With the rise of Ultimate fighting championship and mixed martial arts in recent years, there has been a number of MMA movies. Some good, some bad and some awesome. When I say MMA movie, I’m talking about fighters trained in multiple disciplines, the movie features general martial arts, submissions, ground, and pound in the ring not some cop on the street. Technically speaking BloodSport can be classed as an MMA movie as it has different styles going up against each other but each fighter is only really only trained in one style, for example, our main character Frank Dux was Ninjutsu. This list is also not going to feature the documentary type movies such as Choke mainly following Rickson Gracie and FightVille, all great watches by the way. Obviously, I’ve not seen everything but anyway let get to the top 5 MMA movies. Just so you know all these descriptions will contain spoilers.
5. Never Back Down: No Surrender
The 3rd film in the Never Back Down series. In Never Back Down: No Surrender Michael Jai White takes over as lead and rightly so as Case Walker. Once again, he plays a martial arts teacher called in by his friend and a former MMA champion Brody James played by Josh Barnett to help him train for his big comeback. Upon entering Brody’s gym, it’s full of cocky MMA typical meat heads that all have short fuses. They instantly take a disliking to Walkers training methods as they think its pointless. Walker still trains in his traditional Karate stances and moves. They give him the nickname Old School. Of course, when one of them gets too lairy, Walker has to show them what’s up with his Karate moves. White playing his traditional cool calm self. The funny thing is the majority of real MMA fighters have heavy roots in traditional martial arts because it’s usually how they started. Even Joe Rogan who seems to do nothing but slate traditional martial arts has a black belt in Taekwondo. After a few predictable turns, Brody gets injured and Walker sees himself in the final fight of the movie. Predictably but still a great watch with great fight scenes.
4. Never Back Down
Never back down is your typical new kid on the block comes to school and gets on the wrong side of the cool kids. Sounds vaguely familiar right? Karate Kid anyone, yea basically a complete copy of Karate Kid but different enough. Instead of the cool kids knowing Karate with the ring leader being the state champ, the cool kids known MMA with the ring leader being the best of course. Enter Jake Tyler played by Sean Faris who is no slouch himself and was filmed taking out two guys after getting into an alteration. This catches the attention of Ryan McCarthy played by Cam Gigandet who decided to show him what’s up by pretending to be his friend then promptly kicking his arse in front of the whole school, destroying that hype train. So, Jake decides to learn MMA and seeks out Jean Roqua played by Djimon Hounsou as the Mr. Miyagi type teacher. Cue training scenes, more of the school bully being an arse to people and everyone rooting for Jake to finally give Ryan his well-earned beating, except instead of a secretly training in a Kung Fu Crane Kick like Karate Kid, it’s a powerful roundhouse kick. There were 2 sequels also worth a watch, Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown and Never Back Down: No Surrender. Michael Jai White stars in both. Both are worth a watch.
3. Undisputed 3: Redemption
The Funny thing about the Undisputed movies is no one ever mentions the 1st one anymore starring Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhymes. It had a much higher budget than the rest and is still pretty good in its own right. But that’s mainly because Scott Adkins had entered the arena and blew people’s minds as the crazy Russian Boyka. The 2nd one is also great and the 4th I still haven’t seen yet as it’s still not been released here in the UK yet.
In Undisputed 3, fresh from his defeat at the end of the last movies at the hands of Michael Jai Whites’ character by way of a broken leg (He should have tapped). Boyka has gone down in the prison system and now cleans the toilets. Upon hearing about a tournament coming up and seeing the fighter his prison is going to enter, Boyka knows he could beat him with his eyes closed so starts training, training his bad knee, gets back to fighting fit and promptly defeats him. Out to prove he’s the world’s most complete fighter the tournament has many fighters from different disciplines and the fights are truly spectacular. Our main antagonist Raul played by the awesome Marko Zaror is an arse in every sense of the word and you can’t wait for Boyka to kick his arse. As usual, it’s not that easy as Raul is highly skilled and Boyka has a dodgy knee. The final fight is truly epic.
2. Red Belt
Not super heavy on fighting but is really just a great movie. Red Belt follows Brazilian Jiu-jitsu instructor Mike Terry played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. He is happy teaching even though he doesn’t have many students and barely earns anything. But after an accident in his dojo involving a woman and a gun accidentally going off, Mike and his cop friend Joe played by Max Martini who he was training at the time cover it up. On top on that the insurance company refuses to pay out for the damage. Meanwhile, Mikes wife who runs a fashion business is barely keeping things afloat and asks Mike to seek out her brother for a loan. A mixed martial arts champion Ricardo played by one of the foremost Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu authorities John Machado. Mike goes to Ricardo’s nightclubs and meets his wife’s other brother Bruno played by Rodrigo Santoro. Bruno offers Mike the chance to fight on the undercard competition of Ricardo’s big fight against Japanese legend Morisaki. Mike refuses and he believes there no honour in competing.
Things take a turn when an ageing action star Chet Frank played by Tim Allen enters the club. He gets into an alteration that is resolved by Mike subduing 3 men. The next day he receives an expensive watch as an invitation to dinner with Chet and his friend Jerry. Mike then gives the watch to his friend Joe to pawn. Without spoiling the whole movie there are a lot of twists and turns involving the watch being stolen, Mikes wife getting conned and in trouble with loan sharks and Mike’s idea that he uses for sparring being stolen for the competition. The idea is to have 3 marbles, 2 white and 1 black in a bag. Before sparring you have to pick 1 marble if it’s black you get a handicap. It all comes to a head with Mike having no choice but the enter the competition with the marble rules. But he soon finds out the marbles drawing are fixed for bets and even Ricardo is going to throw his big fight for winning bets. Definitely worth a watch.
1. Warrior
What else can be number 1 other than Warrior? A big-budget cinema release that arguably put Tom Hardy on the map. Yes, he was in other movies such as Black Hawk Down, Star Trek Nemesis and Inception but it was Warrior where everyone took note and he went straight onto to play Bane in Batman.
A war veteran Tommy Conlon played by Tom Hardy returns home to his alcoholic father Paddy Conlon played by Nick Nolte, now sober and estranged brother Brendan Conlon played by Joel Edgerton. He hates them both by the way for past deeds. He decides he wants to enter the world of MMA and enlists his father to help him train but that’s it, he doesn’t forgive him and wants no fatherly love from him. He hears about a tournament coming up featuring the best in the world including an unbeatable Russian wrecking machine Koba played by Kurt Angle. He goes to a local MMA gym to train. A fellow pro-MMA fighter Mad Dog is sparring. Upon destroying his opponent Mad Dog calls for another so he can continue training. There being no one, Tommy puts his name forward. After Mad Dogs’ corner men reluctantly agree thinking Tommy will get hurt, Tommy promptly knocks out Mad Dog stunning everyone. On top of that, it’s filmed and put on social media making Tommy the talk of the town.
His brother Brenden is an ex-pro MMA fighter who is now a teacher. He needs some extra money so competes on the independent circuit. Being an ex-pro no one on the independent circuit really poses a problem. He also sees the tournament and gets his trainer to put him forward. His trainer knows how he is as a fighter and knows the sort of competition that will be in this tournament so doesn’t give him much of a chance and tries to talk him out of it. Both the brothers hate their father who is now full of remorse. Some of the things they say to him you do really feel for him but after learning what his was like even though it doesn’t go too deep into it, it’s no wonder.
Each brother has their reason for signing up for the tournament. Brendon to help with medical bills for his daughter and Tommy to help the family of a soldier friend that died in battle. The tournament begins and Tommy bulldozes his way through the competition. Brendon everyone is wondering why he’s here and looks outmatched in every fight but has the heart of a lion so pulls it out the bag every time. You really do wonder if the brothers will ever actually meet in the tournament especially when Brenden draws the Invincible Koba in his next fight. The final fight is a true event full of heart and emotion. The only loophole I really saw is how is Tommy so good. He’s been in the army and come straight out and is knocking out pro-MMA fighters. But anyway, by far the best MMA movie I’ve ever seen as there’s a huge build-up that pays off and it’s not just about the fighting.
