The Smashing Machine

You feel this person just let go, and totally wither away. That's a pretty powerful thing. Possibly the best film you could ever make about MMA? This is the documentary that inspired the upcoming Benny Safdie biopic film of the same name starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. Also a great time capsule of 99-2000 era MMA, with tons of focus on PRIDE FC. It's interesting to see how different this is from the modern MMA landscape. The film immediately throws away the framing that most modern MMA promotions (especially the UFC) love to use - that two all-powerful warriors are placed opposite each other in the octagon because they are destined to come to blows, fighting for glory. Mark Kerr is an almost comically reserved guy. He's soft-spoken, he's emotional but never really angry, he's friends with everyone and he doesn't get into much trouble. He fights because he's good at it, and it puts food on the table. And yet, he was one of the biggest names in MMA in the late 90s to early 2000s. It's funny that this era had much less of the pro-wrestling infused press conference promos and fighter catchphrases despite being known as perhaps the most unsafe and unregulated era of MMA in one of the most unforgiving promotions (PRIDE FC). Dudes would legally axe kick people on the ground and deliver the most reserved interview of all time. It was insane!