Dwayne Johnson Announces Film About the Life of Mark Kerr

"The Rock" indeed had something cookin' for the Ultimate Fighting Championship press conference on Friday.

During the UFC 245 press conference, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson announced that he and his production team Seven Bucks Productions would be making a film about the life of Mark Kerr. Johnson will be producing, and he will also play Kerr in the film. "The Smashing Machine" previously had a documentary made in 2002 about his story, titled "The Smashing Machine," which was released on HBO and is well-regarded in the mixed martial arts community. Johnson also answered a few questions from the media, stating that Kerr would be involved in the project, and that Kerr was incredibly grateful that Johnson will be playing him.

Johnson proudly revealed, "I wanted to start with the MMA community, I wanted to start with the UFC fans, I wanted to start with you guys first. And that announcement is that I'm proud to say that myself and Seven Bucks Productions are gonna make a film about the life of one of your founding fathers -- a pioneering founding father -- 'The Smashing Machine,' Mark Kerr."

When asked why in particular he wanted to cover Kerr's story, "The Rock" explained, "Mark Kerr's story is such an incredible story, here's a guy who won the two-time heavyweight tournament [in] the early stages of the UFC, and here's also a guy who went over to Pride. He had this incredible run, as many of these warriors have, and I wanted to shine a spotlight on this man, who is still alive, but also -- you know, I think what's interesting about Mark Kerr's story is, yes he achieved so much in his life, he was a smashing machine, undefeated for a long time, but also like all of us, and like a lot of these fighters, he battled these demons."

He continued, "And these demons of addiction, these demons of mental health, these demons of getting out and the pressure of fighting in front of 20, 30, 40, 50 thousand people and what that does to somebody. So here's a guy who has gone through it all, hit rock bottom, but the best part about Mark Kerr is that like all of us in this room, and like these fighters by the way, all these warriors as every day, you get up, and you want to do a little bit better tomorrow than you did today."

Kerr won the UFC 14 and 15 tournaments by finishing his four opponents in a combined 5 minutes, 10 seconds. With the promotion, he picked up one three finishes in UFC history due to head strikes -- they were legal once -- forcing Dan Bobish to tap out after grinding his chin into Bobish's eye.

From there, he won his first four outings in Pride Fighting Championships, finishing three of those opponents and earning a disqualification victory after opponent Brank Cikatic repeatedly grabbed the ropes. After a no-contest due to illegal knees from Igor Vovchanchyn, Kerr went on to batter Enson Inoue and pick up a decision. After suffering his first career defeat at the hands of Kazuyuki Fujita in May 2000, Kerr went on to lose 10 of his next 13 bouts, including an appearance in the ill-fated YAMMA Pit Fighting promotion against Oleg Taktarov.

Outside of the fighting world, Kerr struggled with addiction, and in the aforementioned documentary scenes displayed Kerr using substances. In a Pride and Glory postscript article on Sherdog.com in 2010, Kerr had all-but decided to step away from the sport, and was pursuing higher education and considered being a salesman of pharmaceuticals. Kerr was diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy a few years prior, which causes weakness and pain in the extremities, and a currently active GoFundMe account was set up in June to help support him.