#2384 - Mark Kerr

What’s up, man—I loved the movie; I went in expecting a fight film and got a real film that happens to live in MMA, and Dwayne’s performance floored me.

It was surreal; my son watched it and kept whispering that Dwayne had my walk, my voice, my little habits, and that hit me harder than anything.

I didn’t know he had that range; it wasn’t big-budget hero acting, it was real character work.

He kept telling me he needed to do something different, and this was it.

It’s the ideal role for a guy built like him to prove he can truly act.

He crushed it, and Emily did too; when I saw the full cut in Venice, the last scene felt like therapy because I finally saw how my obsession burned people around me, especially Dawn.

Being elite back then was a crazy ask; I met you in ninety-seven when I was doing backstage interviews for peanuts just because I lived for this sport.

In Brazil I was still brainwashed by size and black belts until I realized wrestling lets you pin down a grown man exactly where he doesn’t want to be.

Wrestlers decide where the fight happens; if you can force it to stay standing or go to the mat, you control the night.

The Russians taught me about chaining attacks with bottomless cardio—Kurt Angle had that extra gear and would flurry until you broke from exhaustion.

Guys like Cain, Anthony Hernandez, and Marab have that freak engine, and it’s terrifying.

Some athletes are just built with another level, and you feel it.

When you and Coleman showed up, everyone started chasing size; look at Vitor’s arc, and later the testosterone exemption era turned him into a buzzsaw.

Back then you felt under-armed if you weren’t enhancing, like you were showing up unprepared to a war.

And Pride flat-out didn’t test; it was the Wild West.

They’d hand you a cup, you’d hand them a clean one; that’s how it was.

Your film nailed the early arenas and the bizarre Pride vibe; it didn’t fudge reality like some sports movies do.

Dwayne and I built trust in twenty-nineteen, and Benny chased authenticity so hard I sent them my watches, posters, everything; the prosthetics were so real that when Dwayne walked past me in character, I felt like I was staring into a mirror.

It honored pioneers too, and the Usyk cameo was a blast.

He logged hundreds of sparring rounds and even did rounds where he wasn’t allowed to punch; he’s a craftsman.

He’s a boxing genius—moved up from cruiserweight, trained under Lomachenko’s father, and outmaneuvers giants with angles and resets.

My son Bryce studies that footwork all day, but when I wrestled, total focus on one thing was the only way forward.

Chris Campbell mentored me on tape study and microscopic details; the Russians never drifted out of position, and those tiny adjustments changed everything.

GSP learned his wrestling from Russian nationals and belongs in the greatest-of-all-time talk with Mighty Mouse, Anderson, and BJ.

Jon Jones at his peak made killers look like beginners, which is why it’s a shame we missed some matchups because of his issues.

That wild edge that makes you great can also wreck you; your HBO doc stunned people because you let them see the addiction and chaos behind the machine.

My old teammate produced it to show the gentle person and the cage animal, and fighting revealed I had a switch and a mission to take an opponent’s will.

Some wills never snap.

One guy refused to break, then had me over for lunch the next day, which set my code: be ruthless in the ring and respectful out of it, dress like a pro, and raise the standard so you can ask to be paid like one.

How did the Pride jump actually happen?

UFC sued me over a tournament clause while Pride courted me, Royce got hurt during the delay, and I ended up fighting Branko Cikatic instead of Royce in Pride 2; me versus Royce in the Tokyo Dome at our peaks would have been insane.

At two-eighty I could maul early, but if I didn’t finish, I faded; Maurice Smith’s win over Coleman showed that cardio beats muscle, and Frank Shamrock’s heart-rate approach plus TR Goodman’s hockey-style intervals moved me to an ideal two thirty-five to two forty.

That two-forty range is the sweet spot for heavyweights, and the weight cap is odd.

The scale told me if I trained right; ADCC wins gave me endurance but cost some brute edge, and against Fujita I under-ate, hit a hypoglycemic wall, and could only think about sugar.

We’ve watched the sport’s training go from primitive to precise faster than anything else.

In long fights, strikers often look sharp early but the grappler’s pressure takes over late, and stuffing takedowns is its own cardio tax.

Being a wrestling specialist is the ultimate trump card; watch how chaining shots and baked-in counters melt people, like Hamzat overwhelming Dricus.

I texted my son at that fight that this is what elite wrestling does; dominance can look slow, but the gap is real, like O’Malley’s style versus Merab’s relentlessness.

From ninety-four to now, MMA looks like a different universe, and you’re really solving three sports at once.

We were small pieces that moved it forward while headbutts and bare knuckles were still legal.

The Ultimate Fighter put it on TV and Bonnar–Griffin hooked the world; Dana smartly gave both guys contracts.

I met the Fertittas at Big Bear after a car wreck and rode down the mountain with them, and you could tell the UFC had landed with the right owners; and Frank Shamrock deserves more credit for ushering in the complete fighter with insane cardio.

Khabib’s in-cage monologues while smashing people show true will-breaking, and the worst injuries—like snapped shins—are hard to even watch.

Do you ever feel strange now about how brutal some of your finishes were?

I once finished Dan Bobish with a vicious chin-and-eye pressure because it was legal then, and that came from wrestling control first.

ADCC proved that without top-tier wrestling you’re lost, and even dynamic strikers get rag-dolled by elite grapplers; Kamaru at thirty-eight reminded everyone how big that gap is.

At the top, training is beyond intense; Kurt won the Olympics with a broken neck and later developed a gear I didn’t have.

There are levels to will, and while some engines are genetic, Marab says he built his; friends like Cam Hanes and David Goggins show how far volume and obsession can go.

Do you think we’ll ever see someone sprint for five full rounds?

Yes; with modern recovery, hypoxic work, and total buy-in, someone will do it—and money keeps pulling better talent in.

Entry pay still seems rough even though it’s better than boxing’s undercards.

I funded early camps with the last purse until Japan paid me enough to go full-time; Pride literally paid in suitcases of cash, and I once stuffed cowboy boots with money before I learned to declare it at customs.

This all traces back to Bruce Lee’s mix-everything philosophy and mentors like Gene LeBell; that old LeBell-versus-boxer footage shows how a clinch and a gi choke can erase punching.

Gene’s style was brutally effective, and rolling with the Machados taught me how shocking that is when you don’t know what you’re walking into.

At every level there are outliers who find another gear and somehow keep that drive raging for years while everyone’s chasing them.

Getting to the top is one thing; staying there while everyone studies you is the hard part, and it reminded me of how closed-off some gyms used to be and how Hoist’s triangle on Severn shattered that old mindset.

Seeing a guy get finished off his back blew our minds.

Hoist made technique king, then the sport battled politics and bans; New York iced the UFC for years, the pay was tiny, and a lot of people tried to kneecap it.

I was headed to that New York card that got moved, later got offered Pete Williams for a small show-and-win when Japan was paying me monthly plus bonuses, and it was obvious fighters improve when promotions invest in camps, recovery, and coaching.

If a young fighter asks you where to start, do you tell them to jump right into the UFC or build somewhere else first?

Start with submission grappling and ADCC-style events to learn how to compete without damage, then layer in striking and develop in another promotion so you arrive seasoned instead of getting thrown into deep water too soon.

If you build a name elsewhere, you hit the UFC with momentum, but moving too fast can still get you tossed in with sharks.

There’s a moment where a young fighter suddenly understands that level, and it gives me goosebumps when it clicks.

The Rock became you on screen, down to your gait, and that only happens with crazy work.

He isolated for weeks, built the right muscle, drilled wrestling fundamentals so Benny could film without doubles, and once those bases were in, the little choices were his, like a jump shot everyone learns but personalizes.

The fights look authentic, not cheesy, and it feels more like history than movie magic; Rocky One had that too.

We wanted to honor the real thing, not stage a cartoon, and that first Rocky made every kid believe he could lace up and chase it.

At the elite level you can see the hours and intent, like Gordon Ryan studying everyone on the mat instead of just sparring hard.

Chris Campbell showed me what true intention looked like—every rep had a purpose—and guys like Gordon live that; back then I even made old Panther tapes, and in no-gi I leaned on small, safe movements instead of exploding into traps.

Gi grips can be a crutch for MMA; Eddie always said train the body, not collars and sleeves.

The gi felt like extra hands on me, so for MMA I tell people to build on wrestling and no-gi jiu-jitsu first, then add the rest.

During COVID the APEX had that eerie silence—Stipe and Francis, Justin and Tony—with every shot echoing through an empty room.

When there’s no crowd, the sound of shin on shin or a clean punch is brutal, and you can’t hide from it.

That time made me grateful to still be cageside, and your Venice premiere sounded like another surreal chapter; being hard on people comes with trying to do something insane for a living.

Venice felt like therapy, and I can admit I was demanding because I needed people around me to match the standard and be accountable.

Did that intensity feed your substance issues, especially back when doctors swore those pills weren’t addictive?

I chased a break from never feeling like I measured up, slid from pain meds into real withdrawal before I even knew the word for it, and shame kept me quiet.

Withdrawal feels like a parasite, and a lot of fighters self-medicate head trauma and pain with booze or worse.

I knew at fourteen I had that all-or-nothing streak, and the same wiring that drove my career also fed addiction; now I’ve got years sober, I lean on structure, and even my son thrives with clear boundaries.

When you filmed The Smashing Machine, did putting it on camera help you get clean, and did you ever think about burying it?

I finally showed the truth on camera, saw the finished cut cold and almost pulled it, then released it because if it helped one person it was worth it, and later my son asking me to stop became the day everything changed.

Ibogaine is helping veterans with addiction and PTSD, and Texas is finally opening that door, which makes it crazy that it’s illegal while the addictive stuff is not.

Friends say it works, and widening my view with meditation and my wife’s Buddhist chanting has made me less rigid and more open to how little we actually know.

Staying curious about old medicines and staying close to nature matters, because cities make people forget they’re still animals.

I used to mock it, but hugging trees and grounding barefoot honestly made me feel connected.

Alex Pereira is a quiet assassin with leg kicks and clever checks you barely see, calf kicks are now essential, O’Malley’s feints stack layers, and Crawford’s boxing against Canelo was a masterclass.

Those tells are invisible and those kicks changed the sport, O’Malley builds patterns until you bite, and Crawford painted a picture at an age where most guys fade.

Everyone needs daily challenges and small wins to feel right.

I stack simple victories now because regular life needs structure and emotional honesty, and early sobriety for me was minute by minute until it wasn’t.

Did fighting amplify your restlessness, and when do you think you should have walked away?

The job required flipping a switch to hurt without hesitation and that room is dark and lonely, and after the Fedor run was the moment to bow out because once I questioned the damage, the gear was gone.

I appreciate your career and your courage in that documentary, and the new film The Smashing Machine lands on October third with Boss Rutten in the mix; thanks for doing this, everybody take care.