Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Mark Kerr: The Real-life 'Smashing Machine' On The Rock's Performance, Wrestling Kurt Angle, UFC Hall Of Fame

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Get tickets for Insight LIVE in San Diego & Las Vegas! https://cvvtix.com Mark Kerr (@markkerrtsm) is a retired MMA fighter and former amateur wrestler. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his life story being told in the new biopic "The Smashing Machine", how the movie came to be and how The Rock became involved in the project, his thoughts on the movie, fighting in UFC, how he got the nickname The Smashing Machine, the differences between the fighter and the person, battling addiction, wrestling Kurt Angle prior to the 1996 Olympics, and more!   Quote I'm thinking about: "Don't count the days, make the days count." - Muhammad Ali Please support our sponsors!   PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian:https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux   SUPERPOWER: Go to https://Superpower.com and use code CVV to get $50 Off your annual Superpower subscription. Live up to your 100-Year potential. #superpowerpod   SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!  TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!   VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv   ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv 🚀 MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVVand use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF   ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insightFAST GROWING TREES: Get 15% off with code INSIGHT at https://fastgrowingtrees.com   BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv   BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com   For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you have ever enjoyed any of these episodes, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast or Spotify? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.    Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chris! Welcome back to another one here on InSight. I'm CBV. Chris Van Fleet, thank you for hitting play on this episode. And thank you for helping to make Insight the number one wrestling podcast on the planet. Hit a roundhouse kick on that follow button

on Spotify or Apple or wherever you happen to be listening right now. The new movie The Smasher Machine, starring Dwayne the Rock Johnson, opens in theaters on October 3rd. And today in the studio, we've got the real life smashing machine Mark Kerr. He's a UFC Hall of Famer. He's a two-time UFC tournament champion.

And it's amazing that as we start to dive into his life here, it turns out his first love was pro wrestling. And that led him to becoming an amateur wrestler and to try to get on the Olympic team. And you know who he wrestled in the Olympic qualifier? A guy by the name of Kurt Engel. He has some great stories about Kurt. and we cover that during this interview.

But I've seen the smashing machine twice now. It is by far the Rock's best performance by a mile. He completely disappears into this role. And it's so clear that no one else could have played Mark Kerr so perfectly. And it's pretty incredible hearing Mark talk about seeing the Rock act out his life in this film. A lot of highs, a lot of lows as well. And this is just a fascinating conversation with a fascinating conversation with a fascinating. Man. Snap a screenshot and let us know that you're listening to this one and tag us. He's at Mark Kerr

TSM on Instagram yet for The Smashing Machine. Also tag the movie, The Smashing Machine movie on Instagram. And tag me. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. And here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, he is the smashing machine. He is Mark Kerr. Mark, such a pleasure to have you in here. Thank you so much. No, this is this is my pleasure. This is, I love. love having these conversations. Look, I'm a long-time MMA fan, UFC fan. I go back to, I remember watching UFC two. Oh my gosh. Way back. So I watched you in UFC. I remember watching the smashing machine documentary back then. So it's amazing now all these years later to sit across from your entire conversation. I mean, the world is a strange thing. I mean, it's just one where for it to

put me in this position for me to be here. It's just, it's been this incredible odyssey. Did you ever think that your story would be told at the level as being told right now? Oh, God. No. No. And I've talked about this. I can't even put it in context, right? I can't even, I don't have anything in my life that's a correlation to it. You know, so it's like one of those, hey, if a movie's made, you know, who's going to play you? That's a running joke, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, I think I have the best person in the world. I don't think I could like up at any, you know, it ended up being just this incredible.

You know, Dwayne is just an amazing human being, everybody involved. It's just been incredible. If I had asked you that question 10 years ago, who would play you in the movie about your life? Would your answer have been Dwayne Johnson? Or would have just... Oh, my God. But that not even seem realistic. It wouldn't even seem realistic.

It wouldn't even be. I would go, come on. I don't want to make anything about, you know, the same thing when the documentary hit and all the stuff that surrounded that. Back then, it was, if you got something on HBO, if you're a comedian and you had an HBO special, you made it. That was Shangri-La, right? You could build a whole entire career off of that.

And so when the documentary got on HBO, it was like, oh, my God, this is like, but there's no social media. There's no YouTube like it is now. there's no internet like it is now. So it had its moment and then it was gone. Yeah, and that was 2002. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it was just this great moment, but then it was gone. But think about it. If Benny Safty hadn't seen that documentary, he wouldn't have been inspired to tell your story in this film. Yeah. Yeah. That's, oh, my gosh, that's another one. Like, the, like, Benny has talked about it.

Like, the film, like, making this film for everyone involved came to them at the time that they needed it. to come to them. When Benny and I touch base for the first time on January, 2024, you know, the running joke was like he got on the phone and goes, hi, my name's Benny Safdi and I'm going to make it. It was like this scripted thing. And then he just stopped and he goes, you can hear him go, all right, listen, here's what's really going on.

And we have this heart, heart. We're on the phone for like an hour and a half. And he just like, you know, at the end of the day, he goes, hey, I need to be completely emotionally transparent with me. Like his conversations with me if I'm going to make a movie about me, right? Like, so that was the correlation. And it was this beautiful, like him and I, he said to me, he goes, hey, he goes, you're permanent. You know, you're not a prop. You know, he goes, I'll be friends with you for the rest of my life.

You know, just this amazing connection that we developed. What was your reaction when you saw the movie for the first time? time cried just cried cried you know it was in a small little um they brought me out in january and uh the film was about 80 percent complete and uh my brother uh michael met me out here a small little studio and it was so was benny myself and my brother and i watched it and some of it just hit me like like they didn't tell me going hey listen you know dwayne's going to do all this prosthetics. I didn't see that until I was in Vancouver, you know, and just watching how deep they got

emotionally on stuff was just, it was unbelievable. Do you see you when you watch him on screen? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, he did, so this is like the validation. A couple months after I watched it, my son, I have a 20-year-old son with Dawn, and he saw it in New York. and he got on the phone immediately afterward. He's like, oh, my God, he's like totally freaked out because it let my speech pattern

and the way I talk and hands and hand gestures and pauses. And he's just like, oh, dad, this is like creepy. And even the way that he walks. That was the other one that he talked about. And I told him, I said, oh, my God, like, how do you have like a walking coach you go to? I mean, how do you even, how do you even go? okay, yeah, I need to completely immerse myself in it. You know, understanding like I, from all the screen grabs and all the photos that I sent

them and all of that, they genuinely recreated my whole entire life. Necklace I wore, watch I wore, ring I wore, clothes I wore. You know what? You know, I think it just allowed DJ to transform himself and really immerse himself in an environment where everything around him was that time frame. So you find out they're going to make this film. Benny is going to direct this film. At what point does the rock get attached to this?

That was originally when I got contacted in 2019 by Brad Schlaeder, which is DJ's agent. It was this conversation of like, hey, who owns your rights or who owns a screen player, who owns. And so I directed him in that place. And that was like, Dwayne wants to do this. That was the first that I was like, huh. Even back then? Yeah. Yeah.

It was like DJ's, DJ wants to do this. Not that he's going to do this. We're just going to figure out maybe some options. And then he acquires seven bucks production, acquires the rights. And then I get a call from DJ like in right before the BMF belt and Madison Square Garden. Yeah.

And he makes that announcement. And, you know, I've said this. Like, you know, back in 2019, the conversation I had with DJ was almost transactional. It was like, here's what I'm going to do. He's going to be this, this, this, this, this, and this is going to happen. And you just don't need to do anything. It'll, it'll follow.

And COVID hits, Brighter Strike, actor, all this stuff. And I had a phone number. I never called or texted him in four years. It wasn't going to change. anything, right? Wasn't going to call them up and going, you're going to make it yet? You're going to make it yet? You know? So I just kind of left it to, it sounds silly to say because it's just, but I left the universe. It's like if it's going to get made, there isn't anything I can do about it. Did you have that belief inside of you that it would get made? I had hope. I had hope that it would.

You know, but I just lived my life like nothing was going to change. And, you know, my wife. wife would go like I call him and I go no I just not I said you know somehow some way I truly believed that the universe would go hey now's when you need to reach out so in the fall of 23 at the end of October I called Brad Slater and he just was like oh my god I can't even believe you're calling me and this is what he said he goes I can't tell you uh you need to talk to Dwayne and I'm like, okay. I said, you can't say, where it goes, no, I can't.

And he's to come from him. And I'm like, oh, my God. So it's either, hey, this thing's scrapped forever or, hey, we're rolling forward with it. So that was like a Thursday. And it was like, he goes, DJ, we'll text you over the weekend. So he texts me the next day. He's like, hey, I'll call you over the weekend. That whole weekend goes by.

The whole week goes by. And I'm like, oh, my God. Now it's like nine days later. I'm like, what the bug? So I get another text that next Friday. It's like, I'll call you over the weekend. It was like Saturday. And then it was like Sunday afternoon.

It was like, are you available? I'm like, oh, my God. You're like, I've been available for a week and a half. A week and a half. So I get on the phone with him. And it was the difference was in 2019. I said, transaction all right. And in 23, it was just like a different person, a different space.

he was in and it was this hey you know we're moving forward with this production's already started you know um he goes when it when it moves it's going to move fast and not understanding like his like one of his assistants had like move heaven and earth to clear out 12 weeks like like he's so busy i don't even know how i'd find 12 minutes let on 12 weeks right yeah and so they found a place in Vancouver and all this stuff. And it was like, he wasn't kidding like when he goes, hey, I'm going to announce it. And this is what got me. He goes to the world that this thing's going forward.

Like not to like California, not to the, it's like to the world. And I'm like all of a sudden it goes and it's heading down the tracks. It was incredible. How much time did he spend with you to go? What were you thinking in this moment or how would you have phrased this? God, I mean, we did a lot of Zoom calls a lot. And also with Emily, did a lot with her. And that was early on and also a lot with Benny because Benny was putting it together and writing it.

And, you know, a lot of things he wanted. The whole point from the beginning was this level of authenticity. You know, for people that were originally fans of the documentary. And then also the audience, you know, when mixed martial arts audience, they're educated. They completely understand stuff on a level that, you know, like 25 years ago, if you took a guy to the ground, they had no idea what the hell was going on. Right.

And so their attention to detail, authenticity, I mean, I sent them eight boxes of stuff from my life 25 years ago. And they reproduced everything. It was just, that was amazing. I mean, it was incredible, like, just on a scale where I couldn't believe it. This episode is brought to you by Zapier. If you look at the trends over the last few months, everyone has been talking about AI. But let's face it, talking about the trends doesn't help you be more efficient at work.

For that, you need the right tools. You need Zapier. Zapier is how you break the hype cycle and put AI to work across your company for real. Zapier is how you actually deliver on your own. your AI strategy and not just talk about it. With Zapier's AI orchestration platform, you can bring the power of AI to any workflow so you can do more of what matters. It allows you to connect top AI models like chat GPT and quad to the tools that your team already uses so you can add AI exactly where you need it, whether that's a customer chatbot, AI powered workflow,

or something else. And Zapier is for everyone, tech expert or not. Teams have already automated over 300 million AI tasks using Zapier. Join the millions of businesses transforming how they work with Zapier and AI. Get started for free by visiting zapier.com slash insight. That's ZAPIER.com slash insight. This episode is brought to you by timeline. Have you tried all the health trends, but you're still feeling tired, foggy, or off your game? You are not alone, my friend.

It's time to go deeper. We're talking way deeper because true health, starts in your cells. Timeline has the first ever longevity gummies powered by Mytopure. A delicious easy way to put more energy into your day. These are the only clinically proven urolithine gummies for strength, endurance, and healthy aging from the inside out. I recently turned 42 and I think a lot about what life will look like in my 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, I want to live into my hundreds. And I understand that our body makes less and less energy as we get older.

But these really help to recharge the batteries. I take them every single day, and I love how these gummies taste. If you want to stay strong and energized now as you age, then you have to try mitochondure gummies. My friends at Timeline are offering 20% off just for you because you're listening right now. Head to Timeline.com slash Insight to get started. That's Timeline.com slash Insight for 20% off. your cells will thank you.

There's so many parts of the documentary, and the movie is basically based on the documentary, those three years of your life. So many things in the documentary that are so like almost too raw. Yeah. Do you have any regrets about some of the things they showed in the documentary?

You know, when I first, first saw it, so they filmed for, you know, 18 months, almost two years, and I never saw a single stitch of footage. Like I didn't see a second of it They never showed me any of it So the first time that I ever saw The documentary as it is

As it appeared on HBO was An Adobe Sound Studio here in L.A. And there was like four or five of us watching it And I got, like literally it ended, I got up And I just said to John, I just go Like almost blank like, I'm gonna have to get back with you And just walked out and walked down, got my car and started driving. I'm like, what the fuck?

I just do. Like, what? I couldn't believe the stuff they captured. And I couldn't, I couldn't believe, like, just how vulnerable, how, how just naked I was. It's like they filmed a porno, basically. That's what it felt like. You let them in. Like, there's, yeah, there's a shot, and it's actually a shot in the movie, too, where like, you're injecting the needle in your arm. You can see the track mark. You've been doing it for a while. Later on in the film, you're in a hospital bed. We don't know if you're going to make it or not.

It's like you were wide open. Yeah. And you know, part of, during that process, there's like this point where John Greenhall put the camera down. And he just, Sam and I sat and talked. And he's like, he's like, he's like, if you trust me, you can let me in. I'm not going to judge it. I'm not going to, you know,

because at the end he was, you know, the whole point from him was like, you need help one way or the other, right? You need to find a solution for what's going on. And it's not like now where there's, you know,

you can get on the internet and find 50, 100 rehab places go to or understand what being dope sick is. Or, you know, all these different things at the time that I didn't understand or didn't have the resources to get to understand it. So when he said, if you let me in, he goes, here's what I'll do. I'll give you final say over the whole entire thing. If you don't like what we put together, it doesn't have to go forward from there. How close were you to dying in that scene?

I should have died at the hospital before they transported me to the main hospital. I mean, I was unattended. You know, when they found me, I was in the bathroom, you know, lips blue, barely breathing, you know. It was just one of those where your body starts going into this catabolic state where you, you, they really can't do anything medically to pull you out of it. But your body has to kind of find its own equilibrium. room. You're like my blood because of the lack of oxygen was acidotic. It's acidic.

The pH balance in my body is just all whacked out of line. And, you know, so I spent three days in the hospital just to get to a point of like neutral. You know, and they didn't. So the filmmakers are way over their skis. They have no fucking clue what to do. And so they literally put, they wouldn't let me go home. They were just like they put me on a plane and sent me into New York because they're like, we don't know what to, we don't know what to do.

So I was in New York for like seven days at a friend of mine's house and it was just, it was just brutal. I mean, brutal. You know, when you come off of opiates, it's just your body is just destroyed. Energy sources, like I had to walk down a flight of stairs, walk a block and have to turn around and walk back because I just didn't have the energy to walk any further. And it's just whole like my body's resetting. And it's like this hard core way to do it.

I mean, at that point, I had been on opiates for probably 10 months, not a single day missed. And what a juxtaposition of like you look like this huge hulking man. You can barely walk down the street. Yeah. Wow. Is that the moment where you realized I got to get help? Oh, it was. it was finally finally they you know like said hey listen there's this place in Tucson you can go to

and and they literally flew me back still wouldn't let me go to my house and we'll we'll throw clothes in a bag because at the house I still had hidden spots of all this stuff and so they weren't um they weren't going to let me back in my house and they're like dude we're gonna we're gonna go through it from best we can you know and so um you know I I think it was like 25 days. And it's the first time I got to address a lot of different issues. You know, like in 96, my mom died in September. And I had my first fights in January of 97.

And so, you know, after my mom died, I was just devastated. And so I had this attitude where it's like, you know what, I'm just going to put my foot down on the gas, right? and I'm going to go forward as hard as I can for as long as I can. And then when I get to wherever I am, I'll clean up all the fucking shit. You know, it's like, and so it's this mentality, and it was the first time I actually could, I paused. And in that pause, it was like, I sat down with a counselor and this is,

want to give you an idea of the space I was in, like, sit down with the counselor grief counselor when I was in treatment and have this conversation of like, oh, my God, I've been trying to get over my mom's death and da-da-da-da. And she just stopped me and said, you're never going to fucking get over it. Never. So stop trying. Right. And it was like this light bulb of like this relief of like, you're trying to get over something.

You never can get over. It'll always be with you. Always. Yeah. You learned to appreciate the time you had with her, appreciate all these different factors, right? Yeah. And so it was like this moment where I was like, fuck, I don't have to get over. this you know i don't and and uh that was like one of the many little gifts that i left there with

of like um you know i don't have to do i don't have to punish myself right and this whole idea of like uh this came a little bit later um you know idea of like never enough you know if i won five championships i i should have won 10 right so i'm in this perpetual wheel of never enough yeah you know if I get this, I need that. If I get that, I need this. And I get this, I need that. And it's this, it's this insane life, you know. And it's one where it's like, I don't have to place my value in that.

It's, you know, what I did was fight. It's not who I am, right? Like, what did you do? Well, I was a fighter. That's what I did. It's not who I am, right? That was my occupation, right? And so having this ability to separate the two out and go,

it was it was powerful it set me on a path you know it took me years to get it get it because you know most times um i think they they call it like um like um you know i'm gonna be the one person on the planet that's not gonna that that wins over addiction it's like and it's just the most ridiculous shit in the world it's like no they call it is a disease because it has a beginning, it has a middle, and it has an end, and has a pathology, right? It's a disease. And you can go to China right now, and somebody can be an alcoholic, they're going to have similar stories that I have, how I drank, because it's a disease. It has commonality to it. Yeah. So all these years later, and removed from that, removed from fighting as well, where do you draw volume from now in your life?

You know, in the last, so I've been so over seven years now, so it's been, And, you know, a lot of the recovery community, but also it's a lot of, like, you know, rebuilding a relationship with my son, you know, who, you know, so I spent a total of 23 years with Dawn. You know, I'm 56, so it's almost half my life. Yeah. And so that chaos that you see on screen continued, you know, it continued almost like I was with her, like it's almost an addiction. you know you get addicted to that exchange of energy negative energy right and uh fully addicted to it so i would get away from it and want to go back to it and get away from it and want to go back to it so there wasn't any consistency for my son so so basically it's been the last you know my son's 21 in a couple weeks

here it's been the last like five years of just rebuilding trust and it's been a huge huge because when you have a child that doesn't trust an adult for anything, for emotional support, for, you know, housing security, for all these different factors, you're like, you know, that probably hit me the worst. Well, not just an adult, you know, his father. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

What do you think is the, like, the big core lesson that fighting taught you? Oh, reason perseverance. Perse. personally because i'm just telling you there's times where where literally it was like a completely fuck it you know just you know there's moments where i could have just went fuck it i i don't care i'm gonna go live in a box right you know where it narrowed for me where addiction narrowed for me was there wasn't any choice you know it's basically take take myself out to no longer exist. You know, that's where it was leading me because nothing worked anymore. I couldn't drink

enough alcohol. I couldn't take enough pills. I couldn't do it to alleviate all the bullshit that was going on in me, right? Yeah. And so it gets to a point where that chatter is overwhelming. You're like, if none of that shit's working anymore. Yeah. And that's the horror of untreated alcoholism, untreated addiction is usually it leads to just some, you know, suicidal thoughts, thoughts of like, I'd be much better just not here, you know. And so it's just terrible. There's a quote from the director of the documentary. I'm sure you've heard this before.

I love this. I don't think Mark liked hurting people, but he was very good at it. And as you sit across from me right now, you're such a gentle, kind soul. Is this something you just flip on? So the first fights ever, right? So I hoped I had that switch because it's a little different switch than just, hey, we're competing against each other. We're wrestling, right? Yeah.

Because your background's in wrestling. And wrestling, right? And so wrestling is combat sport in and of itself without strikes, kicks, and so on. But I'd always hope that I had that switch. And part of the narrative I had in my head was like, okay, if you and I get, you and I get, you. get throwing in a room and one person has to come out. I'm coming out. I know that I am. And then having that little doubt in the back of your head going, I think I, I know I am, right? Because I don't, at that point, I didn't know. I didn't know if I had that gear. And then once everything

co-el, like just in the ring, everything just coalesced and together, it's like, I have that. And it's one where I do have to click a switch because it is just such a, different contrast from my everyday me. The smashing machine is such a great nickname. And for people that don't know the story behind it, how'd you get that nickname? So down in Brazil for those fights, they had a Brazilian reporter and he looked at it and it's the only thing you can come up with because the first two fights were quick, but they were, they were gory.

And the last fight was 15 minutes or so, 18 minutes. I forget what it ran, but went to decision? It went to decision. And it was a time where it was like, back then it was, here's the rules. You're going to fight until someone wins. That was it. So when I say, I don't know if it went 15 minutes, I know it went a while. It went until they stopped it.

Right. And so I had taken this guy, Fabia Gugil out, and I mauled him. It just was one of those things where I couldn't understand inside me, like, why he just wouldn't give up. It was this, like, I am punishing him to the point where any human being would just give up. And now, looking back on it, I can understand, like, what I was after was taking his will. And some people just don't want to give it to you. And he's one of the people that didn't want to give it to me. He just refused to give it to me.

Because other people have fought, I've put pressure on him and I've hurt them. And they just give me their will to win. And you can feel it as a fighter. You can feel somebody give a little bit of it. And it propels you to take more of it. You know? And so he just wouldn't give it. And it frustrated me.

And I just, you know, in the, in the documentary, It's like I dig in his cut. I fractured his orbital. You know, I get to the point where I can't even punch with my hands. So I'm punching with the palms my hands. I'm trying everything. And he won't.

And it, it baffled me. It literally baffled me. And looking back on, I understand, like what I was after and what he didn't want to give me. You know, in that moment I was like,

just fucking give it to me. And he wouldn't. And that's the fight that made you the smash him. Yeah. Yeah. Because I just kept pounding him and pounding him. And it went for so long, it was like a machine that was on an assembly line. And this was like a, it was a headline, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It was a headline in Autonomay, I think is the name of the magazine. And it was a McKinna debater, the machine that smash in Portuguese. And it was like, that was like the hook. And it was like, okay. That's like one of those things I can't name myself, right? all of a sudden going, hey, Chris, I'm the man. I'm the badass. It's like, it's like, no, no, no, somebody needs to give you that name, right? Yeah. So it was, it was down there and it was a reporter that actually did that. Before you got into MMA, before you got into wrestling, you were a huge WWE fan, right?

Yeah. You wanted to be a pro wrestling? Yeah. At some point it was, you know, I met with a friend of mine introduced me to Shane. McVey and or Shane McMahon. McMan. Sorry. I know Sean McVey. And that was just a conversation. And it was, it was literally like they gave me the idea of like, hey, here's where you would start. And it was like, you mean, I would start way down there. And these small little regional things and I have to work my way. And it just didn't sound

appealing the process of it. I'm like, how do you? Like, was this like early 90s? Oh, yeah. It was, let's see, 90s. It would have been 90, just when I started fighting. And I didn't know if I was going to continue. So probably 9798. Okay.

9798. Yeah, it's one of those things where it's like I literally, J.R. doesn't met with literally my friend goes, okay. And talking to them and they were just straight up going, it's work. It's a lot of work. And it's like, okay. you might travel 300 days out of the year. Oh, okay?

Like, it just seemed like the process to get to where, like, Dwayne, it's like, that's so much work. Because on the flip side, if you're fighting, it's maybe at that time six fights a year. It's way less now, but. Yeah. Yeah. 300 days versus half a dozen fights. Yeah. I mean, it's just the contrast was like, oh, my God.

And I started, so when I started fighting after you. 15, I went over to Japan and Japan was paying, you know, 10 times what the UFC was paying. Wow. And it was back then, it was like, okay, we're going to pay in cash. You won't give you a foreign work credit. And I'm like, okay. But UFC was really getting clamped down on right by like, it was illegal pretty much everywhere. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it turned out to where the original owner just really didn't go about it the right way, trying to make, you know, boxing commissions, you know, say, hey, listen, here's really what we're doing, right? Yeah. It's combat. So here's how we're making it safe. He still wanted this idea that it was just wild, wild west, you know, any, you come in with one boxing low one. It's just, it was almost unmarketing at one point.

Yeah, it was, they weren't able to show it on TV. It was pay-per-view only. Paper view. I remember finding it in the back section of Blockbubes. You did. Usually the corner book store, the corner video store, it was right next to the porno, next to the shutters. You go like, or you ask where it is and they go, you know, see those, you know,

shutters there right next to it, up top shelf is like one row of it. You know, it's like, okay. You know, because I would go get it because I would, like, for me, I wanted the investigation of like, what the hell is this BJJ stuff, right? because they like I couldn't go to a dojo and they wouldn't share anything with me. It was this totally like even in, even in Arizona, like some of the traditional kung fu and stuff, I would go, hey, can I come in and use the mad space? They'd go like, yeah, when nobody's in here. Because it was such a threat to that establishment, you know?

And so BJJ was the same thing. We're not giving away our secrets. It's like, it's like, okay, like, because you'd have to watch a videotape and going, how the hell is he getting in? And that's why Hoysgracy was so unstoppable at first. People were like, how was he pulling this off? He's not even that big. No, they couldn't understand.

Because, you know, part of how I grew up was like, oh, if you have a 10th degree black belt, a tough student around, right? Sure. If you have a guy, six foot nine, four and a pound. No, my God, leave him alone, right? And it's one where it's like all of those myths were being. shattered one by one. So you're watching it and going, okay, I miss something, right? Like, I completely missed something like he is just beating the brakes off these guys. And I don't know how.

It was just so it's unbelievable to watch. So before that conversation with Shane McMahon, you were already a pro wrestling fan as a kid, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, to the point where, where, you know, I grew up the youngest of five, not a ton of money. And I remember going to every WWE event that came into town. It was because we had it on our side of town in Toledo, Ohio, at the sports arena it was called. And it was one where it like the Iron Sheik. And I think the hall came into Calcutown.

And they had Andre the Giant. And they had these just events where it would be like, my parents. saving, you know, going, this is what I want to go to. You know, and me, I had a little paper route that I could contribute to it, you know, but it was one where it's like, I remember going to these events and they were pivotal, you know, of like, oh my God, I can't believe how tough he is and not really understanding it was choreographed. It was all performance.

Shopping for a car should be exciting, not exhausting, but between misleading prices and hidden fees, it can feel like a maze. That's where car gurus comes in. rank the best deals, verified dealers, and make sure you never pay more than you should. Your big deal just became a great deal. Car gurus will connect you with trusted dealerships when you're ready, ensuring a transparent and hassle-free buying process because you don't want any hassles. With over 4 million listings, Car Gurus has more car listings than any other major online automotive marketplace in the U.S. so you can find the best deal. It's no wonder similar web

estimated traffic data shows car gurus is the number one most visited car shopping site. Buyer sell your next car today with car gurus at car gurus.com. Go to car gurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's C-A-R-G-U-R-U-S.com. Car gurus.com. The United States Soccer Federation present the U.S. Soccer podcast. My name is David Goss, and I'm joined by my co-host, And now we're giving people an inside look at the World Cup. Times ticking. I think you can feel the intensity.

All the guys are wanting to really stake their claimant. And they want to be on that World Cup roster. There's no doubt about it. Hosting the World Cup on the home soil comes with its pressures, but we're just really excited just as the people are. The U.S. Soccer podcast, presented by Henko. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Think of how different your life may have turned out if you were 20 right now.

And UFC is what it is. WWE is where it's at right now. Yeah. You might have taken a completely different career path. Yeah. You know, because it's just one word. You know, I ended up, you know, with fighting. I ended up getting a point where I just couldn't get to that space in me that I needed to get to

to inflict that kind of punishment on another person. Did it go away? The desire, the desire to be in that environment, the desire to get in a ring. You know, and this is what I figured out from. for myself is that I get addicted to taking somebody's well to win. You know, you get addicted to the crowd. You get addicted to the adrenaline of it, the emotions of it. And, you know, it became something that I couldn't process.

Like at the beginning, I could process it and focus everything towards it. And it, you know, towards the end of it, it was just like, you know, that one doubt of like, I don't think I want to do this. That happened after you lost your first match. You hear a lot of fighters talking about, like, you feel invincible when you have, when you're undefeated. Then you lose, and it kind of gets in your head of like, oh, I could lose. Yeah. Yeah.

That was the beginning of it. You know, the beginning of it was like it's a doubt that creeps in. And then it's that doubt that kind of sat with me for a while of like, do I really want to? to do this like because it it you know for me it's it it's a completely different person that that gets in there and does that you know it's it's like a you know it's like a basic operating system that everyone has in them you know some people can access it some people can't and when i access it it was like oh my god i have this gear in me where i can where i can do this to another person because some of the stuff I did was brutal.

Absolutely brutal. What's the most brutal thing you did? When I first started that, like with Fabio, that was just like, I still to this day, just still can't believe, like, what kind of punishment he took. And the crazy part is, I don't know if you realize this the next day, I get a call from his wife, and she says, Fabio wants to have you up to the house for lunch. And I'm like, immediately in my head, I go, oh, he's going to have all his boys up there. And he's going to, he's going to give me a little payback.

Right. I'm like, well, what do you? Like, where, I didn't know what to say. And then she goes, no, no, no, I have lunch prepared for her. End up like buried in the back yard. Oh, my God, man, you figure in Brazil they can find some place where you'd never be found again. And so I agree to it. I go, she goes, write this down.

you're going to give this to the taxi driver. And I'm like, oh, my God. So the taxi driver takes me there. And I go up and his wife speaks really good English. And so she sat there for a couple hours. And we had this just beautiful conversation. And it was like it, for me, it set a precedent for like how you can carry yourself in the ring. And then once you're out, it's your, you're living.

how you want to live, how you want to be. No animosity came from him and nothing except he just, he wanted, we were exchanging like information with each other. And it was this just beautiful exchange of like, competition's competition that was yesterday. Today I want you to sit down and have lunch with me. And we see that in the scene in the movie

where you're in the doctor's office. Yeah. And the woman says, do you guys hate each other? You're like, no, not at all. Yeah. And that's the, if that hadn't happened, it might have taken me a minute to get it. You know, because it's just one of those things where it's like the other person you're fighting, you know, it's difficult. It's a really hard thing to do to train for it, to get your body ready for it, get your mind ready for it.

and then to execute against another person. You know, it takes a very special person to be able to do that. Before you got into fighting, you wrestled Kurt Engel many times. How many times do you think you wrestled Kurt? Like, I think total at eight times. Who won more often? It ended up being four-four. But he won the Olympic qualifier.

He did. He did. Yeah, the two years prior to that. I'd beat him off the world teams. Wow. You know, him and I, this is just how beautiful person he is. So my mom who had terminal cancer in 96, right? So I tell people, I go, you want to know a bad month?

So 1996, January, Dave Schultz, I wrestle for Foxcatcher. So did Kurt. Dave Schultz is murdered. I'm over in Russia when they make that announcement. Just heart goes absolutely cold. Like we still haven't competed yet. And so the coach is like, if you don't want to compete tomorrow, you don't have to. And I'm like, okay.

But I flew all. We're in Siberia, Russia, a little town called Krasi, arts. And I go, okay, I'll compete. So I competed, but my heart wasn't into it. So I lost the first match. And I go, fuck it. I'm just, I'm done. And I go home and I was supposed to actually fly from Russia to Foxcatcher to continue to train for the nationals, which were in April.

And so I end up going home to Ohio. My brother asked me to come home and he says, hey, listen, the cancer is terminal. It's metastasized outside of my mom's colon. and they're going to try some experimental chemo. You know, she'll have to have chemo pack on to pump chemo in her 24 hours a day. But the, it doesn't look optimistic, right? So, you know, I go ahead and it just devastated. And I gather myself up and I go, okay, I'm living in Arizona.

I continue to train. I end up pulling, I end up going to Athens, Greece, and I end up pulling my transverse abdominal and drop into my growing my heart. I was pulling them completely out. And so I can't compete in the Nationals. So I have the petition to get in Olympic trials. Petition to get Olympic trials there in Spokane, Washington. I wrestle Mark Coleman.

At the poll, I lose to Mark right off the bat. So my chance to be an Olympian, I could be an alternate, but I can't get to Kurt. Right. So I throw my shoes away. Literally like, fuck it. What's the point? And Art Motory, who wants, who had the sun kiss. kids he comes over says listen it'd be the last time your mom going to watch you wrestle why don't you

get your shoes on oh yeah i'm like you're right you know you're right and um so get my shoes on and i and i uh wrestle three more four more matches that day and it puts me in a spot to be like i can be second alternate to to on the olympic team so um i wrestle the next day i mean my body is just devastating and I ended up losing that match. But it was one of those where it's my so I gather myself up, go to Ohio and we watch Kurt, me and my mom, uh, watch Kurt win the gold medal. And then we try everything to get a hold of him afterward. And, uh, my mom dies September 3rd. We get a letter from him September 5th. And it's this beautiful, beautiful letter. I can't even talk about it. made me just ball wow a gesture oh you know in in the letter he's he's basically like because you made me

because you made me Kurt's biggest obstacle you know it helped him win the gold medal because it was an obstacle he never thought he could overcome now I'll have to show you the letter someday it's it's it's it's one of those we're still to this day like reading it or my brother reading it just it just it drops I'd love to read that. It's incredible. Yeah. It's incredible. Do you still keep in touch with Kurt?

I actually bumped into him again in Philadelphia for WrestleMania, and we just had a beautiful conversation. He's such a good, just a great human being. Yeah. You know, just really a good human being. He's such a good guy, and you talk about going into that other gear. Yeah. I mean, Kurt's one of the greatest pro wrestlers of all time.

Oh, undoubtedly. Undoubtedly. It just has that, like, killer instinct when he's a thing. Yeah. Yeah. Whether that's a wrestling mat or whether it's a wrestling ring. Yeah. He just flips it in another gear.

Yeah. I mean, you know, we brawled. The first time we ever trained together in this is, was it Foxxcatcher in 92, was fall in 92. And I popped his knee. I sprained his knee and he was going to go. He still ended up doing it to Moscow to wrestle in the World Cup. And it was one of those things.

but first time we've ever trained together. Because normally if you're competing against it, so you're not training against each other. But we had an opportunity to do that. It was like first time I got to really go with him. And it was like this awesome of like trading takedowns and this and that. It was just beautiful, man. Because he did have another gear.

He did have it. You know, in 95 and 96 is why he, you know, was on the Olympic team because he found another gear that I couldn't find. You know, incredible. Was that your only year to possibly qualify for the Olympic team? You know what? I only wanted to do one Olympic cycle. You know, I watched in the wrestling world guys that would get stuck.

And they would do one Olympic cycle, this four-year commitment, right? Once Olympics are over, you start training because you want to position yourself to be on world team so you get that experience. And so I'd watch guys get caught in these eight-year cycles. I go, I can't do that, that year in 96, I think I made, it was like $23,000 total. And then when you started fighting in 97. Yeah, my first fights for $25,000. So it's like, okay. I mean, the contrast was there.

It's like, do another Olympic cycle continue to be poor. I mean, it allows you to function, but it's not, it's bare minimum. Yeah. You weren't making the money then that UFSA fighters are afforded now. Yeah. What's the most you might have made for a fight in your entire career? Almost half a million. Incredible.

Back then it was... Which fight was that? That was a culmination of the Grand Prix, the way that the contract was set up with the Japanese. It was set up to where, regardless if I won or lost, it was set up where I had like a default payment, like an appearance fee. And so it was that. the overlap of another contract because there were two separate contracts. My regular fighting contract and then a grand period contract. So it was like I got double paid for the event.

You did UFC 14 and 15. Yeah. Then spent the majority of your career in pride. Yeah. Was there ever the opportunity to go back to UFC? Yeah. Yeah. So this is how small this world is.

So I'm living here in Santa Monica and the UFC gets sold. And we get word that there's a training camp going on in Big Bear and it's Tito Ortiz's training camp. They're going to push him to be the face of the new UFC. They get it sanctioned for New Jersey Boxing Commission, which is the gateway to Vegas. Right. Everywhere. Yeah. Everywhere.

Right. So I go up there and I'm driving up there. This is so strange. It's like February thing. I'm driving up there snowstorm, you know, roads are icy. I'm in my truck and I get hit by a drunk driver at 11 a.m. in the morning. 11 a.m. in the morning. And so he hits me, like we reached the peak of a hill at the same time.

Yeah. He panics. He slams his brakes on and he just skids right into my truck. And that is the most terrifying road to drive up. Oh, brutal. Because one lane each way? Brutal. And you're on the edge of a mountain.

So one thing goes wrong. You're down. And at the bottom, they were stopping cars because there were so much snow going up. Oh, my gosh. They're like, you need four-wheel driver chains. And that's the only way to let people up. Wow. And so he crashes into me.

And my attorney that was helping me at the time and a friend of mine. And we're like, you know what? Let's just continue on. So we jump in the tow truck. And tow truck continues to take us up. And we finally get to where the training camp is. And it's Frank and Lorenzo Furtita. It's Dana White.

It's Chuck Liddell. It's Tita Ortiz. It's everybody. I mean, the Furtitas brought their massage therapist, their chefs. I mean, everything that you could possibly imagine for a training camp. And so it was like, I wanted to meet him. I want to see who the new owners were. And so because I got hit by a drunk driver,

didn't have a car to get down the mountain. And Frank and Lorenzo, like, hey, we're going to Beverly Hill. Hill's Hotel tomorrow. Do you want to ride in the limo with this down? So it was like this awesome, like, riding down the mountain with the new owners of the U.C. Got a chance to talk to them. And shortly after that, they made one offer.

And it was, the pay was so little comparatively to what I was making in Japan. I was like, like, I just can't. They go, if you're willing to sacrifice now, there would be ample opportunity for. you to grow. Who would the heavyweights have been at that time? Pete Williams is who they made the offer. That's who the fight would have been. So had you beat Pete, who were the other contenders at that time?

Oh, gosh, man. Gosh, man, there was a lot of light heavyweight. I feel like that era was like light heavyweight. It was all light heavyweight. Because it was Couture. Yep. Tito, Chuck. Rampage.

It was all light heavyweight. That was predominantly. They were all the stars. Yeah. They really were. I would have probably had to cut down to, or have one of the guys come up. Wow. Because every, you know, almost like one of those things, like every villain, he's a superhero.

Yeah, yeah. Right. You know, it's like Connor needs something diabolically opposed to him to make it work, right? Yeah, Nick Diaz. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, so. Nate Diaz. Yeah. Yeah. But Randy fought up. Yeah. Maybe it's a fight with Randy. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that would have been. And so I wrestled Randy in the NCAA. Wow. My senior year, his senior year. Yeah, I beat him 12 to 4. So this was your only opportunity that this is the only offer UFC made? That's it.

Wow. That's it. Like Dana instituted my understanding of policy of like Ask once. That's it. But then fast forward all these years later, congratulations on getting conducted into the UFC Hall of Fame. No, that happened in June, which was, that was like a stop the bus. Right. Like literally, I didn't understand it.

I'm like, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Hang on. I'm going up to Vegas and they're inducted me in the pioneering wing of the UFC. And I was just like this moment of like it felt like almost like you've been wrongfully convicted and the convictions overturned. Like the like the like the like it felt like exoneration right like this feeling of like okay because I mean at the time it's like you know I wanted to do stuff that I always I've said it like I wanted to be a professional I wanted to change the narrative because at the beginning it looked like they just scooped guys off a bar stool and threw them in the octagon to fight right they didn't look like professionals yeah yeah early UFC was barbaric Oh, it was unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, the only one that looked like a professional was hoist.

Sure. And it was funny. There were a lot of guys that would get taken down. You could tell they had no clue what to do. I mean, so I wanted to change that narrative. I wanted to, like, everybody in a press conference show up a sweatsuits. I'd be in a $1,000 Kevin Klein suit, right? Because I wanted that differing.

I wanted people to go, that looks like a professional. You know, and so I trained like a professional. I like get up. That's my occupation. It's what I do. Right. Not like, oh,

I do this is a hobby and then I go into work, right? It's like, this is what I do. Well, a lot of guys at that time had new jobs.

Yeah, they did. And they were just fighting for fun. Yeah. Yeah. Not understanding that, you know,

like where this was going. Yeah. So that meant a lot too. It did. It did. It was like this, you know, because a lot of it's

just acknowledgement. It's like I didn't fought to be in it. No one fights to go, hey, I'm fighting so I can get a Hall of Fame. I mean, they just don't do it, right? You know, but the whole idea behind it is to have your peers kind of step back and go, thank you. Just that little bit, because the idea behind

is, I wanted to advance the sport this much. That's it. Well, you advanced it. Yeah. Way more. What does life look like for you now? I'm remarried. You know, my wife and I a company called Absolute Wellness. She's been designing fitness centers and amenity spaces and

environment and, you know, it deals with a lot of different pillars of mental health and financial health and, you know, all these different aspects of like things that I want to be able to communicate to people and, you know, have them, you know, like for me personally, like my journey it's just taking such a strange turn and twist to get to here, but understanding like all of these hurdles that I had to overcome to get here. And, you know, understanding the importance of recovery and, you know, talking about that and having openness about that and getting rid of the shame that's associated with it, right?

Yeah. I mean, because that's what kept me captive for a long time is just the shame of it, you know, and, you know, having the ability to, to face that part of it is, you know, it's the biggest step forward that I ever took. But if your identity is so tied for so long in being an athlete, whether that's being a wrestler or it's being a fighter, and that stops one day for you. It stopped in 2009. Yeah. How do you find your identity? It is. It took me to 2018. Wow. Okay. So almost a decade. Because it's just, it's one where, like I said earlier, it's like, it's what I did.

It's not who I am, right? But not understanding that statement. You know, not completely understanding. Like, that is just a separate thing. You know, what I am and much more than that, right? You know, I'm a complex human being. You know, I have all kinds of stuff to give other than just that. And when you tie up in yourself and you take what you feel your worth is, that was,

I had this delusion that that was my worth fighter. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. That's what you did. Your worth is much more than that, right? Can you believe how massive Dwayne got for this movie? The runny joke was it's the only director in the world. Ben, he's the only director in the world that looked at him, go, uh,

he need to get bigger. I don't know how it's possible. He's running out of skin. It's just one where, first time I ever, oh my God, first time I ever saw them in full prosthetics. So they brought me out to Vancouver for Fight Week. And we're in this big venue. They're going to film these scenes that are in Japan.

And they didn't tell me they were going to do prosthetics. They didn't say any of this. And so I'm talking. And Dwayne walks in behind me. And he's in, he's got a pride shirt, a blue plaidre pride shirt. He's got these Adidas track pants on. He's got the shoes on I wore. He's got my hair on.

He's got all the prosthetics on. And I turn around and I can only cuss at him. It was this whole thing of like just pushing him and going, fuck you dude. Like, seriously like, because he was, I didn't realize how much time he put into getting.

Because he goes, I needed big traps and I needed big shoulders. You know, because it's like when you look, at me back then it's like I had a 25 inch neck you know I had shoulders that just were on top of shoulders and it was just like I looked at him I just was I couldn't believe it like a doppelganger just that's he was me wow completely felt like you were looking at yourself oh my god like like shockingly like just could not I'm like I couldn't I couldn't process it because it was just like

Like, oh my God, dude, this is unbelievable. Because no one said it. No one said, hey, listen, we have Academy. We're winning, you know, makeup and prosthetics. I'm like, that was incredible. Incredible. There's a lot of talk about Dwayne's performance. Maybe he'll get nominated for an Oscar.

I also think that the makeup team, that's like an Oscar. That feels like a lock to me. You, you, I couldn't imagine, like, the call going out saying, hey, we need somebody to do, you know, prosthetics, and it's going to be all of this, and he's going to have to move in it, and he's going to have to wrestle in it, and he's going to strike in it,

and they have to stay on. It's like, I wouldn't return that call. Yeah, and I think that that's a big part of it that no one thinks about. He's got a sweat in this. Everything. Move, and all of his tats are covered up. Yeah.

Right? And he has my little dragon tattoo, my two little spider tattoos on him. What are those mean, by the way? So this is crazy. So when I was at Syracuse, I lost my scholarship after my sophomore year and I started doing roadie work. I started pulling cables and stuff. I ended up getting on the Who reunion tour in 1989.

What a life you've lived. A roadie for the Hoos. So even gets better. So at the end of that, I end up in San Diego. I meet this guy. Just listen, the stones are going on tour. I think it was like 33 cities or whatever it was. I'll call this guy.

So I call this guy and he's like, hey, we're looking for, you know, Scaffers, you know, building the skeleton to hang all the speakers and lights. And I go, okay. And he goes, when can you be in Philadelphia? I go, oh, give me a day. So I fly down to Philadelphia, a veteran stadium where they have their first show. And he hands me blueprints and he goes, grab some guys and go build downstage right staircase. I'm like, I'm like, okay.

You know, I'm 20 years old, the youngest guy in the whole entire crew. And I do 12 cities with him. Wow. Do 12 cities with them. So that was like what? So is that what the tattoos? That tattoos because I was climbing around. So a lot of, I mean, if OSHA was here, so you have to clip in to your steel.

Yeah, sure. I mean, it's just one where the stones, top of their stage was 110 feet high. Oh, my gosh. Right. It was the largest production stage put out on the road at the time. 312 feet long and like 80 feet deep. It was huge. And so when you got up in the steel,

you pass everything with a human pass line, right? They're eight by eight bays. And so you put humans in the corner of them and they clip into the steel. And so a lot of times what happens to get things moving, there'd be a guy that couldn't, they're called standards, which are the vertical pieces. He couldn't put it in.

So I'd have to like unclip from the steel, climbs up, helping plug it to keep things going, right? And at one point, it's just like, I just never clipped in. I was like a spider in the steel. Because I'd go, okay, I'm a lot more efficient bouncing around like this than staying and watching. So I got the spiders in Boulder, Colorado, actually. What a story.

There's little pockets of stuff that you're like, oh, that's interesting. You should make a movie about your life. So I don't want to give away too much, but you're in the movie. Yeah. And it's shot on IMAX film. Oh, my God. Yeah, which is incredible. Right.

So if somebody's watching this in an IMAX theater, the screen will then open up. Open up. Yeah, to like, will be full frame. Yeah. Did they just tell you there to just go about your daily life? It was all, it's one of those things where from the very beginning, Benny was like, trust me. And I go, okay.

And he goes, here's what I want you to do. And he goes, here's, he didn't even get to the depth of like the why of how it's going to appear or anything like that. He goes, I just need you to do this. It's an average day. And I'm like, okay. And the whole idea behind everything is that at the end of all of that, you know, I'm okay. And it gets me emotional. because it's one of those things where it's like you can go through all of that

all that stuff and you know life can throw all this stuff at you and you can get through it and you could be in a spot where you could just go I'm okay yeah I'm reminded of this quote you were not the things that happened to you yeah yeah and like you you can get past that yep you can overcome that yeah you are not beholden to be the person you were yesterday or last week or last month or last year. I love that message. Yeah. Because a lot of people get stuck.

You know, they get stuck. They get stuck in, like I said, the thing that kept me stuck is shame. You know, it's something that happened. It's not, again, it's not who I am, right? It's not the whole entire one moment does not a man make, right? That type of thing, right? You know, it's like, you know, I've had a lot. lot of bad moments, man, but I've also had a lot of great ones.

Yeah. You know, do you still have that killer instinct in you? I do. I know I do. It might be harder to access now. I probably want to negotiate with you. Let's just talk about it. Let's just share some feelings to see if that helps, you know.

But yeah, I know I have, because it's that competitiveness that just never leave you. You're in an interesting spot right now because the film is a lot. is screened at Venice. Yeah. It screened at Tiff, the Toronto International Film Festival, which I'm from Toronto, so I know how much that festival

means to the people there, but also, like, that's a big pivotal festival when you're making an awards run, so I get it. You're on this side of it now where the general public haven't seen the movie.

Yeah, yeah. This interview will drop the day before the movie comes out. Yep. So, like, this is a big weekend. Oh, my God. It's huge. Like, I feel like this will actually be,

like, a dividing line in your life of like, Before people saw the film? Yeah. And now after. Yes. Now after. Yeah.

And that's big. Yeah. And again, it's trying to get my, because my favorite saying for me is you can't see the forest through the trees, right? Like, I'm right in the middle of it so I don't have perspective. Like, DJs try to give me perspective and, and Benny, you know, because they've been through stuff like this. What kind of perspective is Dwayne?

I'm trying to give you. Stay present. You know, just try to stay present, you know, in the moment and, and enjoy the moment for what the moment is, right? Because a lot of times, you know, I call it, you know, forward, when you're thinking forward, you know, fucking stink and thinking, you know, type of thing. And so trying to stay present has been this concentrated effort. If I can just stay in the moment, I'm okay. Because I don't have to worry about the next moment or the moment past. I just have to, I'm in this moment.

I'm enjoying it. And it's been incredible. Were you able to be in that moment and appreciate it when the movie got that incredible reception of the Venice Film Festival? That was, yeah, that was, that's what I was saying, this vibration, right? It wasn't really a feeling. It was a frequency of, like, how, because I couldn't narrow it down to a feeling, right? Like gratitude or humility or, you know, any of those, it was. so far beyond that.

Like, I just don't have the language to describe it. My body was translating it as frequency. Like, my hands were, like, honestly, like, phasing. Like, I'm, so it's one where you have, like, Emily lean over and go, I've never had. You know, DJ saying the same thing. He's like, I've never had this. They've never been to Venice like this. They've never been to Venice with a film.

You know, and Benny, you know, he has this emotional, like, overload. you know, where he just is crying and it's just palpable. You can feel it, you know, this feeling of just gratefulness and gratitude and humility and just like a sense of like, wow. You know, when somebody appreciates something like that, it was incredible. And it's interesting because it's applause for the film. Yeah. It's applause for Dwayne's performance, for Emily's performance, for Benny's performance, for Benny directing this. and putting this together.

It's also applause for you. Yeah. And a life well lived. Yeah, that breaks me up. You know, DJ reminds me of that. Sometimes I forget it. Yeah. Yeah.

What a story. Yeah. What a life. It's been incredible. What a film, too. Yeah. All the way around. Yeah.

And it's been such a pleasure sharing this conversation with you. Thank you for coming in here. No, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. I so enjoyed the film. And I'll ask you the question to ask everybody at the end. You mentioned gratitude. And that is at the core of my life.

It means so much to me. I wake up every day. I say out loud three things I'm grateful for. Yeah. I do it before I go to bed. And it's the question I ask everybody. What are three things in your life, Mark, that you're grateful for right now? Oh.

Stability, sense of self and relationships. Oh, those are three I've never heard before. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Stability. Yeah. In what aspect of your life?

There's just more consistency with everybody in my life because I'm more consistent, right? Yeah. It builds, I call it like emotional stability. You keep showing up, so they keep showing up too. Yeah. Love that. Emotional stability. Because it's one where I'm, when I was emotionally a wrecking all over the place and using

drinking all that, it creates all this chaos. Everybody's instable. they don't have stability around me. Yeah. It's a huge part. Look where you're at now. Yeah, right. Thank you, sir.

I appreciate it, man. Thank you for having me. Thank you. You're welcome. Wow. What a conversation. So incredible hearing his perspective on everything now removed, you know, 25 years from when that movie was set.

And I just thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Mark Kerr. I hope that you enjoyed it as well. The Smasher Machine is opening in theaters. This weekend, you can probably see it late showing tonight if you're listening to this on Thursday, October 2nd as this episode comes out. But I can't wait for you to see The Rock just absolutely disappear into this character. Snap a screenshot and tag us online. Let us know what you thought of this episode. He's at Mark Kerr, TSM, on Instagram, the Smashing Machine. Also tag the movie at The Smashing Machine movie on Instagram. And I'm at Chris Van Fleet, and we will leave it with a

quote from one of the greatest fighters of all time, Muhammad Ali. Don't count the days. Make the days count. Be great and be grateful, my friend. We'll see you tomorrow on the next one. Ask CVV 103 to wrap up the week. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary.

Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock, but there was one band that had it all. Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video. They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley.

Ever heard of them? To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Alley. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.