{"id":134621,"date":"2025-04-29T10:24:24","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T14:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=134621"},"modified":"2025-04-29T10:25:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T14:25:53","slug":"the-smashing-machine-first-look-at-the-rocks-gritty-ufc-biopic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/04\/29\/the-smashing-machine-first-look-at-the-rocks-gritty-ufc-biopic\/","title":{"rendered":"The Smashing Machine: First Look At The Rock&#8217;s Gritty UFC Biopic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Rock has dropped the trailer for his upcoming UFC biopic, The Smashing Machine.<\/p>\n<p>As well as giving us our first look at Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr, the trailer and subsequent release date gives us a huge indication on when The Rock could appear in WWE.<\/p>\n<p>During the trailer, a bruised Mark Kerr explains the psychology of UFC fighting to a lady and her grandson in a doctor&#8217;s office.<\/p>\n<p>The deep conversation is interspersed with brutal fight scenes.<\/p>\n<h3>The Rock As Mark Kerr<\/h3>\n<p>Johnson is almost unrecognizable as Kerr. The trailer reveals the biopic will cover Kerr&#8217;s career in both the UFC and his journey to Japan for PRIDE Fighting Championships.<\/p>\n<p>The latter sees Kerr shave his head which makes him look more like The Rock.<\/p>\n<p>The trailer paints <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2024\/04\/16\/the-rock-begins-the-smashing-machine-mma-movie\/\" target=\"_self\">The Smashing Machine<\/a> as an edgy and dirty biopic with a deep-rooted love story. Emily Blunt will play Kerr&#8217;s love interest, Dawn Staples. It appears to be a painful role as Kerr&#8217;s drug misuse and obsession with being the best at fighting takes priority over Staples.<\/p>\n<p>The trailer&#8217;s release date is another reason why The Rock potentially missed WrestleMania 41. Johnson claims he <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/04\/23\/the-rock-pat-mcafee-show-final-boss-job-done\/\" target=\"_self\">didn&#8217;t appear in Las Vegas as the storyline didn&#8217;t need him.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"THE SMASHING MACHINE | Official Trailer\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uF3oMaN-MUQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Release Date Reveals The Rock&#8217;s Schedule<\/h3>\n<p>The Smashing Machine will hit theaters on October 3, 2025. TKO \u00a0will be interested in the movie, written by Benny Safdie, as it promotes UFC.<\/p>\n<p>TKO Holdings owns both WWE and UFC. Johnson is a board member of TKO.<\/p>\n<p>This means we can expect to see the trailer on WWE TV and match tie-ins for Winter PLEs. Kerr could also be an outsider to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/03\/07\/wwe-2k25-10-people-who-could-fill-the-mystery-celebrity-dlc-slots\/\" target=\"_self\">fill one of the mystery DLC options for WWE 2K25.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>WWE hasn&#8217;t announced any live events after Fall 2025. But we can expect to see <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/03\/07\/the-boss-of-wwe-the-rock-is-the-promotions-biggest-heel\/\" target=\"_self\">&#8220;The Final Boss&#8221; The Rock<\/a> appear on WWE programming to promote the movie.<\/p>\n<p>Now could be the time for WWE to finally book <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2024\/07\/09\/cena-vs-the-rock-vs-batista-is-it-too-much-to-ask\/\" target=\"_self\">The Rock vs. John Cena vs. Batista<\/a> in the ultimate Hollywood match.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson has a lot of major movie projects in the works. The live-action Moana movie is in post-production.<\/p>\n<p>A Big Trouble in Little China reboot starring Johnson is in production. Fast X: Part 2, The King, San Andreas 2, and Jungle Cruise 2 are all in the works with Johnson involved.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2024\/05\/27\/andnew-liv-morgan-needs-more-than-revenge\/\" target=\"_self\">Liv Morgan<\/a> will take some time off WWE Raw as she makes her movie debut.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The Rock has dropped the trailer for his upcoming UFC biopic, The Smashing Machine. As well as giving us our first look at Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr, the trailer and subsequent release date gives us a huge indication on when The Rock could appear in WWE. During the trailer, a bruised [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3852,"featured_media":134622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2192],"tags":[1454,550],"class_list":["post-134621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wrestling","tag-dwayne-johnson","tag-the-rock"],"modified_by":"Laurence Gibbons","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3852"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134621"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134627,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134621\/revisions\/134627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}