighting career because he was
Speaker 8: again probably one of the highest paid guys in all
Speaker 8: of you know, mixed martial arts at the time. But today,
Speaker 8: you know, he doesn't probably get a Hall of Fame
Speaker 8: nod in the UFC like he did without this movie,
Speaker 8: and he should.
Speaker 7: He's a he's a guy.
Speaker 8: I mean, you look at again, here's a parallel. The
Speaker 8: WWE Hall of Fame is basically the pro wrestling Hall
Speaker 8: of Fame. That's how it's viewed. The UFC Hall of
Speaker 8: Fame is the mixed Martial Arts Hall of Fame. If
Speaker 8: it's a UFC Hall of Fame, Mark Kurr doesn't belong
Speaker 8: in there. But if it's an MMA Hall of Fame,
Speaker 8: he does very much so, and you know, I'm happy
Speaker 8: that at the end of the day, you have a
Speaker 8: new generation of fight fans. I don't even know if
Speaker 8: fight fans are going to see this movie. Apparently not
Speaker 8: many people are. Unfortunately.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the UFC fanatic does not know this guy. They
Speaker 3: don't know this era at all.
Speaker 8: And I just think it's good that, you know, in
Speaker 8: twenty twenty five we stop and at least, you know,
Speaker 8: pay homage to someone who was a very, very big
Speaker 8: part of that scene.
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Speaker 6: He was someone who you know, epitomized Mark Coleman, kind
Speaker 6: of did it first on Fry, kind of did it
Speaker 6: before that to some degree. And they share some commonality
Speaker 6: in terms of like the pipeline and who represented them
Speaker 6: and got them into the UFC in the first place.
Speaker 6: Is these these collegiate wrestlers of note and these tough
Speaker 6: guys of note. But he was like this almost this
Speaker 6: avatar of what the most bricked up wrestler you could
Speaker 6: find could do in an MMA cage if you just
Speaker 6: let him go off, you know, yeah, and just let
Speaker 6: him use that natural strength. And he won two UFC
Speaker 6: heavyweight tournaments and that was you know, that was certainly
Speaker 6: something to hang your hat on in terms of his
Speaker 6: UFC tenure. But he faced guys that did nothing when
Speaker 6: he kept into Dan Bowbisch and even then it was kind.
Speaker 7: Of ranger Stott, Yeah, ranger Stott, Yeah, Greg, let's not
Speaker 7: sleep on the second whatever er something. Oh my god,
Speaker 7: it's so bad.
Speaker 6: So it's like you look at those opponents, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 6: he didn't even you know, in the UFC at least
Speaker 6: if because for purposes of the UFC Hall of Fame
Speaker 6: data what has said, it's about what you did in
Speaker 6: the UFC UH in a bride. He did, he did well,
Speaker 6: but he kind of lost his most significant fights.
Speaker 8: I mean, so let me just say real quick, the
Speaker 8: biggest accomplishment of Mark Kerr's UH career is he won
Speaker 8: the Abu Dhabi World Championships, which that was a huge.
Speaker 3: Part of his hype.
Speaker 6: Yep, he was a wrestler that figured out how to
Speaker 6: win a submission tournament. Yeah, interesting, okay, and he's really
Speaker 6: kind of the only when was that.
Speaker 7: Two thousand one, two three, so after this the time
Speaker 7: win of the movie, I think it could have been
Speaker 7: ninety nine. Let me look that up.
Speaker 3: I got I got it, I got it.
Speaker 6: I got ninety nine two thousand and two thousand and one,
Speaker 6: and he won absolutes as well as ninety nine kilograms
Speaker 6: in two thousand and two thousand and one.
Speaker 3: It was a super fight he won.
Speaker 8: There's no one today that comes into Abu Dhabi with
Speaker 8: the skill set that Mark Kerr had and even probably
Speaker 8: wins a match, let alone yes winning his division and absolutes.
Speaker 6: And at that time, fans were such marks for this
Speaker 6: idea that like someone can just come in not knowing
Speaker 6: any martial arts skills and bulldoze these guys who were
Speaker 6: able to convince people that they were tough martial artists
Speaker 6: forever because they only interacted with their own kind. And
Speaker 6: that was part of the huge appeal of like the
Speaker 6: first I don't know twenty UFCS was it's like, Okay,
Speaker 6: now here comes another specimen and we think that jiu
Speaker 6: jitsu is the way, but here come a bunch of
Speaker 6: wrestlers who aren't going to fall for it. So, now
Speaker 6: wrestling is the way, and then Maury Smith comes around
Speaker 6: kickbox who can block a takedown and kick a guy
Speaker 6: in the fucking face. Or Pete Williams can kick Mark
Speaker 6: Coleman in the fucking face. Now, oh, kickboxing is the way.
Speaker 6: And so Mark Kerr was part of that whole hype
Speaker 6: cycle of like, oh, here come, this is what the
Speaker 6: UFC champion looks like. And the only reason that he
Speaker 6: didn't when UFC one because he didn't know what the
Speaker 6: fuck it was. If he knew, he would have he
Speaker 6: would have won the whole thing.
Speaker 8: Two takeaways of what you just said, Jack makes me realize,
Speaker 8: Like one, wrestling is a martial art.
Speaker 7: People don't like to call wrestling a martial art.
Speaker 8: I think it's sure the most important martial art for
Speaker 8: any high level mixed martial artist. If you can wrestle,
Speaker 8: you control so much of a match it's not even funny.
Speaker 8: But the other thing is is like if I was
Speaker 8: just a layman off the street didn't know anything about this,
Speaker 8: I would be like, why is this movie about Mark
Speaker 8: Kerr and not the guy who wins the whole Dan
Speaker 8: Ran Prix, which when we talk about Coleman, I have
Speaker 8: something that I hope I can say. He didn't tell
Speaker 8: me not to say it, but we also haven't done
Speaker 8: the interview yet. But whatever, it's tel have no sacred cast,
Speaker 8: just Coleman's story and also to coleman story after this,
Speaker 8: Like this guy's Coleman is supposed to be fighting again soon.
Speaker 7: He almost a movie.
Speaker 3: He's a movie. I mean, yeah, I got it. That's
Speaker 3: what I was gonna say. Like it actually seems like
Speaker 3: he's a little more interesting of a subject because I
Speaker 3: was like, well, here's this guy who's like they keep
Speaker 3: talking about him being old and that he's like coming
Speaker 3: out and like, you know, I'm like, that's the Rocky
Speaker 3: story right there. That's what people want to see.
Speaker 8: Well, he he had just lost a bunch of fights.
Speaker 8: I think he lost three in a row, exiting the
Speaker 8: UFC and going to Pride.
Speaker 3: And that's why you're so dramatic that it was in
Speaker 3: the tournament because he.
Speaker 8: My favorite part of the movie is when Ryan Baterer
Speaker 8: does win the Grand Prix is Mark Coleman and tries
Speaker 8: to do his mimic the h celebration. That was so
Speaker 8: good because that's the thing too. If you look at
Speaker 8: Ryan Baters's performance in this movie. And then see the
Speaker 8: way that he celebrates, You're like, is that a bad
Speaker 8: take that they just actually put in? Why did he
Speaker 8: almost fly over the top rope and freak out? That
Speaker 8: is exactly how Mark Coleman celebrating his pride Grand Prix.
Speaker 8: And to me, that tells you the actual personality of
Speaker 8: Mark Coleman. He's a wild man. He's crazy. Like, yes,
Speaker 8: he's composed and put together, and Ryan Bader did a
Speaker 8: great job at playing those scenes.
Speaker 7: But Mark Coleman's a maniac.
Speaker 3: Yes, total not He'll run into a burning building. Literally
Speaker 3: he did. He saved people from a burning building and
Speaker 3: almost died. Yeah, that he is. He is the movie
Speaker 3: for sure?
Speaker 7: What did he almost killed himself?
Speaker 8: Because I don't know how old he is today, but
Speaker 8: like he's incredibly fit and his body despite being you know,
Speaker 8: in great shape, Like he's an older gentleman who's been
Speaker 8: through a lot.
Speaker 7: He can't stop working out. He got sober.
Speaker 8: I think the way that he stays sober is by
Speaker 8: shadow boxing and posting it on Facebook, because that's all
Speaker 8: he does for hours, hours and like he's he shudn't
Speaker 8: even be thinking about fighting, let alone actually pursuing a
Speaker 8: fight with Vandalay Silva.
Speaker 7: It's crazy.
Speaker 8: You know. I don't pay attention to that stuff so
Speaker 8: much because, uh, you know, MMA is such a week in,
Speaker 8: week out sport, Like I don't really look more than
Speaker 8: two weeks ahead in time, but like Coleman is actually
Speaker 8: trying to do like bare knuckle fights and he he's crazy.
Speaker 6: What did you think of the guy who did the
Speaker 6: Mark Coleman roll?
Speaker 3: Boss? I thought it was great. Do you know that
Speaker 3: that guy has never acted in his life? I I, I, well,
Speaker 3: I looked him up after the movie and I realized
Speaker 3: that he was that he's a fighter, he's a real fighter, yeah,
Speaker 3: and that this is his first movie, and I thought
Speaker 3: he gave.
Speaker 6: Where did this come from? I mean, this is this
Speaker 6: guy at MMA, Like it was kind of a joke,
Speaker 6: Like he had no personality at all. He was a
Speaker 6: great fighter, so we got a lot of opportunities. He
Speaker 6: was always in he was always in big fights.
Speaker 3: But he was this dry.
Speaker 6: You couldn't get a SoundBite out of that guy if
Speaker 6: you hit him with a taser. And then he's a
Speaker 6: fucking great actor. I can't believe that. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 6: he gave he gave a very like I I. He
Speaker 6: came across like a pro. Honest to god, he was,
Speaker 6: he was, I I. His face looks so familiar that
Speaker 6: I was like, he's going to be somebody that I know,
Speaker 6: Like I know this guy.
Speaker 3: But I looked him up. I mean this will tell
Speaker 3: you actually too. I actually I didn't look at math
Speaker 3: and I looked up during the movie because there were
Speaker 3: times I was kind of like, yeah, okay, I got
Speaker 3: time to do something else here, and and yeah I was.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, this is fucking here. We get
Speaker 3: a little a little wundiicnt here, a little alex right
Speaker 3: going on here, you can put it that way.
Speaker 6: I thought, I don't know, TJ if you would agree
Speaker 6: with this. But and I've heard a lot of other
Speaker 6: people say this, so I feel like I'm I'm on
Speaker 6: most people's page. Knowing Mark Kerr in his career and
Speaker 6: knowing what he looks like in this in the documentary.
Speaker 6: I don't know why Rock had to get that big,
Speaker 6: because he is way bigger than Mark Kerr was.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean Kerr was a hulking figure. I mean,
Speaker 8: he'll forever be known as a smashing machine. But that
Speaker 8: was just one of his nicknames. I remember before it
Speaker 8: was called a specimen before he changed it, and like
Speaker 8: maybe it was just to drive that point across of
Speaker 8: like what he looked like compared to some of the
Speaker 8: other athletes. But Coleman fights wereri Caardo Marius, I believe
Speaker 8: in in the documentary and h I mean that guy
Speaker 8: looked to be just as big as Kerr, you know,
Speaker 8: hulking Brazilian, but like he did, and that actually you
Speaker 8: mentioned how big the rock was, Like it was interesting
Speaker 8: to me because that was one thing that I walked
Speaker 8: away with as almost a put off, because yes, there
Speaker 8: were a lot of big wrestlers that looked tredded, and
Speaker 8: Mark Kerr did look that way. But if you look
Speaker 8: too much like a bodybuilder, you can't fight. You have
Speaker 8: no cardio, you're not agile.
Speaker 3: And I was gonna say that, except I'm gonna say
Speaker 3: just sorry. But like I remember one time I asked you, Jack,
Speaker 3: I said, well, why don't these guys look like wrestlers? Like,
Speaker 3: why they look so fucking because a lot of guys
Speaker 3: like I remember Lesner specifically going back to Lesner watch
Speaker 3: because he's like the only person I probably saw fight
Speaker 3: multiple times Lesner looked kind of flabby when he when
Speaker 3: he was when he was a mixed martial art artist.
Speaker 3: And I remember you told me it's because they can't.
Speaker 3: You can't be that tight, you can't be that that
Speaker 3: kind of bodybuilder size. It just doesn't it wouldn't work.
Speaker 3: And that was the only thing going through my mind.
Speaker 3: Watching Dwayne in the movie.
Speaker 8: Well that was one thing too, And I credit The
Speaker 8: Rock for this, but like he took a lot of
Speaker 8: the sort of idiosyncrasies and habits of Mark Kerr and
Speaker 8: you know, actually tried to.
Speaker 7: Play those roles.
Speaker 8: Like there was a point where he's doing a press
Speaker 8: conference and he says something and he has an ohio
Speaker 8: accent just like Mark Kerr does, and I thought that
Speaker 8: was great, Like I was, I was really impressed by that.
Speaker 8: It shouldn't be impressed by someone speaking uh, you know,
Speaker 8: oh high accent, but whatever. But the other thing was,
Speaker 8: and maybe this was to his size. I was when
Speaker 8: Kerr or when the Rock was hitting pads Man, he
Speaker 8: his striking looks so much like Mark Kerr's and I
Speaker 8: was like, well, maybe it's because he's so big, And
Speaker 8: then I was like, no, Mark Kerr striking isn't that
Speaker 8: rigid because he's so big. It's because Mark Kerr is
Speaker 8: not a good striker.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: It was very elementary, so it's easy for him to
Speaker 6: mimic in a way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I guess
Speaker 6: the physique. The physique was crazy, Like I don't know, man,
Speaker 6: like this guy like you know, rock, Like he knows
Speaker 6: how big he can get. He saw it in G
Speaker 6: I Joe and he's you know, your or your whole
Speaker 6: life on a scientist, fast, Fast.
Speaker 3: And Furious movies all the whole.
Speaker 7: Well, he's gotten smaller, right like when he did this
Speaker 7: time he was.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but like I just watched a YouTube video about
Speaker 8: like his shrinking size and people were talking about like
Speaker 8: that was the other thing too. The film doesn't talk
Speaker 8: about steroids.
Speaker 7: Really at all.
Speaker 3: It's all pain ca Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 8: In Kerr when he got knocked out in that Pride
Speaker 8: fight that I talked about, like, man, I know it's
Speaker 8: not in the documentary, but I would almost have loved to,
Speaker 8: you know, see that in like the PostScript of the movie,
Speaker 8: because he came back to Pride in February two thousand
Speaker 8: and six or seven, No, February two thousand and four.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and he looked like he looked worse.
Speaker 8: Than Hogan did when Hogan was off the sauce, you
Speaker 8: know what I mean, Like, it's just like, what's going
Speaker 8: on here?
Speaker 7: That's not Mark Kerr?
Speaker 6: Like he yeah, wow, yeah, for sure he he definitely
Speaker 6: leaned out. But you know, that's what I think is
Speaker 6: powerful about Mark Kerr's era is it's like we still
Speaker 6: hadn't gotten past the idea that the toughest guy looks
Speaker 6: like a bodybuilder. It was still alive. People still wanted
Speaker 6: to believe it, even if the earliest UFC's kind of
Speaker 6: spoke against that, and not until like Mark Coleman went down.
Speaker 6: Did I think MMA really do away with the idea
Speaker 6: that the guy who can look most like a pro
Speaker 6: wrestling comic book character is going to win the fights?
Speaker 8: Yeah, but I mean we still see it though today
Speaker 8: the general public like, what if the Mountain fought Connor McGregor,
Speaker 8: who wins?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 6: I'm not saying people have fully put it down, but
Speaker 6: the idea that anybody would have questioned Connor having a
Speaker 6: chance against the Mountain in nineteen ninety seven, forget about it.
Speaker 3: Peop would have laughed out of the room.
Speaker 6: Now it's like feasible because people have seen how how
Speaker 6: effective smaller fighters can be, but and just how ineffective
Speaker 6: massive fighters can be, and how kind of clumsy and
Speaker 6: foolish they can look.
Speaker 8: But even the smaller fighters want to be bigger. I
Speaker 8: mean we talked about horses beat he beats soccer raba
Speaker 8: and then test positive, the poster child for being a
Speaker 8: smaller guy.
Speaker 7: Even he got popperoids.
Speaker 6: Yeah, once they make millions, they suddenly get those traps.
Speaker 7: Did it?
Speaker 3: Did it? Also? Did it bother or either of you
Speaker 3: guys watching the movie that a fifty three year old
Speaker 3: man is playing a thirty four year old man, because
Speaker 3: it's interesting because I don't think about it because it
Speaker 3: actually there were times where I mean especially I'm looking
Speaker 3: at some photos right now of of it's like if
Speaker 3: you look at if you look at the this is
Speaker 3: on I guess on Facebook. I'm just I just googled
Speaker 3: Mark Kerr and they get a photo up next with
Speaker 3: looking at him in ninety seven Mark Kerr and Dwayne
Speaker 3: in the movie, and it's like you look at him,
Speaker 3: it's like holy shit, like there's there's just you know,
Speaker 3: he looks too old.
Speaker 8: Well, that was one thing I thought about like when
Speaker 8: you said, like the prosthetics and stuff on his face,
Speaker 8: was it that necessary? I actually do think it was necessary,
Speaker 8: especially in the latter part of the movie when kerr
Speaker 8: shaves his head, because I felt like, if if the
Speaker 8: prosthetics weren't there, when the Rock is bald playing Mark Curry,
Speaker 8: he's just.
Speaker 7: Going to look like the Rock.
Speaker 3: He actually to me the kind of did.
Speaker 7: But sure he did.
Speaker 8: But like without the facial you know, prosthetics, I think
Speaker 8: it would have been to the point where I couldn't
Speaker 8: suspend my own disbelief.
Speaker 3: He just looked weird on a dead He doesn't, I
Speaker 3: don't think. And then but looking at Mark kerr Att
Speaker 3: at that age during that time, pered he doesn't look weird.
Speaker 3: But but but the Rock looks weird. He just looks
Speaker 3: like it. It looks again, he looks like the croc. Yeah.
Speaker 6: You only times he looked like Mark Kurt to me
Speaker 6: and I could see the vision they rafter is when
Speaker 6: he's wearing a baseball hat in thee when he's got
Speaker 6: I was like, oh my god, that actually looks like
Speaker 6: him a lot from the side from the profile. But
Speaker 6: there's something about the shape of Rock's head and I
Speaker 6: think the shape of his eyes that just can't look
Speaker 6: like Mark Kurr, no matter what Mark kurthink is Irish
Speaker 6: and Puerto Rican, I think, and you know Rock Sam
Speaker 6: Owen and an African American, Like, it's just I just
Speaker 6: it's gonna he's going to.
Speaker 3: Struggle to look like that. But it's it is true.
Speaker 3: I think that the age difference, it's like even the
Speaker 3: even the I don't want to see wrinkles, but just
Speaker 3: you know, the patterns on the face, like aren't going
Speaker 3: to be able to look like a thirty four year
Speaker 3: old too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's it's it is, uh, it is kind of alarming.
Speaker 6: Some scenes still, like what he has the Kangle had
Speaker 6: on backwards too, sipping the beard that looked like him too.
Speaker 6: They even recreated the bathtub in the fucking in the
Speaker 6: Smashing Machine that looks exactly like the bathtub and in
Speaker 6: the documentary.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so Kerr told me that the house that they
Speaker 8: filmed in that were actually three rooms in a movie
Speaker 8: studio that they built, and they took photos of his
Speaker 8: room in stills from the documentary and tried to replicate
Speaker 8: everything that they could from those photos and from those scenes.
Speaker 8: And that's the other thing too, Like I look at
Speaker 8: you know, Mark Kerr's story and like I'm more you know,
Speaker 8: intrigued about what Mark Kerr thought about seeing these scenes
Speaker 8: you know, play out, rather than you know, was this
Speaker 8: a good movie?
Speaker 3: Is the rock?
Speaker 8: You know, I'm a dramatic actor. Now it must have
Speaker 8: been incredibly hard. And I talked to Mark a little
Speaker 8: bit about this, but incredibly hard for him to actually
Speaker 8: see this he played out like he ends up marrying
Speaker 8: down in real life and they have a son together,
Speaker 8: and you know, they got divorced, and like, man, I
Speaker 8: just I don't know what it would be like to
Speaker 8: just sit back and watch your life, you know, play
Speaker 8: out like that. The documentary is one thing, but to
Speaker 8: see a dramatic reproduction of it must be just crazy.
Speaker 3: That's a good point.
Speaker 6: The documentary comes out after they had been married, so
Speaker 6: there's subtitles at the end that tells you that or
Speaker 6: title screen, but it's before they got divorced. So it's
Speaker 6: like kind of not a happy ever after, but like okay,
Speaker 6: like he just wasn't. He wasn't he was made to
Speaker 6: choose this woman over fighting, you know. That's that's kind
Speaker 6: of what you come away with on the dock and
Speaker 6: now knowing that they got divorced, and he's kind of
Speaker 6: just you know, pushing a shopping guard in Phoenix. It's like, oh,
Speaker 6: and actually the story ended up being something quite a
Speaker 6: bit different, which.
Speaker 7: Is real quick.
Speaker 8: Getting getting back to Baitter in his performance of Yeah, Coleman,
Speaker 8: I was talking to Kerr about this in Kerr said,
Speaker 8: you know, Bader did a great job, but he said
Speaker 8: the best thing that he did was play a version
Speaker 8: of Mark Coleman that Mark Coleman thinks he actually is.
Speaker 3: Wow, I love that, mummy. That's a great line. Ah,
Speaker 3: that's hilarious.
Speaker 6: One thing I will say about Coleman's portrayal, as positive
Speaker 6: as it is. You know, the the scene where he
Speaker 6: goes to see Mark in his hospital room after he's overdosed,
Speaker 6: and he's you know, saying, I wouldn't have flown all
Speaker 6: the way to uh whatever. He says Arizona if I
Speaker 6: didn't care about you. Mark Coleman is did not fly
Speaker 6: to Mark Kerr. In the documentary, it's two random friends
Speaker 6: that they introduced to you from Mark Kurr's wrestling.
Speaker 3: Days that fly to see him. Shit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I think that that's kind of it's okay,
Speaker 6: because you want that's a powerful scene that you know
Speaker 6: he's in he's in, you know, in in on his deathbed,
Speaker 6: really in hospice and in the hospital, and you don't
Speaker 6: want to go through all the rigamarole of introducing these
Speaker 6: two news.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say you can do that in documentary because
Speaker 3: you can. You can very easily establish two new people
Speaker 3: who are just there for whatever reason because it's it's
Speaker 3: it's real life. But you can't do that for a
Speaker 3: movie without like wondering, well, wait a minute, why did
Speaker 3: you introduce them? And they're not going to fucking be
Speaker 3: in the rest of the.
Speaker 6: Movie, right, And I think that definitely would have run
Speaker 6: that risk if they stay faithful to that. But I
Speaker 6: think it's I think it's the best, one of the
Speaker 6: best scenes that Bater pulls off. And it gets probably
Speaker 6: to the point that Mark's trying to make when he says,
Speaker 6: Bater plays the Mark Coleman, Mark Coleman wishes he was.
Speaker 6: It's like, yeah, Mark Coleman wasn't even their bedside.
Speaker 8: No, that's in getting back of Coleman story, Like, I
Speaker 8: don't know what Coleman's home life was at that time,
Speaker 8: but like it didn't end well. I know that, you know,
Speaker 8: and and he's battled with sobriety and you know, uh
Speaker 8: pretty again.
Speaker 7: I I just I would. I guess I want to
Speaker 7: see the Hammer that that movie. I want to see.
Speaker 3: It has to happen. Yeah, it has to happen.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: One thing I think too that the film reminded me
Speaker 6: about that that that smashing machine. The documentary hit me
Speaker 6: hard with because both Coleman's wife and Kerr's girlfriends say
Speaker 6: something similar when they both get into fighting. It's so
Speaker 6: new and so nascent, and there's so many overmatched guys
Speaker 6: that are that feel like tough guys, and we're in
Speaker 6: the UFC that a guy like Coleman, a guy like
Speaker 6: Kirk can just run training these motherfuckers and destroy them.
Speaker 6: And these girlfriends fucking love it. They love that there's
Speaker 6: no risk. They love that they're with the guy that
Speaker 6: can go in and collect one hundred grand and not
Speaker 6: even have a scratch on him and just pound people
Speaker 6: and you feel like it's gonna last forever. And then
Speaker 6: when they when they lose, when they're left limp on
Speaker 6: the canvas, all of a sudden, the uh, the the
Speaker 6: the bargain they thought they signed up for. By you know,
Speaker 6: falling in love with a cage fighter is much different.
Speaker 6: And now they're hooked in And I feel like that
Speaker 6: That's something Emily Blunt got across pretty well. Like she
Speaker 6: was like happy to be the girlfriend she knew how
Speaker 6: to be the supportive girlfriend of a guy who wins
Speaker 6: no clue how to do it for a guy who's
Speaker 6: losing and who's got nothing to show for it but
Speaker 6: a drug addiction.
Speaker 3: Well, I also love too that she said, Like there's
Speaker 3: a line in the movie where she says, I don't
Speaker 3: know how to like I don't know how to how
Speaker 3: to be with him. I forget sober because I all
Speaker 3: I know is how to take care of him. And
Speaker 3: I was like, holy shit, Like that's and that's that's
Speaker 3: not on the doc that's Emily Blunt yet that or
Speaker 3: the scripture that's like, but that's like but that, to me,
Speaker 3: is is a symptom of the disease of being the
Speaker 3: significant other of a fighter. You know. It's like you
Speaker 3: you know, once once that's not there too, you know,
Speaker 3: once they they in a way have some other purpose
Speaker 3: and you know, you know, or.
Speaker 8: You mentioned that JP and I I think that is
Speaker 8: incredibly profound that you think that way, because it took
Speaker 8: me a long time to ever think about that. And
Speaker 8: and one thing I will say is I think that
Speaker 8: women that fight are much better off than men in
Speaker 8: their career post their career, because, like I said, this
Speaker 8: is an incredibly selfish sport. But like I've talked to
Speaker 8: women that fight, I worked for Invicta for like seven
Speaker 8: years all women promotion, and like it really put it
Speaker 8: into perspective to me what it must be like to
Speaker 8: sort of be a more evolved different person and also
Speaker 8: be because I mean, you're a significant other one, you're
Speaker 8: a fighter as well, But women when they fight have
Speaker 8: to be cutting weight while cooking food for their kids.
Speaker 8: Like I can't imagine cooking food while you're starving yourself.
Speaker 3: And sexist not making the fucking food.
Speaker 7: That's what they say to me when I interview them,
Speaker 7: you know what I mean.
Speaker 9: And I have husbands, a lot of them have correct
Speaker 9: correct But I will just say that, like I feel
Speaker 9: like the significant others, like I said, this is the
Speaker 9: most selfish sport in the world.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 8: To to go through that and then to have those
Speaker 8: ups and downs and changes, Uh Yeah, it's it's definitely hard.
Speaker 8: I mean, Coleman still holding on, you know what I mean,
Speaker 8: Coleman still wants to fight. He doesn't really have anything
Speaker 8: other than fighting. And that's the one thing I will
Speaker 8: say about Kerr, Like I don't know if it's because
Speaker 8: it's this far removed from his career, but like seems
Speaker 8: to be doing really well. When I knew the movie
Speaker 8: was coming out, I knew that, you know, we were
Speaker 8: going to probably hear from Kerr. But when they announced
Speaker 8: him at the UFC in Newark, where he was going
Speaker 8: to be getting his you know, Hall of Fame nod
Speaker 8: later this year, I didn't know what they were going
Speaker 8: to show on television. I didn't know if it was
Speaker 8: going to be a horrific image. I didn't know if
Speaker 8: he was going to be in the building because maybe
Speaker 8: they couldn't show him on TV. Like I was kind
Speaker 8: of prepared for his life to be sort of a
Speaker 8: train wreck. And it's not like I think he's doing
Speaker 8: much better than Coleman is today.
Speaker 6: You know, isn't that amazing? Think I'm so glad you
Speaker 6: said that. Yeah, because anyone who sees this film would
Speaker 6: come away with the exact opposite impression of where they
Speaker 6: were headed. But that's not reality, you know, that's just yeah,
Speaker 6: it doesn't it doesn't work that way. That just the
Speaker 6: guy who who figures it out in his athletic career
Speaker 6: is going to figure it out after his athletic career too.
Speaker 6: And it's the fact exact opposite.
Speaker 8: If you retire from mixed martial arts or get cut
Speaker 8: from the UFC and we never hear from you again,
Speaker 8: that means your story is probably good, you know what
Speaker 8: I mean, It's that's really true so many guys. I mean,
Speaker 8: when's the last time Coleman fought? Like it has to
Speaker 8: be over a decade, maybe almost fifteen twenty years. But like,
Speaker 8: the simple fact is that this is a sport that
Speaker 8: when you are all in, it's very very hard to
Speaker 8: ever not be involved with it in a negative light,
Speaker 8: sometimes a positive light, but more more a negative light.
Speaker 6: Sounds like pro wrestling to me, it's very wrestling. I
Speaker 6: remember when I became acquainted with the vicissitudes of MMA journalism,
Speaker 6: I'm like, oh, I know what this is. This is
Speaker 6: like remember the guy who did two epic things and
Speaker 6: now he's in a dui and now he you know,
Speaker 6: got shot or now you know there's like a domestic
Speaker 6: or something and that that's how they ride off.
Speaker 3: You know. I mean, and if what you're you're saying
Speaker 3: about Coleman too, it's like, look at that. He can't
Speaker 3: even get out of the fucking business, you know, the
Speaker 3: simenus and there's this is there. I even Dwayne says
Speaker 3: it in the movie. I don't know if this is
Speaker 3: in the documentary or not, but he talks about the
Speaker 3: the high and it isn't the duck too, and it's
Speaker 3: like that's again, it's very wrestling. I can see definitely
Speaker 3: the similarities between uh, Dwayne and Mark Kerr. That's part
Speaker 3: of why The Smashing Machine was a success too. To
Speaker 3: me that the documentary was because they happened upon a
Speaker 3: they happened to spotlight a fighter who embodied smash mouth.
Speaker 3: We can get the blood in there and everything, we
Speaker 3: can get that across. But he was also you know,
Speaker 3: intellectual about what he was doing. You know, you're not
Speaker 3: going to get Mark cur to sit there and say
Speaker 3: it's it's man against man. And sometimes what a profound
Speaker 3: rush you feel when you feel a guy give and
Speaker 3: you know, Mark Kerr can be kind of flower in.
Speaker 6: His description of what he was doing in there. The
Speaker 6: scene of him in the doctor's office talking to that
Speaker 6: woman who's horrified that that's in the dock. He he
Speaker 6: does just drop everything and try to give her a
Speaker 6: very like calm and measured and polite case for why
Speaker 6: this is not, you know, the barbaric thing it appears
Speaker 6: to be.
Speaker 7: So you know, real quick.
Speaker 8: I'm curious if the documentary happens, if MMA was as
Speaker 8: successful in the States as it wasn't in Pride, because
Speaker 8: I think figures like Mark Kerr were very accessible to
Speaker 8: anybody here in the States because there was a disassociation
Speaker 8: of like what it is they were doing. They would
Speaker 8: go to Japan, like the biggest star in Pride or
Speaker 8: in Japan's you know, Fighting Boom was Bob sapp Like
Speaker 8: he was a huge star, like yes making uh, I
Speaker 8: mean they had him make an album like I Can't Sing,
Speaker 8: had you know, serial made after him.
Speaker 3: He would go cover of time.
Speaker 8: Yeah, like he would be ma by everybody in Japan
Speaker 8: and then would come back to Seattle and just walk
Speaker 8: around and if anyone looked at him, it's because he
Speaker 8: was a hulking figure, not because they recognized him.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's the mystique of these guys going to Japan
Speaker 6: is a huge part of what you're saying. TJ absolutely
Speaker 6: get it.
Speaker 8: If Kurt was doing this in the UFC, I don't
Speaker 8: know if that documentary ever gets made.
Speaker 6: No, I don't think it does. I think, well, I
Speaker 6: think a couple of things. One if if the UFC
Speaker 6: was as big in the United States and this time
Speaker 6: period as Pride was in Japan, and they don't get
Speaker 6: that kind of access. First of all, right, yeah, I think,
Speaker 6: I mean, yep, yep, be right, because they're there the
Speaker 6: documentary crew and Smashing Machine is ringside shooting all marks fights.
Speaker 6: They're not using Pride's video uh us UFC's video, which
Speaker 6: they would never get permissioned for, I don't think later.
Speaker 3: But it happened at a time.
Speaker 6: This is important to point out, this documentary Kurt at
Speaker 6: a time when while these guys could make big money
Speaker 6: for a one off fight, they were still kind of
Speaker 6: like c D list athletes. This was very much an
Speaker 6: off brand sport and so low budget documentarians could really
Speaker 6: get access to the most famous guys, like around the Clock.
Speaker 6: There was one called Rights of Passage. There was one
Speaker 6: called Bad Blood about the Tito Wartez Ken Shamrock feud.
Speaker 6: There was some there were a couple of other documentaries
Speaker 6: at the time that just got amazing access to who
Speaker 6: you would think as an outsider, are these like un
Speaker 6: you know, unapproachable superstar fighters. But when you realize the
Speaker 6: economics of the business at the time were such that no,
Speaker 6: like whatever, like you could just go to it. You
Speaker 6: could just go to an MMA gym and just hang
Speaker 6: around and like Ken SHAMROCK's in there, and it's not
Speaker 6: really it's not really a big deal. Not to say
Speaker 6: the documentarians Bind Smashing Machine didn't have to do some
Speaker 6: kind of you know, planning, logistics and credentialing to get
Speaker 6: the access that they did. But you couldn't even start
Speaker 6: making this documentary today you couldn't know.
Speaker 8: And that's the thing too, there's no real like Wrestling
Speaker 8: with Shadows documentary in the MMA scene.
Speaker 7: Like that's one thing.
Speaker 8: Maybe it's because no one was really interested, but the
Speaker 8: UFC was never cooperative with anybody about giving that sort
Speaker 8: of access to so like it's very that you ever
Speaker 8: see anything like this with the UFC's like official blessing
Speaker 8: the way they had it with Pride.
Speaker 6: It was such a part of the magic, wasn't it
Speaker 6: TJ Like this idea that these American superstar fighters who
Speaker 6: you first heard about on UFC pay per views in
Speaker 6: America were going to Japan where every fighter you ever
Speaker 6: heard of, and even the ones you heard of just
Speaker 6: sort of like mystical figures in Brazil and Japan were
Speaker 6: all going there and all colliding and it's happening on
Speaker 6: a different time zone and results are trickling in just
Speaker 6: in text form and you had to wait weeks to
Speaker 6: see the video. That was a huge part of why Yeah,
Speaker 6: this era is so why a documentarian I think would
Speaker 6: would be like, I'm going to Japan, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean?
Speaker 8: Well, I mean even after MMA blew up here to
Speaker 8: get Pride was sometimes difficult, Like they launched their Bushido series,
Speaker 8: which was like their their lighter weights, and in demand
Speaker 8: pay per view this was like two thousand and six seven.
Speaker 8: In demand pay per view didn't want to carry it,
Speaker 8: and the only television distribution they had at the time
Speaker 8: was Direct TV for that that event, and it was
Speaker 8: on a two month delay. Two months they showed the
Speaker 8: Yeah Grand Prix two months and it's like, as an
Speaker 8: MMA fan, like you weren't gonna you know, wait that long.
Speaker 8: You were gonna get the spoilers and whatnot. But it's like, uh,
Speaker 8: even even though Pride did have a television deal, it
Speaker 8: was still delayed. It was very far to uh you know,
Speaker 8: not see those results. I mean, this was such an
Speaker 8: internet sport at the time. But like when when this
Speaker 8: documentary is being filmed, if you went up to the
Speaker 8: average person on the street, like I think there was
Speaker 8: some cachet with the name, you know, Ultimate Fighting much
Speaker 8: more than say UFC, but I think most people would
Speaker 8: have said, oh, that was.
Speaker 7: That sport, that's John McCain killed, you know, something like that.
Speaker 6: No, like non a, they called it NHB as often
Speaker 6: as they called it MMA back then.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, you know, do you know where the term
Speaker 8: mixed martial arts came from? There's two different stories, just
Speaker 8: like there is eight different people that said they designed
Speaker 8: the UFC's octagon.
Speaker 3: But do you know Blatnik take credit correct.
Speaker 8: Yeah, blad Nick took credit for it and sorted big
Speaker 8: doan McCarthy and the idea to call it mixed martial
Speaker 8: Mom did too, I mean she probably did.
Speaker 7: I believe her.
Speaker 8: The The only reason they coined that name is because
Speaker 8: they wanted to get it legalized and no holds barred
Speaker 8: doesn't sound great, but getting a license to be a
Speaker 8: mixed martial arts promoter and that sounds okay.
Speaker 6: Also, also it's the name of my own personal property,
Speaker 6: tam faith In. The ultimate irony is there were always
Speaker 6: holds barred. Oh yes, like eye gouging and fishing.
Speaker 7: Yeah, kerr by uh put in his eye socket.
Speaker 6: That's That's the only fight ever. I think I could
Speaker 6: be wrong, the only fight ever, boss that is listed
Speaker 6: as a victory via chin to the eye. Just thinking
Speaker 6: about it, I mean, hovering over your opponent and you
Speaker 6: dig your chin and was eyesaw it till he taps out.
Speaker 8: Fuck me and told me that was a result. I
Speaker 8: would have thought it would have been your rye of
Speaker 8: favor in his chin.
Speaker 3: Or Vince's gin. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, But and that was the thing for these massive
Speaker 6: wrestlers who were just like seeing if they could make
Speaker 6: fighting work at that time period was it was like
Speaker 6: there weren't enough rules yet there weren't. And they make
Speaker 6: a point about this they talk about I thought it
Speaker 6: was great that they actually included this in the film.
Speaker 6: I think the general moviegoers like who the fuck cares
Speaker 6: like what position his heads in if you throw a
Speaker 6: knee on the ground. But they put it in the film,
Speaker 6: I give them credit, and it is it is a
Speaker 6: huge part of the story. They took head butts away
Speaker 6: from Mark Coleman, they took head butts away from Mark curR.
Speaker 6: They took head butts away from these ultrapower for wrestlers who,
Speaker 6: no matter how good the other guy was, they could
Speaker 6: get them on their back, and if you can head
Speaker 6: butt them from close quarters, you can start a whole
Speaker 6: chain of events that gets you to victory. But if
Speaker 6: you can't headbutt, all of a sudden, your weapons have
Speaker 6: to shift, and you have to develop other kinds of
Speaker 6: punching techniques, and you have to position your body differently
Speaker 6: to be effective.
Speaker 3: You can just smash your head.
Speaker 8: I don't remember if this is in the documentary, but
Speaker 8: Boss says it in The Smashing Machine, which, by the way,
Speaker 8: I just thought it was awesome that they had Boss
Speaker 8: play himself that he's got everything you.
Speaker 7: To know about Boss.
Speaker 8: The there's a scene where they're training and Boss says, oh,
Speaker 8: you get him down, and then once you're down, you
Speaker 8: just do whatever, And that's really kind of what the
Speaker 8: wrestlers were doing. You know, Like Boss was also just
Speaker 8: this incredibly scientific fighter ahead of his time when it
Speaker 8: came to, you know, coming up with disciplines and stuff.
Speaker 8: But like that was kind of what it was at
Speaker 8: the time. Like if a Kerr or a Coleman got
Speaker 8: you down, good luck getting up.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: And and the thing is they could damage you without
Speaker 6: having to learn ground and pound. Really they they could
Speaker 6: just head butt you, and they could just torture you
Speaker 6: with their chin, and they could they could knee you
Speaker 6: in positions that you can see guys anymore. Kerr need
Speaker 6: the shit out of people from side mount. That was
Speaker 6: the position he was always going for because he was
Speaker 6: very effective there.
Speaker 7: What's funny is you can't even need someone in the
Speaker 7: head from side mount in modern mixed martial arts.
Speaker 3: No, you can't.
Speaker 6: You can't need munless they're standing in the head and
Speaker 6: it's it's huge. I mean, if those things didn't change,
Speaker 6: I'm not sure that so many of these wrestlers would
Speaker 6: have been gassed and sitting ducks for striking artists on
Speaker 6: the other side of a couple of takedowns to the
Speaker 6: degree they ended up being.
Speaker 3: But that's all what if MMA.
Speaker 6: Geek stuff. But you know, Boss, I think was great.
Speaker 6: One thing that's in the film that's not in the documentary,
Speaker 6: needless to say, is Mark Kerr rushing to the rescue
Speaker 6: with a sick hypodermic needle to save Boss.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, how funny is that to watch Boss
Speaker 3: pretend that that happened.
Speaker 8: Well, they had to have something added there so they
Speaker 8: could not talk about Rika Rodriguez.
Speaker 6: Right, who was training with Mark Kerr and turned out
Speaker 6: to be a total liability for his camp. He disappears.
Speaker 6: They talk about this in Smashing Machine a little bit.
Speaker 6: He doesn't show up for a particular trading session and
Speaker 6: Mark's badmouth in him. And they show Rico like dancing
Speaker 6: with someone pulling a top down and stuff.
Speaker 8: And again this is my memory from twenty, you know,
Speaker 8: some years ago. But doesn't Kerr go into Boss's office
Speaker 8: and say, I think I need to ask you to
Speaker 8: beat up my friend.
Speaker 6: Yes, And it's an extra it's an extra scene. It's
Speaker 6: not in the but yeah, deleted scene. You can tell
Speaker 6: that they were thinking about doing a whole side story
Speaker 6: about Rico, but he just ends up being a background
Speaker 6: character in the training scenes.
Speaker 8: And Rico's story is amazing too, Like another movie is
Speaker 8: a phenomenal fighter balloons up to like three hundred pounds,
Speaker 8: not in the good way and still almost beats one
Speaker 8: of the top heavyweights at the time. But yeah, So
Speaker 8: I interviewed Kerr in July, June, maybe May, and I
Speaker 8: ended up put my foot in my mouth because I
Speaker 8: was like.
Speaker 7: Who plays Rico in the movie? He's like, oh, you'll
Speaker 7: have to find out. I found out nobody.
Speaker 3: Finally got it, finally got him back. Yeah, Rika, Wow,
Speaker 3: what a story.
Speaker 6: So much of that comes rushing back when you watch
Speaker 6: this stuff. Well, I guess it's time for final thoughts, gentlemen.
Speaker 6: Rock has gone for it, boss, he has. He has
Speaker 6: sought a textured, deep performance. Man, Can I picture him
Speaker 6: watching Smashing Machine and the Gears turning in his opportunistic head.
Speaker 6: He he thanked everybody with radical empathy whatever that means.
Speaker 6: Do you have radical empathy for him? Despite the fact
Speaker 6: that you didn't do too well at the box office?
Speaker 3: Did he? Did he do something special here? I think
Speaker 3: that audiences can expect just a great overall entertaining movie.
Speaker 3: Well that box has checked. How about others? It's a
Speaker 3: solid effort I can't deny that it's a solid effort. Yeah,
Speaker 3: if you came here.
Speaker 6: Thinking we're just gonna shot on Rock's performance, you're gonna
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, No, it's not.
Speaker 3: It's not justified. I I I I think it is good.
Speaker 3: I think it's very good. I think, especially for him,
Speaker 3: it is very very good. I also think he should
Speaker 3: abide by his own words and know your role, shut
Speaker 3: your mouth and just be you know, stop going for awards.
Speaker 3: I just don't think. I mean, it's just it's just
Speaker 3: not I don't know. Listen, maybe it is in the
Speaker 3: card down the line. I don't know. I don't think
Speaker 3: it's in this one. I'll be surprised. I would be
Speaker 3: surprised given all the other elements that come in, because
Speaker 3: it's not just about your performance. There are other elements
Speaker 3: that come into play. It is box office. Not necessarily
Speaker 3: always box office, but box office does have some elements sometimes,
Speaker 3: especially on a movie this early. I think, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: I just yeah, I don't think. I don't think it's
Speaker 3: going to pan out for him. I think the director
Speaker 3: is going to get some stuff. He's already gotten some stuff.
Speaker 3: But even then, I don't know. I think it's it,
Speaker 3: it shoots, it's filmed like you would expect a movie
Speaker 3: like this be filmed. It's not. There's nothing really surprising
Speaker 3: about it except for that fucking jazz music. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 6: I found myself engrossed in it, and it's impossible for
Speaker 6: me to decouple my MMA fandom from the reason I
Speaker 6: was engrossed in it. But I did appreciate how it
Speaker 6: got at this kind of like archetype that we're seeing now.
Speaker 6: And I don't know if this was intentional or not,
Speaker 6: but I think the character he plays, and the character
Speaker 6: Marker was, is very much like this a stand in
Speaker 6: for this modern, like hyper masculine kind of guy who
Speaker 6: also wants like French vanilla creamer, you know, Like he's
Speaker 6: he's pissed off at Starbucks because they, you know, they
Speaker 6: won't won't serve him because he's got a gun on
Speaker 6: his hip or something. But he's at Starbucks, you know.
Speaker 6: So there's like that softness too, I feel like, and
Speaker 6: just the way he deals with the domestic tensions with
Speaker 6: Emily Blunt, and just how he's just like trying so
Speaker 6: hard to pretend that he's not this powder keg, you know,
Speaker 6: and trying to contort his his his instincts to fit
Speaker 6: this doom domestics CID scenario, just so he doesn't have
Speaker 6: to be party to a failed relationship.
Speaker 3: There is I'll tell you what that is something because
Speaker 3: there were so many moments in the movie where I
Speaker 3: thought to myself and I mean, this could be a
Speaker 3: testament to both Dwayne and the director. But there were
Speaker 3: many moments when they were having their their their quarrels
Speaker 3: in in the home and I'm like, he's gonna hit her.
Speaker 3: He's gonna fucking wail on her any moment now, it's And.
Speaker 6: The only reason he doesn't is because he wants to
Speaker 6: tell himself a story about himself, and.
Speaker 3: Now he's not that guy. And that's a that's that's it.
Speaker 3: That is one of the one of the most effective
Speaker 3: parts of the movie is that it really I I
Speaker 3: I sat there the borderline horrified that that that it
Speaker 3: was gonna happened, That he was just gonna unload on
Speaker 3: her at some point, absolutely, and.
Speaker 6: I did that's what most movies would do, and this didn't.
Speaker 6: And I think, you know, even though that's probably just
Speaker 6: a happy accident, because they were being so faithful to
Speaker 6: the documentary, and Kurr doesn't. Kerr actually is a little
Speaker 6: harder on Don in the Dock and a little more
Speaker 6: dismissive of her than Rock's portrayal, but he doesn't get
Speaker 6: violent with her. And I think that kind of ends
Speaker 6: up being a pretty cool part of the movie, honestly,
Speaker 6: that it doesn't just end up with this guy who
Speaker 6: falls prey to his demons and takes it out and
Speaker 6: his girlfriend. And in fact, Emily Blunt is the one
Speaker 6: that kind of does more violence at.
Speaker 8: The end of the day of the guy than he
Speaker 8: does exactly exactly you think Don is telling the country that.
Speaker 7: Emily Blunt played her in a movie.
Speaker 3: I don't think she's leaving the house for a couple
Speaker 3: of months, No, right, yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure she is.
Speaker 3: She is disconnecting herself as much as possible from this movie.
Speaker 3: But if she was driven to drink because he was
Speaker 3: famous for six fights in Japan, can you imagine this?
Speaker 3: I mean, good good luck to I don't know what
Speaker 3: her situation is, but I don't know. I don't think
Speaker 3: it's an unflattering portray but it's definitely it's definitely not
Speaker 3: one that just decides that the big steroided up fighter
Speaker 3: is the bad guy, that's for.
Speaker 6: Sure, right, I mean they're both kind of bad guys. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: those those those types have a way of finding each
Speaker 6: other in a way at their worst. You know, not
Speaker 6: have to say that, dude. They're like that their whole lives.
Speaker 6: They can have beautiful days and they did. That's a
Speaker 6: big part of the doc is her saying like, I'm
Speaker 6: just trying to get back to those days where just
Speaker 6: we just get along just great, and those days are
Speaker 6: in the camera's there for it all and you look
Speaker 6: into her eyes and she's that kind of stoneface the
Speaker 6: whole time. She doesn't show any of the emotion Emily
Speaker 6: Blunt locates in this character. She's always very, very straight
Speaker 6: laced in terms of her visage, even in the even
Speaker 6: in the hospital when Mark's overdose. So it's kind of
Speaker 6: interesting what Emily Blunt does with it when you know
Speaker 6: how limited of a range of emotions she actually shows
Speaker 6: in the documentary itself. You can tell to your point
Speaker 6: she kind of ran with the ball. Well, TJ, Hey,
Speaker 6: I'm going to tell you something here. I was gonna
Speaker 6: tell you so I'm just looking her up quickly. She
Speaker 6: was at at Uh, the premiere was Toronto, to the
Speaker 6: Toronto screening. The pictures of her at the at the thing,
Speaker 6: and there's a pictures at a picture of them. I
Speaker 6: didn't give her enough credit.
Speaker 3: No, no, we did not. That's the four of them.
Speaker 3: It's Dwayne, Emily Mark, and uh, I'm happy. I'm happy
Speaker 3: for that. I'm happy show deal. She's there. Yeah, that's great,
Speaker 3: that's great to hear.
Speaker 6: I'm glad she accepts the reality of how she was. Well, yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean, what the hell, right, I mean, you went
Speaker 6: through it. Who cares if the best actresses you know,
Speaker 6: brings it to life?
Speaker 3: I mean, and honestly, you know, fucking soak it in
Speaker 3: and you know, God knows, you probably get a couple
Speaker 3: of pay days out of it. Absolutely, yeah, And that's
Speaker 3: that's something they know how to find. So TJ found
Speaker 3: myself nostalgic for MMA back when everybody cared in which
Speaker 3: is weird because this is not when everybody cared in
Speaker 3: the States, but it's when everybody cared internationally. And uh,
Speaker 3: I don't know, how are we already at the place where,
Speaker 3: you know, the movies are being made about the good
Speaker 3: old days in MMA. It's it's it's wild, oh dude.
Speaker 8: I Mean the only people that ever reach out to
Speaker 8: me in social media are like, wow, I saw you
Speaker 8: come up with my timeline. What are you doing now?
Speaker 8: And I'm like, oh, what do you mean? I'm still
Speaker 8: doing the same thing I've always done, Like I stopped
Speaker 8: watching six years ago. Yeah, it used to be better.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 6: Well, which is crazy because they're still selling out buildings
Speaker 6: and doing record gates. It's just a new generation of
Speaker 6: fans that during COVID they made.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I've worked in this sport full time, h for
Speaker 8: let's see here eighteen years and uh, most hardcorese today
Speaker 8: have no idea who I am, which just makes me
Speaker 8: feel special.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: And there's a period of time when we had to
Speaker 6: wait to see these fights on you know VHS.
Speaker 3: Or was there was there MMA tape trading if there wasn't.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, huge, especially the stuff of Japan, like Pride
Speaker 8: was the biggest one, but like Shootout that was, you know,
Speaker 8: one of the biggest promotions over there. I mean, that's
Speaker 8: that's actually kind of what the guy who started the
Speaker 8: website that Jack and I worked for, Shirt Dog, was
Speaker 8: kind of known for training tapes to get shots and
Speaker 8: things like that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, one of the big earliest draws to the site
Speaker 6: was that, because you know, the industry was so fragmented
Speaker 6: and no one really was gonna hit you with a
Speaker 6: copyright claim to make these incredible highlight videos, these music
Speaker 6: videos of the craziest things these fighters had done. And
Speaker 6: you knew these fighters through three four fights that they
Speaker 6: did onder the bright lights. But if you dug a lot,
Speaker 6: you can find tapes of fights that you never knew
Speaker 6: they had, and these highlight reels would just give you
Speaker 6: like this full suite of these people doing amazing things
Speaker 6: that you'd never seen before. And it was just like,
Speaker 6: you know, it was like a creator economy. It was
Speaker 6: like everyone had at it. There was nobody saying, test tisk,
Speaker 6: you can't do that, you're the permission.
Speaker 2: It was just.
Speaker 3: Jack.
Speaker 7: Do you know what? Was there a Kerr shirt dog highlight?
Speaker 3: I didn't see it, but I believe so that that
Speaker 3: rings a bell.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean there, he would have fit this sort
Speaker 8: of mold for that, but like, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 8: it's it's it's interesting to think about. Because you mentioned
Speaker 8: tape trading. There definitely was tape trading. It was just
Speaker 8: more done peer to peer on those sites. I mean well,
Speaker 8: I mean, dude, I destroyed a hard drive in at
Speaker 8: an entire computer because I downloaded Jeremy Horn versus Anderson
Speaker 8: Silva from South Korea.
Speaker 7: So you know, it was those days.
Speaker 6: Yep, yep, day long download, set it and forget it,
Speaker 6: and maybe you'd get one fight if you were lucky.
Speaker 6: After all that, while sixteen viruses always, every one of
Speaker 6: those sites would just attack your computer.
Speaker 3: Oh, pop ups? Is this the download link? Oh?
Speaker 6: No, the download link is actually hidden behind four pop
Speaker 6: up windows that you have to mix.
Speaker 8: Out, and then then you would download the fight and
Speaker 8: would download, and you couldn't watch it because your computer
Speaker 8: just kept throwing random things and playing weird songs in
Speaker 8: the background.
Speaker 7: You didn't have RAS or.
Speaker 6: Needed a CODEC that you didn't have yet. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 6: It was enough post internet because tape trade as we
Speaker 6: think of it in wrestling, as like seventies, eighties and
Speaker 6: like early nineties or Japan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Japan too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but I'm saying when people were interested in what
Speaker 6: we call tape trading, the Internet had evolved enough that
Speaker 6: you could probably download it. You're probably more likely to
Speaker 6: try to find a way to download it than you
Speaker 6: would actually have someone from Japan's centre VHS.
Speaker 3: But I did.
Speaker 6: Used to go to the Japanese video store in Boston
Speaker 6: and try to find the k Ones and the Pride,
Speaker 6: and I used to find them. They used to sell
Speaker 6: like the straight taped off television. Like used to be
Speaker 6: these big New Year's Eve spectaculars you could get.
Speaker 8: Well real real quick. I think it was in two
Speaker 8: thousand and three on New Year's Eve in Japan. This
Speaker 8: is how big the sport was there. Eighty five percent
Speaker 8: of the population was tuned into one of three fight
Speaker 8: promotions that were on television nationally broadcast television that night.
Speaker 8: And now it's weird as Pride dies. You know, K
Speaker 8: one is kind of a thing again. I think I
Speaker 8: hear rumblings, but like combat sports in Japan, it's really
Speaker 8: not even on the radar. But you know, twenty years
Speaker 8: ago everybody was tuned into US.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was. It was, yeah, it was.
Speaker 6: It was like a mainstream phenomenon. It was almost like it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: it was like a spectacle.
Speaker 8: You know, there's I mean, Jordan Breen would always say it,
Speaker 8: I'm not confident with my Japanese, but I think they
Speaker 8: call it the kakatogi boom.
Speaker 6: Kakatoki boom ya, kakatoki being the word for what we
Speaker 6: think of as mma, because I do remember going at
Speaker 6: a said video store and asking for kakatogi and getting
Speaker 6: that look like you're this fucking white guy I believe.
Speaker 7: I mean, that sounds like you're in some weird porn.
Speaker 3: And I was gonna say it definitely does. I was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: he just say kak I thought, well I did. I'll
Speaker 3: tell you this, you walked about shame and pain. I
Speaker 3: did feel more comfortable saying kakatogi than pududesu.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't dare. I wouldn't dare tell them. I was
Speaker 6: a wrestling fan. I want to see the real fighting shame.
Speaker 3: So yeah, here we are.
Speaker 7: I'm just realizing. Was Lenny Hart not in the movie? No? Oh?
Speaker 3: Is that the version of Jimmy Hart? Anyway?
Speaker 6: Now, she was a ring announcer who did like this amazing,
Speaker 6: high pitched style of introduction that was so.
Speaker 7: Hard to JP.
Speaker 8: Like, look up Lenny Hart when you have some time,
Speaker 8: because she was larger than life, and I mean when
Speaker 8: you actually see what she looks like and what she
Speaker 8: sounded like.
Speaker 7: It disclows your mind.
Speaker 3: She was.
Speaker 6: She was part of the tapestry of what made this
Speaker 6: more than just a sport. At the time, it was
Speaker 6: like this weird world, this kind of like video game
Speaker 6: with real people.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 3: That that's what hit me.
Speaker 6: I'm like watching the depiction of these fights back then
Speaker 6: and I'm like, this like Street Fighter, but it's real fighters.
Speaker 6: But the way Japan set it up, it looked like
Speaker 6: it was brought to you by Capcom or something, and
Speaker 6: these guys were you know, choose your fighter, That's how
Speaker 6: they were presented. They'd come out in a big parade
Speaker 6: at the beginning of the show and you'd size everyone
Speaker 6: up and it was it was a time and uh
Speaker 6: the Wayne Johnson of all people. Bringing it back to
Speaker 6: the four in the Smashing Machine. We hope you enjoyed
Speaker 6: our special report here at TLF taking in the latest
Speaker 6: because there's too many, uh too many concentric circles here,
Speaker 6: from from mm A to pro wrestling to rock to cinemat.
Speaker 6: I'm sure one day we'll even put it under the
Speaker 6: cinemat boss.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely see what you know. We got to get
Speaker 3: the We gotta get to the truth of the matter,
Speaker 3: especially after you know whatever happens. Uh, you know, next
Speaker 3: next winter, I'll bill.
Speaker 6: Maybe we'll even interview Ryan Batter, who by that point
Speaker 6: will be an Academy Award winner instead of Dwayne Johnson.
Speaker 3: Dude, imagine, imagine, okay.
Speaker 8: Any one playing playing the image that a guy wants
Speaker 8: to be rather than yeah.
Speaker 3: Right exactly.
Speaker 6: Ryan Bater wins the Academy Award in the Rock Biopiic
Speaker 6: playing Dwayn Johnson. Maybe that's where we're headed. Things have happened,
Speaker 6: but thanks, thanks for listening, and do keep it locked
Speaker 6: for the resumption of the complete hul Cogan that has
Speaker 6: come being fast and furious to your feeds in a
Speaker 6: way that I don't think you're prepared for. So we're
Speaker 6: excited to relaunch that. And thanks for listening in on
Speaker 6: this interlude. This has been the TLF Special Report.
Speaker 7: Wait wait, wait, wait you can't. You can't end it
Speaker 7: that way. I need you to thank me. I've been
Speaker 7: thinking about this since we started, so please thank me
Speaker 7: for coming.
Speaker 3: Oh TJ, thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 7: What can I say, but hey, you're welcome.