Smashing Machine

For those of you who saw the Mark Kerr documentary “Smashing Machine” on HBO this past Jan., here is an update on him, and if you haven’t seen it I highly recommend this excellent look at MMA and the former NCAA freestyle wrestling champ.

He just fought for the 1st time since the film was made, at the ADCC Submission Wrestling competition in Sao Paulo, Brazil this past weekend.
Mark lost by points in overtime to BJJ strongman Ricardo Arona, marking the 1st time he has been scored on in submission grappling.

see a pic here (Mark is on the left): http://www.fcfighter.com/news.htm

Judging by the gut hanging over his shorts he is not in peak condition & not quite the “Specimen” he used to be.
Hopefully Mark can overcome his personal problems, stay clean, and get back in the game.

This is a good example of how substance abuse and other problems can bring down even a world class athlete.

You’re very right. His crackwhore girlfriend really brought him down during training, and was obviously a headcase if she went for a gun when he threatened to leave him.

I think it’s something you could’ve predicted, given the fact that when he realized that fights weren’t going his way he just curled up in a fetal position (Pride GP), then he turns to drugs afterward. He couldn’t handle losing.

Losing to Arona in overtime is actually really good given his layoff, Arona’s good and Kerr never had great BJJ.

john p,

Do you train BJJ in the MD/DC area?

I agree- that bitch kept dragging him down. As long as he stays with her, he will never overcome his drug issues. They both are totally codependant among other things. It’s too bad…

No BJJ (yet), just boxing. I’m familiar with BJJ, watching a fight I have a good idea of what someone’s gonna do, and from the liiiittle bit of bouncing I did last year I know some grappling/chokes but nothing special. I don’t have a car during the school year, so getting to any of the local schools would take at least 1.5 hours. If you’re interested and are in the area I know there’s a place in Rockville near my old H.S. called Yamaski’s, one of the instructors there has reff’d the UFC.

Kerr’s game is pretty simple, bash them til they go down then bash them some more. Him, Coleman, and to a lesser extent Randleman were all stuck in the wrestling mindframe for years and their styles never really evolved.

It was surprising that Arona couldn’t sub Kerr considering his condition, and that it went to overtime. A credit both to Kerr’s skill & Arona’s inability to finish a fight.

I agree that his rather one dimensional G&P doesn’t cut it. Fedor, Sylvia, Herring,Nogeira or most other top heavies would all handle him.

Hopefully Mark will surround himself with good people & get rid of the poison. Imagine if he really trained fulltime with the Machados and Bas Rutten.

E McKee & others on here, who trains in MMA or BJJ?

john p:

I’m familiar with Yamasaki (my old HS is also by there. Where did you go?). I train at a school in Gaithersburg. I started with Muay Thai last year, and I started BJJ at the beginning of this year. I am horrible at both, but I love training and am at the school pretty much every day. You should check us out when you’re making your choice on where to train: www.linxx-academy.com. There are a lot of good BJJ schools in the MD/DC/NoVa area.

I’ve been doing muay thai for the past couple years although not in the past few months because of injury (broken rib). At some point in the next few years I would like to take up bjj.