![]() ![]() ![]() Naturally, there’s also a girl involved and a big martial arts tournament to settle things at the end. I’d say that accurately describes the enormous debt that 2008’s “Never Back Down” owes to 1984’s “The Karate Kid.” This is the story of a teenage boy who moves to a new school where all the cool kids do martial arts, which they then misuse in order to bully him - until, that is, he finds a mystical immigrant mentor (here it’s Djimon Hounsou, the only believable actor in the film) who teaches him to fight back. Roger Ebert once wrote that “most movies are constructed out of bits and pieces of other movies, like little engines built from cinematic Erector sets.” This is mostly true, but occasionally there comes a movie that just is another movie, lifted out as one big chunk and placed down on a slightly different set. “Never Back Down,” directed by Jeff Wadlow (2008) (NOTE: Also be sure to check out The Athletic’s top 100 sports movies of all time.) Here’s our guide to the best (and worst) MMA movies out there. What we discovered? The same thing that Frank Dux did when he put his trust in the ancient ways of ninjitsu in “Bloodsport” - even if we were temporarily blinded by what we were up against, we learned to truly see. At a time when we’re stuck at home with nothing much to do, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to check in on what Hollywood thinks of MMA. MMA fighter, kickboxer, and professional wrestler Bas Rutten had a somewhat sizable supporting role as Kevin James’s MMA coach in Here Comes the Boom, in which James dates Salma Hayek, because Hollywood.We didn’t let that stop our group of MMA writers at The Athletic from going back and revisiting some of the MMA films that are out there. But I wanted to see more of Faber in it! He’s a legendary fighter and a former champ in World Extreme Cagefighting before the promotion merged with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), in which he was a perennial favorite he’s charming as hell he’s real cute and I kind of don’t know why you cast a mixed martial artist in a film in which they don’t then do mixed martial arts? It’s weird!įaber is the latest in a pretty steady stream of MMA fighters being cast in mainstream, fairly notable films, but I do think he’s the only one I’ve seen not actually fight, or at least be fight-adjacent. Rampage is kind of a mess, and please read TK’s review for more on that. ![]() His one line of dialogue: “How we playing this?” He then gets eaten by the aforementioned genetically modified 30-foot wolf. #rampage- Roxana (DO NOT SING 'ROXANNE' TO ME) Hadadi April 13, 2018 so maybe … I am the only iranian-american pop culture writer named roxana hadadi who noticed. aside from I guess his teammates at alpha male and his family and his friends. Hello, it's me, the only human being who noticed & cared that urijah faber was in #RampageMovie. ![]() There was a moment when I was watching Rampage when I thought to myself, “Is this really happening? Is retired MMA fighter Urijah Faber … really rocking fake tattoos, a faux-hawk, and one line of dialogue as a mercenary hired to capture a genetically modified 30-foot wolf?” ![]()
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