Frank Grillo spills why Dana White does not like Tom Hardy-starrer MMA movie 'Warrior' featuring many UFC stars
Hollywood actor and renowned combat sports enthusiast Frank Grillo claims Dana White doesn't like the MMA-themed movie 'Warrior'. The Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton starrer was released in 2011, when the sport hadn't quite gained the popularity that it has today.
The movie is about two estranged brothers who enter an MMA tournament and end up battling it out in the finals. According to Grillo, who played Edgerton's coach, the UFC president "hates" the movie for not representing fighters correctly.
Grillo further claimed that White instead likes the MMA-themed series 'Kingdom' for keeping it real. 'Kingdom', released in 2013, is bordered around the lives of fighters from an MMA gym run by Alvey Kulina, played by Frank Grillo. The MCU star recently told Michael Rosenbaum on the Inside of You podcast:
"MMA wasn't really mainstream at that time. Dana White hates that movie. Hates it. Because he feels like it's not a good representation of fighters. I did a TV series called 'Kingdom'. He came to the set. He loved that. Because we kinda made that real, we kind of made it like the UFC."
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Dana White explains his problem with most MMA movies
Dana White is not a big fan of MMA-themed movies in general. The UFC head honcho admitted that he absolutely "hated" the movie 'Warrior' for which he was even given a special screening.
White believes he has observed the fight game too closely to develop a liking for MMA movies. However, there are some that have won him over. White revealed that he had liked the series 'Kingdom' to the extent that he was thinking of acquiring its rights. The 53-year-old recently said in an interview with BroBible:
"They brought 'Warrior' to me. And they gave me a viewing in a movie theater about myself which is me and I don’t know who else was there like a handful of people. And I hated it. Hated the movie, hated everything about it. I think the part of the problem is I am too close to the fight game... I saw few episodes of 'Kingdom' and I loved it. I thought it was really well done [and] I was totally into it and I actually watched the whole season. Not only did I love 'Kingdom', I actually was trying to get rights to it to put it on UFC fight maps.”
Catch Dana White's comments below: