Never Back Down: Typical Hollywood Stupidity?

I saw the preview a few days ago and cringed. Guys fighting in trashy environments with small gloves while pretending to be trained MMA professionals. Great. That’s just what we don’t need after hearing Bill Goldberg scream that he didn’t give a damn about traditional mixed martial arts because Kimbo Slice beat Tank Abbott in a staged street fight in a cage. It’s not that I had anything against Kimbo vs. Tank on Showtime because it was a MMA fight between two brawlers and we all knew both fighters were going to stand. It’s just the same old problem that MMA has always had – getting the sport recognized as legitimate and not glorified street brawling. Here’s a quick synopsis of Never Back Down, as told by BoondockVideo on the Sherdog Forums:

I’d sum this movie up as Save the Last Dance meets Fight Club, without any of the redeeming values of Fight Club.

I saw it at a free screening and if you have a chance to do the same or catch it on cable one day, it’s probably at least worth watching. I’d be pretty upset if I actually spent $11-12 on a ticket, though.

As a mixed martial arts fan, I think this film (if it’s successful at the box office) could probably help set the UFC and other organizations back a couple of years in their emerging mainstream acceptance. It basically makes MMA look like a bunch of rich kids having underground, unsanctioned fights at parties. The fights are filled with illegal strikes to the back of the head and soccer kicks and stomps that are legal in Japan, but not in the US and come off as particularly brutal and bloody in the film. When there are rules at the underground tournament finale, they’re virtually the same as UFC 1 (no biting, no eye gouging, no groin strikes).

Think Kimbo Slice Youtube videos, but with a couple of dudes who look like younger versions of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. And drive Hummers.

In a way, the whole fighting/revenge plot that thrusts the main character unwillingly into the final showdown could probably be seen as just, almost like Better Off Dead with a fighting showdown instead of skiing. But the film tries repeatedly to market itself as MMA when it’s really street brawling with a few arm bars and triangles (and 4 oz gloves… sometimes).

I won’t get into the story because it’s fairly cliché teen movie fare, so there isn’t much to get into there anyway. Like I said, if it’s free, it’s not too long and there is some decent action so might as well. Otherwise, you’ll probably want some money back.

So there you have it. The entire movie summed by someone who, in my opinion, did a nice job of condensing the movie into a few paragraphs to outline the important points of the movie as they pertain to the actual sport of MMA. Although nobody in the real MMA scene had anything to do with this movie, we’ll still hear some backlash from the ill informed. Get ready for the factually incorrect articles from small local newspapers everywhere to declare MMA as “brutal dogfighting in a cage” again. Or maybe everyone will see through the Hollywood crap and declare the movie a lame attempt to portray a real sport as something that its not. I hope for the latter.