From cage to screen: The Smashing Machine and Mark Kerr’s second act with The Rock | MMA

IT started with a sign of head of head of heads between two harshs in a gymnasium of Santa Monica Gold in the summer of 1997. The candidate for the Olympic struggle, Mark Kerr, trained for his first fight of the ultimate combat championship, having dominated in a tournament of three combinations and one night in Brazil two months earlier. Dwayne “Rocky Maivia” Johnson, a former Hope of the NFL, sidelined with a knee injury suffered during his second year with WWE, approached him.

“Can I take your lunch?” Johnson asked Kerr, who forced him to the Firehouse restaurant in Santa Monica. The conversation inevitably derived from mixed martial arts, while Johnson strewn the 1992 NCAA champion with sharp questions about unregulated sport. The MMA gained popularity in Japan, where several promotions hired professional wrestlers for “crossover” fights.

“How does this organization work? How will she pay in time?” I asked her why he would leave WWE, which seemed much more a stable choice than to fight. When he told me that he was losing money on the road, on tour 250 days a year for $ 150,000, I got it. “

The pair exchanged figures and separated, two ships spending overnight. Kerr defeated the UFC at the Japanese pride championships next year for more than $ 200,000, while the Babyface “Maivia” returned to WWE and turned the heel, Gracious by Vince McMahon. “The Rock” emerged shortly after and Johnson’s career, the rise in eyebrows, quickly set up.

Between 1997 and 2000, Kerr was the N ° 1 truck in MMA in the world. His record climbed to 11-0, but it was a feverish rhythm that no athlete could follow for a long time. Kerr was no stranger to drugs; A coach had transformed it into steroids in his initial fights. Now Kerr needed a relief from the decades of cumulative pain to strengthen his endurance for the exhausting 10 -minute pride towers. Kerr had torn the cartilage in his rib cage which hurt it with each breath.

“There has never been a shortage of doctors [in Arizona] Who prescribed opioids to me, “said Kerr,” and if we said no, I would go to the next. »»

Kerr was addicted to the Vicodin in a few months, a missed dose creating anxiety, abdominal pain and fatigue. Not being a novice in intravenous drugs, the broken pills quickly evolved by pulling liquid directly into its veins. Kerr hid his bottle of nuban and morphine in the guest bathroom far from his girlfriend, Dawn. He turned every morning, sometimes waking up a few hours later, collapsing on the toilet when he had dosed too much.

A camera team captured this period on the film, which became the 2002 documentary of The Smashing Machine. At that time, Kerr’s career in MMA was over. When he met Johnson an hour in 2003, it was a fortune reversal. “The Rock”, having been given by Hulk Hogan to Wrestlemania XVIII the previous year, was a good faith superstar with two feature films to his credit. Johnson sprang in Kerr about the documentary, when the MMA fighter worried about his decision to exhibit his dark belly. Kerr had not been offered combat for over two years. He was no longer an intravenous user, but alcoholism had become Kerr’s daily life; He could fall four bottles of red wine in a single session. As another offer of pride arrived, Kerr was far from fighting the form. On the largest scene in sport, he knocked out for a few seconds in the competition with all things, an ill -informed withdrawal that sent his head to drive in the web.

Kerr married Dawn and they had a son, Bryce, in 2004. Their marriage remained fuel for years, while Kerr juggled drinking and the strange work of personal training between fights. After his final defeat in 2009, Kerr had no choice but to call him one day. A former tarnished champion was of no use to fight the promoters. Kerr pivoted the car seller, but feared being noticed by potential buyers.

“I could always say when someone noticed me, even if he didn’t mention it,” said Kerr. “They have always had the same look at their face, as if to say:” What happened to you? “”

Meanwhile, in 2009, Johnson won another main role on Witch Mountain, his 11th film. Soon, Dwayne Johnson, less “The Rock”, would become a familiar name.

While Johnson’s trajectory increased during the next decade, Kerr’s took a nose. There was a job and three relays in detoxification cure. Dawn divorced him, but their volatile relationship continued as they were trying to copy their son. Finally, it was the advocacy of Bryce, 14, who stopped Kerr’s self -destruction in September 2018.

“It was the birthday of my mother’s death and Bryce said he knew that today was a difficult day for me, but asked me if I could stop drinking the next day,” Kerr said. “How could I not listen?”

Kerr was sober at 10 months when Brad Slater, Johnson’s longtime agent, sounded to obtain the life rights of the MMA Pioneer. The call was completely unexpected. Kerr and Johnson had not spoken for 12 years, and Johnson, the movie star, now had more cache on the roles he chose. Johnson had never forgotten Kerr’s documentary and had secretly hoped that he could play the hard but vulnerable fighter.

Johnson announced the film at a press conference at the UFC in September 2019. His seven dollars productions are said to be at the helm of the ship, with director-director Benny Safdie his rudder. Safdie began to work to adapt the documentary in a scenario, operating Kerr for additional scenes to expand the relationship of Mark and Dawn.

“When the pandemic struck in March 2020, I thought it was over for the film,” said Kerr, who had resigned himself to a quiet life in Arizona. “If it was supposed to be, everything would be put in place.”

In sobriety, Kerr reconnected with a gym friend named Franci. They started to go out together during the pandemic and would marry the evening of the New Year 2023.

During the pandemic, Kerr did not hear a look at Johnson, Safdie or Seven Bucks, but during the shooting of 57 days to Oppenheimer, Safdie convinced Emily Blunt Emily Blunt to watch the documentary. Blunt, a longtime friend of Johnson, immediately called his Jungle Cruise co-star, telling her that the time was now to make the film. Blunt signed to play Kerr’s girlfriend, Dawn, and the fire was on.

Kerr received another Slater call in September 2023, but this time there was a start date in the spring. Kerr turned the shooting of Vancouver that April and the shooting began in May. According to Johnson’s request, Kerr did not visit the set during the shooting.

“DJ had never played a living person before and I respected this process,” said Kerr. “I am happy to have stayed away. When my son saw the film, he couldn’t believe how DJ dropped my [softer] Speech and manners. My own son!

Indeed, Johnson’s turn as Kerr is convincing, especially for those who know the fighter in retirement. Johnson received a 16 -minute standing ovation for the film at the Venice Film Festival, while the Innovative Safdie won its distinguished director prize.

For Kerr, 56, it’s a second chance of notoriety, as ephemeral as it could be. Johnson was categorical that Kerr was by his side for most of the film’s promotional tour.

“It is incredible that a small decision that I made decades ago, to keep the [documentary] The rolling cameras while my life crashed and burned, has become all this, “said Kerr, who plans to write a book afterwards.” I could not be happier in the way it turned out to be and I can honestly say that I have been friends for life. “”