Mark Kerr has had a decorated MMA career filled with impressive wins but it was the valor he showed in one of his losses that inspired Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and was captured in The Smashing Machine.
At a recent media appearance that saw Kerr and Johnson discuss the cinematic effort, the two titanic figures touched on the Kazuyuki Fujita fight in the Pride 2000 openweight grand prix. The fight saw Kerr fatigue after blasting ‘Iron Head’ with devastating shots that Fujita withstood en route to capturing the unofficial distinction of lineal MMA heavyweight champion from Kerr.
When touching upon how impactful he felt it was to see that grit and resolve that Kerr showed in taking his first official MMA loss, Johnson said,
“And Mark [Kerr] is the one who experienced this loss where he couldn’t move in the ring and he was getting rocked. And what’s so moving about that when you see it in the documentary and then you obviously watch it and you pull it up, his fights on YouTube, is that as Mark is getting rocked in that moment, his eyes are open. He’s with it. And he’s not knocked out. He’s getting his bell rung. He’s getting kneed in the guts and in the rib cage. And then also, but he’s not quitting and he’s not tapping and he’s just there.”
Dwayne Johnson on Mark Kerr “The man who lived his life so we could all feel it”
As he kept expounding on that iconic fight that Mark Kerr had in May 2000, Johnson continued,
“I said to Mark just you and I here. Why couldn’t you move? Why were you… you know I said there’s 30-40,000 people there in Japan. And he goes that’s exactly it DJ. There’s 30-40,000 people there in Japan. They all came to see me. I’m not going to quit. I just could not move my arm. So, the best thing for me to do was just to take it. And I was going to take it until I couldn’t take it anymore or take it until the ref stops it. Obviously, the ref stops. I have chills now thinking as he was telling me that. The man who lived his life so we could all feel it.”
