Warning: This publish accommodates spoilers for The Smashing Machine!Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine tells the true story of UFC legend Mark Kerr, who is commonly credited with popularizing MMA combating amongst viewers internationally. Safdie’s movie particulars the early years of Kerr’s profession, exploring how he rose to fame and what challenges that fame introduced. Opinions of The Smashing Machine have been typically favorable.
The ending of The Smashing Machine brings Mark Kerr to the finals of the PRIDE Preventing Championship, an MMA event that aimed to deliver the success of the UFC throughout the Pacific to Japan. The movie explores how Kerr’s substance abuse points and poisonous relationship characterised a lot of his early profession, resulting in this pivotal match.
Though Kerr overcomes his addictions and mends his relationship together with his then-girlfriend, Daybreak Staples, he finally falls on the final hurdle and is overwhelmed by the Japanese fighter Kazuyuki Fujita. Whereas that is an underwhelming ending in some ways, it speaks volumes to The Smashing Machine‘s key tenet of success being inconsequential to 1’s personal happiness.
Did Mark Kerr Absolutely Overcome His Dependancy Issues?
Mark Kerr’s turbulent relationship with painkillers is one among The Smashing Machine‘s most essential subplots, and the way in which Safdie makes this dynamic appear so pure and genuine is arguably the film’s largest energy. It is not sensationalized in the way in which you may anticipate from a Hollywood biopic, however moderately infused very slowly and subtly into the plot.
Equally, which means Kerr’s restoration from dependancy can also be delicate. There are some very emotional moments through which Kerr is compelled to reckon with the results of this dependancy on his private {and professional} lives, however for probably the most half, Kerr’s restoration occurs within the background whereas The Smashing Machine focuses as a substitute on his combating profession.
It’s a very fascinating method of tackling this matter, and it proves that any individual’s private struggles do not need to outline who they’re or how they’re perceived by the world. Dwayne Johnson’s lead efficiency in The Smashing Machine could be very restrained at instances, and also you typically do not discover simply how a lot Kerr is recovering — however by the tip, he appears a lot better.
Talking with TIME earlier this 12 months, Kerr revealed: “I have been sober for seven years now, and that took me a minute, as a result of that is a reckoning. I recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of physique and thoughts.” This basically confirms that whereas Kerr’s dependancy did not finish fully after The Smashing Machine‘s story, his restoration and self-improvement had been very actual.
Did Mark And Daybreak Handle To Save Their Relationship?
In some ways, the dynamic between Daybreak and Mark in The Smashing Machine displays Mark’s poisonous relationship with alcohol and medicines. The 2 are inexplicably drawn to one another regardless of the hurt they proceed to inflict upon each other, and this has a regularly detrimental impact on Mark’s skilled profession.
There are a number of moments in The Smashing Machine the place Mark even blames Daybreak for his losses, claiming that their dynamic is placing an excessive amount of of an emotional pressure on him and inflicting him to carry out worse. The pair break up up briefly following Kerr’s life-threatening overdose earlier than the PRIDE finals, however as The Smashing Machine teases, this wasn’t the tip of their relationship.
Daybreak and Mark reconciled months later and finally obtained married in 2000, they usually now share a baby collectively. The pair reportedly broke up in 2015, however Kerr’s feedback to TIME show that his relationship with Daybreak continues to be constructive:
I look again on it now, she’s slightly lady asking to be cherished, and I am just a bit boy that does not know methods to settle for or give it.
What Occurred To Mark Kerr After The Pleasure Finals?
Kerr is commonly thought-about an unsung hero of MMA combating, any individual who pioneered and revolutionized the game, however is commonly forgotten as a result of he by no means fairly reached the highest of the ladder. Following his defeat on the PRIDE finals in 2000, Kerr continued to battle in three extra rounds of the championship, however stepped again in 2001 following two surprising losses.
Kerr made yet another look at PRIDE in 2004, hoping to regain his crown and show that his tough streak was behind him. Sadly, he was defeated simply 40 seconds right into a battle with Yoshihisa Yamamoto, and he stop the league for good. He continued combating in smaller American tournaments, however formally retired in 2009 after shedding 5 consecutive fights.
The True Which means Of The Smashing Machine’s Ending
At its core, The Smashing Machine is the story of a generational expertise who failed to attain his full potential due to his personal self-destructive conduct and psychological well being struggles. Whether or not it is Kerr’s dependancy to painkillers or his lack of ability to stroll away from such a poisonous relationship, there are a lot of components within the movie that reveal precisely why Kerr is such a fancy determine.
It is arduous to pin down a selected ethical of the story with The Smashing Machine, because the movie appears a lot much less fascinated about judging or analyzing its topic, and extra involved with inserting him in his deserved spot among the many pantheon of MMA pioneers. If something, it is a story about how success and happiness can not often exist in the identical house.
There’s an fascinating dialogue in The Smashing Machine about whether or not success is absolutely definitely worth the ache it brings. The starvation for greatness breaks Kerr down each mentally and bodily, however the movie’s ending sees him virtually relieved that he did not win the battle as a result of he is aware of that it might have solely given him a style of a extra damaging path.
- Launch Date
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October 3, 2025
- Runtime
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123 minutes
- Director
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Benny Safdie
- Writers
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Benny Safdie
- Producers
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Beau Flynn, David Koplan, Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia