A rebellious teen winds up fighting in an underground backyard fight club and training under the tutelage of a former mixed martial arts vet as he gets deeper and deeper into underground fighting. That pretty much sums up the Hollywood MMA stereotype: underground fights. Troubled youth. And while there's some of that in real life, it's mostly high school and college wrestling teams and your local MMA gyms that are producing the top prospects these days. Still, Never Back Down - which had a couple of sequels featuring a number of MMA fighters - at least tried to assemble a solid cast, with Amber Heard, a young Evan Peters (currently the man of the moment thanks to American Horror Story and X-Men: Days of Future Past), and Gladiator's Djimon Hounsou. The fight scenes, though... no one's throwing dance moves left over from the Step Up movies in an actual fight. However, aside from that, the fights are mostly decent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tc-RPjZRm8
Primarily covering the sport of MMA from Ontario, Canada, Jay Anderson has been writing for various publications covering sports, technology, and pop culture since 2001. Jay holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Guelph, and a Certificate in Leadership Skills from Humber College.
