The brutal true story behind The Smashing Machine, Dwayne Johnson’s new UFC biopic

Johnson wears facial prosthetics to star as trailblazing UFC star Mark Kerr in the upcoming film

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The new trailer for The Smashing Machine offers the first glimpse of an almost unrecognizable Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in character as UFC legend Mark Kerr.

The 52-year-old wrestling icon wears facial prosthetics to make him more closely resemble Kerr, with one fan on social media already commenting that “whoever did the makeup definitely deserves an Oscar nomination.”

The film, from indie studio A24, is written and directed by Uncut Gems co-director Benny Safdie and is based on John Hyams’s 2002 HBO documentary about Kerr, which was also called The Smashing Machine.

The trailer reveals that the film will stick closely to its source inspiration, even going so far as to recreate one of the most famous scenes from the earlier film. Near the beginning of the documentary, Kerr is in a waiting room ahead of an examination by a physician when he gets into a conversation with an older woman about how he sustained his injuries, which becomes a debate about the violent nature of UFC fights. “Do you hate each other?” she asks. Kerr replies: “Absolutely not.”

The real Mark Kerr was born in Toledo, Ohio, on December 21, 1968, the son of an Irish father and a Puerto Rican mother. From a young age, he was obsessed with the idea of fighting in the World Wrestling Federation, and would play fight with his siblings.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson on the poster for A24's 'The Smashing Machine' (A24 )

At the age of 15, while still in high school in Iowa, Kerr began his wrestling career. He later attended Syracuse University in New York, where he became known as a wrestling champion and competed in the Wrestling World Cup and World Championship. After narrowly missing out on the chance to compete at the 1996 Olympics, he turned his attention to mixed martial arts (MMA).

Kerr’s first competitive MMA fight came in Brazil at the World Vale Tudo Championship in January 1997, which he won by defeating three successive opponents. His obliteration of everyone who stood in his way earned Kerr the nickname “The Smashing Machine.”

His success in Brazil led him to be invited to compete in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in Alabama later that same year. The competition was still in its infancy, having been founded in 1993, and Kerr became one of the tournament’s early stars. However, at the time, UFC was considered highly controversial, and several US politicians were working to ban it outright. Major cities refused to host UFC fights, and TV coverage dried up.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson in 'The Smashing Machine' (A24 )

In search of more regular and lucrative employment, Kerr travelled to Japan to compete in the PRIDE Fighting Championship, where fights regularly pulled in audiences of 50,000 spectators. Kerr became one of the stars on the circuit, but injuries suffered during fights led him to become addicted to painkillers.

In The Smashing Machine documentary, graphic footage is shown of Kerr injecting narcotics in a bid to numb his pain. His girlfriend and later wife, Dawn, who will be played in the film adaptation by Emily Blunt, pleaded with him to get clean. In 1999, Kerr was hospitalized after overdosing on narcotics, but returned to fighting the following year.

After the documentary was released in 2002, Kerr continued to fight sporadically for much of the decade. He lost his last five fights, ending with a match in 2009 when he was beaten into unconscious submission in just 25 seconds.

Kerr, now 56, has retired from fighting. In a 2019 GoFundMe, he revealed he had been battling peripheral neuropathy for three years. The page stated that his situation had been exacerbated by his previous addiction, as “pain medication is not a option.”

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