Mailbag: What are realistic expectations of the ‘Smashing Machine’ Biopic of the Rock after the first trailer?

What should we do with the first trailer for the upcoming film “The Smashing Machine” of the skirt? What is the ideal line -up for UFC 317 in the so -called international fighter week? And could the UFC heavyweight title possibly be more controversial at the moment?

All of this and more in the mailbag this week. To ask a question yourself, press @benfowlkesmma or @benfowlkes.social.bsky.

@lexsimon.bsky.social: Any chance based on the trailer that Mark Kerr Film is about 7 Outta 10?

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It is unfair to draw too many fixed conclusions that are based exclusively on the trailer of a film. (This is the disclaimer that I will offer before I immediately draw my conclusions based on the trailer.) But what confuses me is that it looks like a dramatized copy of the original documentary. I just don’t know why you would do that. Or for whom it would be.

If you have not seen “The Smashing Machine”, the John Hyams documentary from 2002, you should do it. It is an amazing documentary whether you are an MMA fan or not. Some of the scenes in the trailer seem almost word for word that we have seen in this documentary. That seems to be a strange way because we already have this film. And it’s a great film. So why earn again with actors instead of real people – even with the actors instead of real people?

Perhaps the goal is to show us these scenes, to convince that Dwayne Johnson Mark Kerr really embodies here and not only makes the same character that he makes in any other film. In this respect it worked. He sees and sounds like Kerr, which is impressive.

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But if you want to make a film about a film, you have to add something. You can’t just copy it and expect that we are impressed how exactly the representation of everyone is. At that point, they don’t make a film so much as an impression of one. Perhaps “The Smashing Machine” (the version 2025) will do more than that as soon as we see the whole thing. But I keep my expectations low at the moment.