IT began with a confirming nod of heads between two gesture guys in the Santa-Moniki Gold gym in the summer of 1997. A one -time contender for the Olympic struggle, Mark Kerre, trained for his first combat battle of the championship, dominating the tournament with three battles in Brazil two months earlier. Dwayne “Rocky Mayvia” Johnson, a former NFL Avenue associated with the injury of the knee suffered during his second year with WWE, approached him.
“Can I take you for lunch?” Johnson asked Kerra, who ordered him at the Firehouse restaurant in Santa -Monica. The conversation inevitably switched to mixed martial arts, as Johnson took the 1992 NCAA champion with these questions about unregulated sports. MMA Gained popularity in Japan, where several advertising actions hired professional fighters for “crossovers”.
“How does this organization work? How do they pay and pay on time? How is the work schedule? I could say that he asked him to seriously consider his options, ”said Kerr, 29 years old at that time. “I asked him why he would leave WWE, which seemed a much more stable choice than the battle. When he told me that he was losing money on the road, touring 250 days a year for $ 150,000, I got it. ”
The couple exchanged numbers and broke up, two ships passed at night. Kerr refused UFC The next year of the Japanese Combating Pride for 200,000 US dollars more than $ 200,000, while Mavia Babyface returned to WWE and turned the fifth, kindly provided by Vince McMecheh. The rock appeared shortly after that, and Johnson’s career, making an eyebrow, quickly switched to place.
In the period from 1997 to 2000, Kerr was a heavyweight No. 1 MMA in the world. His record took off to 11-0, but it was a feverish pace, which no athlete could lag behind for a long time. Kerr was not a newcomer in drugs; The coach turned him into steroids in his initial battles. Now Kerr needed to relieve decades of cumulative pain in order to strengthen his endurance for the grueling 10-minute pride rounds. Kerr tore the cartilage in the chest, which was ill with every breath.
“There have never been a lack of doctors [in Arizona] Who would have appointed opioids to me, ”said Kerr,“ and if someone said no, I would just move on to the next. ”
Kerr was addicted to Vikodin a few months later, a missing dose, creating anxiety, abdominal pain and fatigue. Being not a newcomer for intravenous drugs, the tablets quickly turned into firing into the liquid directly into his veins. Kerr hid his bottle of Nubain and Morphine in a guest bathroom from his girlfriend, dawn. He shot every morning, sometimes waking up a few hours later with the toilet, when he dosed too much.
The shooting shot this period on the film, which became the documentary of the 2002 The Smashing Machine. By that time, the career of Kerra MMA was over. When he met Johnson in SeoCnd in 2003, this was a change in good luck. “The Rock”, which was transferred to Hulk Hogan in Wrestlemania XVIII a year earlier, was a bona fide superstar with two feature films under his belt. Johnson invited Kerra about the documentary, as the MMA fighter was worried from his decision to expose his dark lower abdomen. Kerra was not offered to fight for more than two years. He was no longer an intravenous user, but alcoholism became Kerra's daily enemy; He could lower four bottles of red wine in one sitting. By the time another pride in pride appeared, Kerr was far from close to the form of battle. On the largest scene of sport, he knocked himself in a few seconds in competitions with all things, a non -standard blow that made his head go to the canvas.
Kerr married at dawn, and in 2004 they had a son Bryce. Their marriage remained for years, when Kerr juggled with drinking and strange personal work between battles. After his last defeat in 2009, Kerr had no choice but to call it during the day. The extinguished former champion was useless to fight promoters. Kerr turned to the seller of cars, but was afraid that he was noticed by potential buyers.
“I could always say when someone noticed me, even if he did not raise it,” Kerr said. “They always looked the same facial expression, as if they said:“ What happened to you? “
Meanwhile, in 2009, Johnson received another main role in returning to Mount Vitch, his 11th film. Soon, Dwayne JohnsonThe minus of the “rock” will become a household name.
Since Johnson's trajectory rose over the next decade, Kerr took on the nose. There was a running work and three secrecy in rehabilitation. The dawn divorced him, but their unstable relationship continued when they tried to make their son. Finally, it was the 14-year request by Brace that ceased the self-destruction of Kerre in September 2018.
“It was the anniversary of my mother’s death, and Brais said that he knew that today was a hard day for me, but he asked if I could quit drinking the next day,” Kerr said. “How could I not listen?”
Kerr was 10 months sober when Brad Slaiter, a long -standing agent Johnson, was in defense of the rights of life of the pioneer MMA. The call was completely not blue. Kerr and Johnson did not talk in 12 years, and Johnson, a movie star, now had more Kesha from the roles that he chose. Johnson never forgot about Kerra’s documentary, and secretly hoped that he would play a tough but vulnerable fighter.
Johnson announced a film at the UFC press conference in September 2019. His Seven Bucks Productions will be at the steering wheel of the ship, and the writer-director Benny Safdi was a steering wheel. Safdie entered the work, adapting the documentary to the script, obtaining Kerr for additional scenes to reveal the relationship of Mark and Dawn.
“When the pandemic was in March 2020, I thought it ended for the film,” said Kerr, who resigned with a quiet life in Arizona. “If it were intended, all this would have become in its place.”
In sobriety, Kerr reunited with a friend of a gym named Francis. They began to meet during the pandemic and will marry the eve of the New Year of 2023.
During the pandemic, Kerr did not hear a peep from Johnson, Safdi or seven bucks, but once during a 57-day shooting for Oppenheimer, Safdy convinced his colleague Emily Blunt To watch a documentary. Blunt, Johnson's old friend, immediately called her colleague in cruise in the Jungle, telling him that now the time had come to make a film. Bllant signed up to play Kerra's friend, dawn, and the fire was lit.
Kerr received another call from the Slater in September 2023, but this time there was the initial date of this spring. Kerr made a trip to the film in Vancouver in April, and the shooting began in May. At the request of Johnson, Kerr did not visit the set during shooting.
“Di -Jaja had never played a living person before, and I respected this process,” Kerr said. “I am glad that I was standing aside. When my son saw the film, he could not believe the DJ shot mine [softer] Speech and manners. My own son! “
Indeed, Johnson's line, like Kerr, is convincing, especially for those who know a retired fighter. Johnson received 16-minute applause for the film at the Venice Film Festival, while the innovative Safdie took home his prize for an outstanding director.
For a 56-year-old Kerr, this is a second chance of fame, no matter how fleeting it may be. Johnson was adamant that Kerr would be on his side for most of the advertising round of the film.
“It is amazing that a small decision that I made a decades ago preserve [documentary] The cameras roll while my life crashed and burned down, grew up in all this, ”said Kerr, who plans to write a book further. “I could not be happier with how it all happened, and I can honestly say that I won friends for life.”
