Posted on 10/02/125 by Colin Vassallo
UFC Hall of Famer Mark Kerr sat down with Chris Van Vliet at
West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, California 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!
On his first reaction to the film:
“Oh God, I cried. Just cried and cried. They brought me out
in January, and the film was about 80% complete. My brother
Michael met me out here, small little studio, it was Benny
[Safdie – director], myself and my brother, we watched it,
and some of it just hit me. They didn’t tell me, ‘Hey,
listen, Dwayne’s gonna do all this prosthetics.’ I didn’t
see that till I was in Vancouver, and just watching how deep
they got emotionally on stuff was just unbelievable.”
On how Dwayne Johnson became involved in the project:
“That was originally when I got contacted in 2019 by Brad
Slater, who is DJ’s agent. It was this conversation of who
owns your rights, or who owns a screenplay. 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? It was like
DJ wants to do this, not that he’s gonna do this, we’re just
gonna figure out maybe some options. Then Seven Bucks
Production acquires the rights, and then I get a call from
DJ right before the BMF belt in Madison Square Garden. He
makes that announcement, and I’ve said this, it’s like back
in 2019, the conversation I had with DJ was almost
transactional. It was like, ‘Here’s what I’m going to do.’
He said it’s going to be this, this, this, and this, and
this, and this is going to happen, and you just don’t need
to do anything. Then COVID hits, writer’s strike, all this
stuff, and I had his phone number. I never called or text
him in four years, it wasn’t gonna change anything, right?
Wasn’t gonna call him up and say, ‘You gonna make it yet?
You gonna make it yet?’ I just kind of left it to, it sounds
silly to say, but I left it in the universe. It’s like, if
it’s gonna get made, there isn’t anything I can do about
it.”
Did you think it would still get made?
“I had hope that it would, but I just lived my life like
nothing was going to change. My wife would say, ‘Go call
him.’ I said, ‘You know, somehow, some way, I truly believe
that the universe would go hey, now’s when you need to reach
out.’ So in the fall of 2023, 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.’ This is what he said.
He goes, ‘I can’t tell you. You need to talk to Dwayne.’ I’m
like, ‘Okay, you can’t say a word?’ He goes, ‘Nope, I can’t,
it needs 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 Thursday, and he goes,
‘DJ will 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 f*ck? 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. So I get on
the phone with him, and the difference was in 2019 I said
transactional. In 2023, 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 has already
started. When it moves, it’s going to move fast.’ Not
understanding one of his assistants had moved heaven and
earth to clear out 12 weeks. He’s so busy, I don’t even know
how he’d find 12 minutes, let alone 12 weeks, right? So they
found a place in Vancouver and all this stuff. And it was
like, he wasn’t kidding. When he goes hey, I’m gonna
announce it, this is what got me, he goes to the world that
this thing’s going forward. Not to California, it’s to the
world. And I’m like, all of a sudden it goes and it’s
heading down the tracks, it’s incredible.”
On wrestling Kurt Angle:
“I think total of eight times. It ended up being four,
four.”
But he won the Olympic trial?
“He did. Yeah, the two years prior to that, I had beat him
from the world teams. This is just how beautiful a person he
is. So my mom, who had terminal cancer in 96, I tell people,
you want to know a bad month? So, 1996 January, Dave
Schultz, I wrestled for Foxcatcher. So did Kurt. Dave
Schultz is murdered. I’m over in Russia when they make that
announcement. Just heart goes absolutely cold, 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. We’re in Siberia, Russia, 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, F*ck it, I’m done. I go
home. I was supposed to actually fly from Russia to
Foxcatcher to continue to train for the nationals, which
were in April. So I ended up going home to Ohio. My brother
asked me to come home, and he says, ‘Hey, listen, you know,
the cancer is terminal. It’s metastasized outside of my
mom’s colon, and they’re going to try some experimental
chemo. She’ll have to have a chemo pack on to pump chemo for
24 hours a day. But it doesn’t look optimistic.’ So I go
ahead and just devastated, and I gather myself up and I go,
Okay, I’m living in Arizona. I continue to train. I end up
going to Athens, Greece, and end up pulling my transverse
abdominal and drop into my groin muscles, pulling them
completely out. And so I can’t compete in the Nationals, so
I have to petition to get in Olympic trials. They are in
Spokane, Washington, and I wrestle Mark Coleman. 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 shoes away, literally, like, f*ck it! What’s the
point? And Arthur Martori, who had the Sunkist Kids
[Wrestling Club]. He comes over, says, ‘Listen, it’d be the
last time your mom’s gonna watch you wrestle. Why don’t you
get your shoes on?’ I’m like my God, you’re right. So I get
my shoes on, and I wrestle three more, four more matches
that day. And it puts me in a spot to be where I can be
second alternate on the Olympic team. So I wrestled the next
day. I mean, my body is just devastated, and I end up losing
that match. So I gather myself up, go to Ohio and me and my
mom watch Kurt win the gold medal, and then we try
everything to get a hold of him afterward. And my mom dies
September 3, we get a letter from him, September 5, and it’s
this beautiful, beautiful letter. I can’t even talk about
it. Make me bawl. In the letter, he’s basically like,
because you made me Kurt’s biggest obstacle, 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 one of those we’re still to this day
reading it, or my brother reading it, it just drops you.
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. Such
a good, just a great human being, yeah, you know, just
really good human being.”