If you came out of “The Smashing Machine” thinking “that must have hurt,” it was by design. Director Benny Safdie strove to make his biopic about pioneering mixed martial arts fighter Mark Kerr ...

Before Benny Safdie began shooting The Smashing Machine, Mark Kerr gave the filmmakers a wrestling lesson. The movie’s stunt team and others gathered around the padded ring at the Vancouver soundstage ...

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson took real headshots on set and suffered a concussion filming The Smashing Machine. He gained about 30 pounds to accurately portray MMA legend Mark Kerr. The film premiered at ...

In this episode of "Notes on a Scene," 'The Smashing Machine' director Benny Safdie breaks down the scene where Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) has lost his first professional fight, and Dawn Staples ...

Mixed martial arts is a style of full-contact fighting that combines techniques and styles from various sports, including wrestling, judo and jiu-jitsu — you get the picture. All of these sports have ...

“I come from a wrestling background, but I might face off against someone who is in jiu-jitsu, or a boxer,” explains a hulking Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr in Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, ...

Over 20 years ago, HBO aired a documentary called The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr (2002). It was about a mixed martial artist (MMA) who is considered a pioneer in ...

Many know Brock Lesnar, Conor McGregor and Jon Jones. But not as many are familiar with Mark Kerr, for a time one of the toughest men on the planet. Kerr went from winning an NCAA wrestling ...