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(VIBRANT MUSIC)
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(PEOPLE CHATTER)
-(CHAINS CLINK) -(PEOPLE CHEER)
COMMENTATOR: He lands with his full right hand!
(COMMENTATOR SHOUTS EXCITEDLY) The victory with a hit!
(COMMENTATOR SHOUTS)
It is unbelievable! Here comes the punch!
(WATER TRICKLES)
MARK HUNT: I do feel pain, but, you know,
you can always just move it somewhere else,
to be honest, you know.
(CHEERING)
MARK: Fighting is something that I like to do,
and I'm one of the best fighters in the world.
Why would I be afraid of anyone?
I mean, I'm a bit afraid of sharks.
You know? Everyone's scared of sharks.
It's a violent sport. It's, uh, it's a brutal sport.
And you can get seriously damaged and die.
I think fighting as long as I have
is the only achievement I have.
I don't consider myself famous,
I just... Who wants to be famous, though?
And I started at a disadvantage as a kid.
Some of the best fighters in the world
have come from bad backgrounds.
My dad was such a... such a wanker.
(THUMP!)
He's a...he's a real bad person, you know, I mean...
There was many beatings that I remember.
To be honest, I was a kid just surviving childhood.
I mean, everyone should get a...an equal playing field.
I think it should be like that in life.
I...I've grown to despise cheaters and steroid users.
It's not what I signed up for, it's not what I worked so hard
to get to the top of the world for.
When you break the law, you get punished.
So why aren't they doing the same thing with our sport?
I mean, our sport's the worst because you're hurting someone.
And that's an unfair playing field.
So I'm going to do something about it.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)
(CHEERING)
(COMMENTATOR SHOUTS EXCITEDLY)
-(COMMENTATOR TALKS EXCITEDLY) -(AUDIENCE ROARS)
-COMMENTATOR: Whoa! Hey! -Oh, my God!
-I can't believe this! -(BELL RINGS)
Unbelievable!
(CHEERING)
He's on the ground.
MAN: God, we thank you. Thank you for Mark and his health.
Um, I ask you, Lord, to, um, give us wisdom in the corner
so we can pass it on
and we give you this glory in the holy name of Jesus Christ.
ALL: Amen.
Let's do this, baby!
MARK: Fighting fulfils me, every part of me.
There's a whole different level of fighting coming here,
and you use your mind and your...your striking ability.
I love fighting in the Octagon. There's something raw about it.
(CHEERING)
I love what I do and my job is to go in there and hurt you
so you don't get up.
COMMENTATOR: Lesnar, Hunt, we're live. Here we go.
Hunt throwing some good right hands.
But now it's all Lesnar.
Some hammer fist.
Hunt looks gassed. He's gone.
A hard-fought fight.
Brock Lesnar just shocked the world.
REPORTER: It's over - UFC 200.
It was all Lesnar - Lesnar took Hunt down,
was able to...to manhandle him on the ground.
This is a fight where a lot of people thought
that Mark Hunt was going to do a walk-off knockout.
That didn't happen.
MARK: The moment I lost the fight, I was like, you know, I got beaten by a better man, he was far stronger than I was.
I accept defeat.
I just wasn't good enough on the day.
I congratulated him and that's it.
MAN:
Yeah!
You can take this now.
-I just couldn't get it going. -Couldn't get it going?
-Yeah, man. -Not firing, bro.
Fuck. Bummer.
I don't know what happened, homie.
Just a bad night at the office, bro.
Ah, fuck.
They're losing face.
REPORTER: Kiwi UFC fighter Mark Hunt is fuming
after his last opponent, Brock Lesnar, failed a drugs test.
Hunt's responding with "Pay me out, or I'm out,"
demanding half of the American's fight fee of $3.5 million
or he'll tear up his six-fight contract.
No doubt more fallout to come on this.
MARK: Oh, I just felt cheated.
You know, I worked my whole career to get to the top
and then when you get to the top,
all you find is frickin' crooked cheats and crooked companies.
Crooked cheats and crooked companies.
MAN: He is joining us right now on the phone.
-Mark, are you there? -Hey, how are you doing?
-I'm doing... (LAUGHS) -What's going on?
ARIEL: A pleasure, as always, to talk to you. Thank you.
OK, so there's a lot to discuss.
You told me late last week
that you have yet to speak to anyone from the UFC
about Brock's two failed drug tests.
Has that changed at all?
-No. -Wow.
Nah, no-one's bothered to call me
about anything about those cheating motherfuckers.
It's...it's... So the UFC don't do shit about it.
They're not doing a damn thing
about this whole frickin' cheating monkeys.
And the reason why I'm so upset is,
it's not 'cause it's the first or second,
this is the third time or fourth time there's been cheating.
Well, you know what, motherfuckers, fuck you!
-(GUNFIRE FROM VIDEO GAME) -(GAME CONTROLLER CLICKS)
When a guy is cheating and cheats someone,
he...he actually ruins history.
They've not only cheated them,
they've cheated their family, his family,
and everything that's supposed to be coming to him
that he's worked hard for, he doesn't get.
You know, fighting's hard enough as it is.
You know, he could have killed me.
I will come back. I'm gonna smash some of these cheats.
I'm sick of it. I'm sick of...
I've worked so hard to get here
and I'm not... and I'm not one to give up.
ARIEL: I've been watching Mark Hunt fight
since before I was an MMA journalist,
since he was, you know, in K-1, since he was in Pride.
The Brock Lesnar UFC 200 story,
I feel, like, is one of the worst black eyes
on the history of the sport.
Why was he allowed to enter the cage if he failed the test?
They say they didn't get the results.
I actually believe them. Why didn't they get the results?
If you're going to go through the trouble
of drug testing someone before the fight,
what's the point of doing it
if you're going to get the results afterwards?
That doesn't make any sense to me.
And then he...he tests positive afterwards as well.
And, unfortunately, Mark Hunt's the one who paid the price.
You know, he lost, he was humiliated, he was dominated.
Um, and he wasn't fighting a clean fighter.
It just all kind of felt dirty.
MARK: You know, there's a lot of boys and girls watching this.
They wanna be like me.
They wanna be like all these top-end fighters.
But it's gonna come to a point
where they're gonna offer them these drugs, these steroids,
and say, "Well..."
And they're gonna go, "Oh, of course I'll take it.
"They're taking it."
It's good being back here.
Sometimes driving around here you get a bit depressed,
but - ha-ha - it's not bad.
From a certain age, I was out running around these streets,
it was pretty good, you know, so it was like an adventure.
This is where I had my first fight, on this street.
Right...right in the middle of this thing here.
Right here. Right there.
Good old Aorere College.
I've got a lot of memories of this place.
I hated school in form two
because, you know, I had no lunch and everything.
At lunchtime, everyone had lunches inside.
And it was like... it was like the worst time.
It was embarrassing. (CHUCKLES)
To be honest, it was just, um...
There was hardly any food in the house.
I mean, shucks. It was... Um, I remember...
Even when I was going to intermediate, I think it was,
I'd sprained my ankle and I'd hobbled off home.
You know, we only had... I think it was like...
I went to the fridge to get an icepack
and there was only fucking peas in there.
My family was my dad, my mother,
my older sister and my two older brothers,
and then me.
It wasn't a big family.
WOMAN: It was a ugly childhood for all of us.
Mark became aggressive.
And I guess that's the reason why he is what he is today.
Steve is schizophrenic. There was voices talking to him.
I think he got more of the beatings.
John was, like, in his own world.
He would stay in his room, but he would study hard.
It's 'cause he wanted to become someone bigger
than what my father was.
But I think for Mark, his childhood,
he just doesn't want to know.
But what young kid would want to remember that?
MARK: We weren't allowed to see anyone.
I mean, I only started seeing people
when I started running away.
My mother, she was never allowed
to go hang out with her sisters and that.
We never got to hang out with a lot of our cousins.
We never saw them.
VICTORIA: We were isolated.
But it was dad who was stopping us
from meeting our family
or talking to the family, 'cause if we talked,
probably someone would have done something for us.
Mum and Dad, they would go out
and you could smell the fish and chips or the KFC
where they would go and have a good feed while we were at home.
Yeah, my dad was such a... such a wanker.
He's a...he's a real bad person, you know.
I mean, he'd, um, pretend he was a nice person
for church purposes and to everyone around.
But who knows why he was angry?
He was just a prick a lot of the times.
VICTORIA: He would hit us with anything -
wires, washing machine hose,
those ringers, the belt...
MARK: There was many beatings that I remember.
Um, I mean, he used a broomstick out the back there,
whacking us with it.
VICTORIA: Growing up, he... I don't think he got love.
He had love.
(WHIPS)
I guess that's the reason why he was a rebel.
MARK: I didn't go here for that long, I went for about a year
and I spent most of the time in the school,
um, after school hours.
I got expelled from this school, you know,
so, um, and to get, uh, asked to come back
to do the sports awards is pretty cool, you know, so, yeah.
Yeah.
I spent a lot of time sitting up here
drinking and shit, you know, so...
I spent more time drinking and smoking in here
than...than anything else, so...
Yeah, don't do that.
I used to do whatever I wanted.
We just run amok, me and Jono.
He came into our class from beating up his teacher
and then we just went... went stupid.
Then no teacher would have us in the class, so, yeah.
I wagged a lot and, um, you know, I went to school one...
I think it was accounting class,
and the teacher didn't know who I was.
She was like, "Who are you?"
(CHUCKLES) I said, "I'm Mark Hunt."
She goes, "Oh, you better go to the principal's office.
"You haven't been here all year."
-(SCHOOL BELL RINGS) -Hey, man, how are you?
-How you doing? Good? -Yeah.
-How are you? -Good, man.
Oh-hoh!
It was in A block where I got expelled.
There was, uh...um...
A girl called me a black cunt, I think it was.
And, you know, I lost my temper and gave her a hiding.
I didn't give her a hiding. I whacked her.
And then, um, tried to chase all her mates around. (CHUCKLES)
And then they, you know, they called an assembly
and then they, um, they kicked me out of the school.
Not a good time.
And then it just all went to the toilet.
I robbed someone for their shoes.
It was me and my brother and a mate of mine, Troy.
We went and took their Doc Martens, just went
and hit them and took their shoes off and that's it.
And I end up going to Waikeria and spent my time there.
It was a shock going to jail.
You know, when the judge sentences you
to nine and a half months
and I was like this...
Uh, it was like, uh...uh... You know, I didn't...
I never really experienced prison or do anything like that.
But, um, it was actually a good place.
You know, you got, uh, good meals
and, um, it was pretty good.
I actually, uh...
I actually enjoyed it, the time in there.
I knew it was a waste of time, but I enjoyed it.
(PEOPLE CALL OUT)
MARK: Yeah, when I got out, I was...I was playing league.
Yeah, I made it into the Auckland team.
League was pretty much like an escape for me.
I always liked to go and hang out with a group of guys
and play, and I was pretty good it.
People used to give you respect
'cause you're a pretty good player and I liked that.
It felt good to have a clique of friends,
which was good for me, you know.
MAN: First time I met Mark,
yeah, he'd just got out of Waikeria Prison.
Done a...done a stint there.
Very quiet, you know, young man.
It was like...not much to say, you know.
It looked, you know, pain...
It looked like pain, you know, coming...coming off him.
He didn't really open up
till, like, he started playing football
and we started, you know, drinking, going out
and things like that, you know.
Getting used to his surroundings again, I guess.
ROB: Yeah, we had a lot of fun together.
Yeah, it was a close-knit family back then, you know.
We only really had each other.
And, you know, on the footy field, you need each other
and then, uh, yeah, partying with Mark
was, uh, was a crack-up.
We'd all get dressed. We'd go out.
OK, and...and the mission at the end of the day
would be to get drunk and get girls, you know?
If...if that wasn't your...your aim,
what was your aim of going out, to dance, you know?
Like, pretty much that was the whole thing.
Anyway, that would be the aim. We would go out.
And that would never happen
because they'd always get into fights.
-(COMMOTION) -MARK: That's the way it was.
I mean, in our neck of the woods, it's OK.
I mean, you compare that to other neck of the woods,
you know, their reality is, you know, someone gets smart
and then someone pulls out a gun and shoots them in the head.
So that's their reality.
ROB: Yeah, it was always Mark.
I was running.
But, uh, it was always Mark, the last man standing. You know, he always took care of business.
It was always the medicine at the end.
It was just like, "Oh, fuck.
"We're not gonna get any girls now. Fucking hell."
MAN: Trouble came to us.
We didn't really go and cause trouble.
We're just a rough bunch of boys growing up in Mangere
and, yeah, we didn't consider ourselves as a gang
or anything like that.
They all wanted to come and take him on.
You know, Mark was just knocking guys out.
MARK: I was street fighting a lot.
Um, I mean, I wasn't scared of anyone but my dad,
'cause he was good at beating me up, beating us up, you know?
That's probably, um, why I'm pretty resilient.
(RAIN POURS)
You would get hidings normally, but he used to...
..he used to do extras like actually, you know, the skin...
I was always, um... the skin was always ripped,
blue, you know, with hidings and stuff.
And, um, yeah, he was just... he took things to extremes.
(DARK MUSIC)
VICTORIA: The sexual abuse started when I was 6
till the time I was 18.
(DOOR SLAMS)
Over the years, I just made myself numb.
Yeah, I don't really remember
when it started with her getting molested and stuff,
I just knew something wasn't right with her and him.
He wanted to protect me and he just didn't know how.
He was too young. I don't blame my brothers for that.
There's a lot of things that I don't remember about that,
especially with her, what happened to her
and her being pregnant because of the old guy, you know.
VICTORIA: I turned to drugs, as in pills,
and I would sniff petrol.
But...everything was my fault, especially for my brothers,
you know, they would blame me
because Dad stopped working and he was in jail.
They were too young to understand.
Even my mum saw but she never did anything.
No-one did.
No-one did anything.
Yeah, he was evil.
MARK: To be honest, I was a kid just surviving childhood,
you know, whichever way it was.
That's how I look at it.
Fighting was his thing
and he's been fighting pretty much his whole life,
I mean, as a kid up until now.
He was one of those guys
you couldn't look in the eye, you know.
He had a very serious face all the time, you know, angry.
(YELLING)
MARK: I was street fighting outside of a club in Auckland.
A guy called Sam Marsters pulled me out.
After a few words, he said,
"Well, would you like to fight in a Muay Thai fight?"
I didn't know, you know, what that was,
but then I said, "Yeah, OK."
He'd just saved me from being arrested.
I thought I owed him something.
So, I mean, I was young then. I think I was 19 maybe.
(CROWD YELLING)
That's how I had my first fight.
That's how I started.
I beat the guy.
He was 30 or 40 kilos heavier than me,
but I got him, you know, I got him in the second round.
And I pretty much was just probably swinging for the fences
like everyone else was in those days.
I never actually learned, walked into a gym to train.
I just watched a few programs on TV,
I used to watch Mike Tyson, and that's it.
I thought I was cool afterwards. (LAUGHS)
That was actually the first proper ring fight I've had.
LOLO: And all I saw was this young chubby guy coming up,
throwing anything and trying to hit anything that moves.
And he'd try all the things that
a lot of heavyweight won't even try,
like jumping knee, flying knees.
And it doesn't matter
how much Ronny hit him as hard as he can,
he's still coming back after him.
And he was very raw and untidy.
I said, "Man, if this guy can get, you know,
"in shape and coached properly,
"he'll be really, really good."
I don't know who I assaulted,
might have been a taxi driver or someone,
but I got caught for it.
I can't remember who it was, but I think
I got a couple of weeks in The Rock, in the Mount.
I just knew I was just gonna be in...in that...
..keep getting in that circle and I'll be in more trouble.
I mean, I'd keep getting in jail and it'd be just like a cycle.
I knew I had to get outta there, do something with my life.
(LAIDBACK MUSIC)
MARK: I spent the next two years gambling,
didn't know what to do.
Just...lost.
I started doing security, and then I got a job sandblasting,
I got paid fortnightly
and, you know, I spent money just like that.
For me it was hard
because I didn't get taught much about life skills,
especially learning to look after yourself.
You know, I'm in a different country.
You know, you have to learn all that shit yourself.
You don't know that 'cause no-one's telling you.
Stealing cars and driving around was kind of exciting.
Then gambling became one of my addictions.
I don't know, because I've always liked games and stuff.
To be honest, it was just something to do.
It was a time killer.
You know, I'd spend money that I didn't even have
and I didn't even pay rent.
That's how we got kicked out of the house.
That really...screwed me up.
You guys gonna be footy players or UFC fighters?
-Rugby. -Rugby? Oh, rugby.
I'm number five in the world at the moment,
even though I'm number one in my mind.
Because I used to train down at Mundine's Gym 20 years ago.
-It wasn't like it is now. -WOMAN: I was telling the boys.
Used to be houses all along here.
And the people used to... not used to walk down here.
WOMAN: No, they'd be too scared to walk down this way and stuff.
Had a stigma on it, eh?
Yeah, only the people that used to
go and train there was good, so, you know.
-(LIGHT POP MUSIC) -(THUDS ON PUNCHING BAG)
MARK: I didn't really take it seriously till I got to Oz,
wanting to win or do something with it.
It was only a way to make ends meet.
To be trained, I mean, when we started
building a team over there,
there was a lot of heavyweights coming in there.
It was only a dollar to train.
And even if you didn't have a dollar, you could still train.
Alex was down there. It was a good place.
ALEX: Yeah, I remember when Mark came in.
He was on..probably on the chubby side, you know?
But he was solid.
He had the speed, short-range speed and power.
I had Peter Graham and Mark training with me.
They smashed each other in the gym,
and it was the best sparring, the best action in the gym.
No-one I've ever met, anyway, hits harder than Mark Hunt.
I mean, he doesn't look like
a ripped-up, you know, combat sports athlete.
He's just Mark, you know, just looks like
your regular Polynesian guy walked off the street.
"How're you going?"
Straight off the boat from NZ or Samoa or something.
But, I mean, he just has bricks in his hands.
I spent hours in that gym.
I mean, hours of skipping, hours of punching.
It was pretty good.
I remember sometimes being the last to leave out of this place.
I think I had one proper fight there,
when I was training there with Alex.
I was just some guy that you could easily call up
and fill in for a fight.
He's always going to say yes
because he needs some money or he needs something so...
I think I was the friggin' Oceania punching bag. (LAUGHS)
It was a hard two years.
I was living at a halfway house, went to another halfway house.
A lot of things happened, then I met Julie at the time,
which was a blessing, saved me many times.
(DANCE MUSIC)
I used to work at this club.
It was a reggae club, so it was quite dark in there.
I walked in and she was in there, you know.
And it looked like she was sitting in a throne,
she was like all white, I said, "Wow, look at that!"
She looked like an angel sitting on that throne, you know.
Maybe that or I was just freaking wasted.
I mean, it was an African club
so there was only probably three white people,
so that's probably why I was glowing. (LAUGHS)
He come up to me and asked, "Is there anyone sitting down?"
And I said no, and then we just started talking.
MARK: And she was with all her friends.
You know, I don't normally... I'm kind of a person
that doesn't like to talk with a group of girls, I'm quite shy.
But for some reason, I just wanted
to go and sit and talk with her, and that's what I did.
And I realised she was a good person to help me,
and I was more comfortable with her
so I started opening up a bit more to her then,
talking about my issues.
And, well, I didn't think I had issues,
but just sharing some of the stuff that I had, with my life.
JULIE: I didn't see it when I first met him.
I thought he was quite confident in talking.
And we were just chatting for hours
and, yeah, he just seemed really nice.
Only until the second time when I met him,
I thought, "Oh, my gosh, what is this guy?"
He tried to jump a taxi.
And I thought he was coming to see me.
I thought, how nice of him to travel
all the way from the city to Campbelltown,
which was a good $80 back then.
And then as I'm calling him,
"I'm over here," saying where we lived,
he said, "You shouldn't have done that
"because I was gonna jump it."
And I just went...loser.
So from then on, I was so rude to him all day and, yeah.
Then we ended up going home, I dropped him at the station,
and he got angry and threw a pie at the car and, yeah.
He thought he was gonna get something else
but he got a goodbye... (LAUGHS) ..instead.
(MILD MUSIC)
MARK: I didn't know fighting was my path,
but it kept coming back to me every time.
Yeah, I don't know what happened.
I just wanted to, you know, train hard and win.
And, you know, well, it was good for me
because, you know, Alex took me seriously
and Lucy was taking me seriously.
They invested their time in me.
So, you know, I thought, "Why not give it back to them
"and dedicate myself like they dedicated themselves?"
LUCY: Alex Tui had this boy, light heavyweight,
fighting for a South Pacific title.
And I watched him fight, and he was good!
I was, like, "Wow, where did this boy come from?
"Hmm."
MARK: But I got into the Oceania for the first time,
and I took it seriously -
I stopped smoking, I trained hard.
You know, my day started at 4:30, I think 4:00 -
I went running.
Then I had a full-time job. I walked to work.
I trained. I worked for eight hours.
So I did all these things in a succession.
My day would start at 4:30 and finish at 10:30.
(CHEERING)
I'll show these monkeys.
ANNOUNCER:Ladies and gentlemen, your warriors!
MARK: I was just filling in, to be honest.
I was just filling in for Lucy
and then, you know, no-one expected me to win.
MIKE: Lucy said to me, said, "Come backstage, Mike,
"I want you to meet this new guy I've got called Mark Hunt."
So I went backstage to this little dressing room,
and there was this...
Now, I love Mark, but I'm gonna say
big fat Samoan sitting there, out the back, OK,
sitting on a stool, head between his knees -
I think he was listening to a Walkman at the time -
and just looked like a big lug.
They brought this guy in here to make up the numbers.
Looks like he's here for a free feed and a holiday.
He'll head back to New Zealand -
it'll be the last we ever see of him.
(YELLING FROM CROWD)
COMMENTATOR: Working the body again, Mark Hunt.
Beautiful rapid hand combinations from Hunt.
COMMENTATOR 2: Clever tactics,nclever tactics as the boys have
a talk to each other in centre ring.
COMMENTATOR: Bit of talkingtrash in the centre of the ring!
They're mixing it up! Here comes Mark Hunt!
COMMENTATOR 2: Let's hope he knows he's gotta stay up.
COMMENTATOR: He launches a good right hand!
COMMENTATOR 2: They can sometimes be
a fighter's nightmare.
COMMENTATOR:Big chopping leg kick there from Ron Sefo.
That'll make Hunt wish he was someplace else.
MIKE: And the amazing thing about Mark
is that he was a guy out of nowhere,
had no martial arts pedigree, no boxing pedigree,
had gotten into kickboxing
because he got into a street fight
outside a bar in South Auckland, you know?
And here he is taking on some of the best martial artists
in the world, with zero background himself,
and somehow he's not only
standing up to their best strikes, he's beating them.
It was just amazing to watch
this phenomenon of Mark Hunt evolve.
COMMENTATOR:There's a big right hand to the side of the jaw!
Nice uppercut from Hunt. Fagan goes down!
-(LOUD CHEERING) -Fagan goes down!
COMMENTATOR 2:Fagan's gonna take the count here.
COMMENTATOR: The iron-clad uppercut of Mark Hunt!
-(BELL RINGS) -It's over! It's over!
My word! Mark Hunt is the K-1 King of Kings!
MARK: You know, that for me, I said, "Oh, I've got to
"put more time into fighting, take it a bit more seriously."
I made $10,000, which for me was amazing, you know.
I was like, "Wow, I'm rich, you know, $10,000?!"
You would've thought we were billionaires.
We were just, "Oh, my gosh!"
He bought his first TV because we never had a TV for years.
He went and bought a brand-new bed suite
and brand-new bed sheeting.
It was just amazing, at this house that he was at.
Honestly, you would have thought we won lotto.
ANNOUNCER: Your winner, and King of Kings of K-1,
Mark Hunt!
LUCY: It was getting that experience
and getting that momentum.
That's when I started to see
the opening for K-1 Japan.
(CHEERING)
MARK: My first trip to Japan, I flew business.
It was like, "Whoa, what's this shit?" you know?
And then landed there and there's all these things
like cameras and people know your name,
and I'm thinking, "Wowzers, what's this rubbish?"
(CHEERING)
MIRO: K-1, in those days, it was very big.
The stadiums were, you know, between 40,000
to sometimes 80,000 people for the bigger events.
It was on prime time TV, straight after the news.
K-1 was bigger in Japan
than UFC even is now in the States and Australia.
ANNOUNCER: Fighting out of the blue corner -
Mark Hunt!
MARK: It was the first time I experienced
something like that big a level for me,
from the thousands of seated people
to the shitloads of people staring at you,
cameras and everything.
It was...it was the big time, in kickboxing, you know.
COMMENTATOR: The kisser of Hunt with the big left hand,
flicks out the front kick off the lead leg.
MARK: Yeah, I fought the fight I lost against Jerome,
I mean, pretty good fight.
And he was a guy I saw on TV once, like, "Wowzers!"
MARK: For that appearance, it was US$27,000,
which was a lot of money,
especially for the time that I, you know...
And everything was free.
They looked after everything and then they paid me as well.
I was like, "Wow, this is pretty cool."
(JAPANESE COMMENTARY)
MARK: I didn't even fight for a whole year
because I couldn't get a fight.
I slacked off a bit in training.
But I never had an option to fight, I didn't get one.
Until the Oceanias.
He started training with me, so we did a lot of preparation
for the 2001 Melbourne K-1.
I says, "Mark, it's like this -
"if you take their heads off, their bodies will follow."
(FLOWING STRING MUSIC)
(CHEERING)
MIRO: No-one had seen that type of fighter before,
again, the natural brawling style
where he would just keep coming forward,
and he would keep throwing punches.
And there was also
that whole sort of image around,
as I say, Mark being the natural brawler,
the natural fighter.
And seemed like he just come off the street into the ring
for every fight that he fought.
COMMENTATOR: Nathan Briggs in all sorts of trouble!
Briggs copped one in the jaw!
My word, Mark Hunt dropped him!
Whoa-ho, what a start from Mark Hunt.
HAPE: You're not gonna believe me if I say this,
Mark was chosen to be a fighter, OK?
And in a spiritual way -
many are called, but few are chosen.
And Mark was chosen.
COMMENTATOR: It's all over! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
It is one of the all-time upsets!
Pandemonium here in centre ring!
COMMENTATOR 2: The easyntransition into the next round.
COMMENTATOR:It is unbelievable!
COMMENTATOR 2: Mark Hunt, here he comes again.
I think Mark kinda felt it,
that he was probably gonna get to the finals.
And I thought I was gonna get to the finals.
And I knew what I had to do
because I may not be the smartest guy,
but I'm smart enough to know that
I'm not gonna go toe to toe with Mark Hunt.
COMMENTATOR: Good leg check there from Mark Hunt,
bringing home the bacon now.
COMMENTATOR 2: Oh, there's a nice uppercut there.
MARK: I have respect for Peter
and I think he has likewise for me.
And, you know, it's just what happens in the ring,
you know, that's what happens.
COMMENTATOR: Oh! Graham's gone down! Graham's gone down!
-Oh, no! Oh, no! -Three. Four.
-Five. Six. -He's down. He's down!
-He's down! He's out! -Seven! We have a winner!
PETER: I made the fundamental mistake
of stopping inside his range,
and I'd never been hit that hard in my life.
COMMENTATOR:There it is. He's set it up.
PETER: The subsequence of punches after that,
you don't feel them.
But the first one, it almost felt like
someone was putting their hands through my hair,
it was like the pain ran, I was like, "Holy shit, man."
Bang! I could hear the corner.
I was like, "Man, everything's slowing down."
Peter Graham's taking the trip down to that blue canvas.
And the next thing I know I'm lying on my back - "Oh!"
And I went, "Fuck! I just lost 30 grand."
MARK: I won at Oceania the second time.
I was taking this shit seriously.
I'd say, you know what I mean,
"I'm gonna cream these guys," you know,
and that's what happened.
He's always very hypocritical when he wins.
No matter if he knocks them out first round,
he always rings up and says, "You know, I won."
I'll be like, "Oh, my gosh!"
He'd be like, "Yeah, I should have, you know..."
And I'm like, "You won!"
But, yeah, he's always got that bit of self-doubt like that.
Like he'll always... I think that's his dad,
you know, where he always put him down
and always had to say, "You should've done it here."
So he's sort of got that little trait too.
(CHEERING)
MARK: Then I got a call from Vincent,
said, "Would you like to fight
"in about 3.5, 3 weeks or something?"
And I said, "Oh, yeah, sweet."
'Cause I thought my year was over for fighting.
And then he goes, "Yeah, but you're gonna have to fight Ray."
I had three weeks to prepare.
I was drinking and smoking when I just got off the phone.
So, I mean, it's like, what do you do?
(YELLING IN JAPANESE)
Oh, yeah, sweet and done.
MIKE: Mark's just there to make up the numbers.
He won the K-1 Oceania, so they've gotta have him in there.
"OK, we'll put this New Zealander-Aussie guy in there,
"but Ray Sefo's gonna beat him," because Ray was the golden boy!
Ray, the year before, was runner-up in the K-1, OK,
was the second best in the world.
This year, he was maybe tipped to win the whole thing.
COMMENTATOR:Hunt already going straight up the centre
with that big "Goodnight, Irene" right hand.
He does throw a round kick above the waist.
Sefo forced to guard up early on.
Ray Sefo now backed into the neutral corner.
Mark Hunt has opened up. He's on fire.
RAY: I was quicker than Mark.
I thought I was technically better than Mark.
But Mark came out with
a completely different kind of style
which was, you know, take your head off.
COMMENTATOR: Another right hand there from Hunt, and another.
And so that Polynesian in me came out
and went, "Alright, if this is how we're gonna do it..."
So we just stood in the centre of the ring and banged it out.
May the best man win.
COMMENTATOR: Hunt just sizing him up.
Sefo just smiles at him, says, "Come on, Mark.
"Is that all you've got for me, son?"
What transpired still goes down today
as maybe the greatest K-1 fight of all time.
COMMENTATOR: Can Mark Hunt shock the world?
Oh, a spinning back kick there.
Some agility from the big man, Mark Hunt.
Both men just smiling at each other.
Nice body shot, left hand combination there.
MIKE: But then they decide to do something
I've never seen in fight sports -
they drop their hands and they invite each other
to hit each other clean on the jaw
and try and knock one another out.
COMMENTATOR: The kiss of death there from Ray Sefo!
My word, I've never seen anything like this!
Oh-ho-ho!
He can't knock him out! He can't knock him down!
(CHEERING)
MIKE: The fans went into meltdown!
Two guys dropping their hands, sticking their chins out
and inviting each other to hit them
while they're the hardest punchers in the world?
It was amazing.
COMMENTATOR:What a war.
Absolutely, these two guys from South Auckland, New Zealand, taking each other to task.
It was dumb - the idea of fighting
is not to get hit and hit them.
But on that night it was just,
you know, whatever, whatever goes.
-ANNOUNCER: Ray Sefo. -(CHEERING)
-COMMENTATOR: Well... -Well, there you have it.
MIKE: And Mark lost the fight.
But then Ray went backstage and the doctor checked him.
Ray said he had triple vision -
he was seeing three of everything.
COMMENTATOR: Let's have a look at that mouse
underneath Ray Sefo's right eye.
I've gotta say, Ray Sefo was never the same after that fight.
That fight aged Ray Sefo.
That fight affected Ray Sefo physically, mentally,
spiritually, I believe, as well.
I mean, those two guys
beat the living daylights out of each other
in a way that nobody had ever seen before.
So as luck would have it, as karma,
as chance, the universe would unfold,
is that Mark would get a chance then to go into the final
because Ray Sefo had to withdraw.
And of course, that's how history unfolded.
MARK: I mean, regardless of that I lost the fight to Ray,
that's where I started my rise, my fame in Japan
because of that fight.
(CHEERING AND YELLING)
MARK: I won that fight. I went and knocked him over.
(LAUGHS) Poor guy.
(CHEERING)
MIKE: So Mark comes to the 2001 K-1 Grand Prix,
having won the tournament in Fukuoka.
You've gotta win three fights in one night
to become the champion.
To win one fight is hard enough
against the best heavyweights in the world,
but to win three in one night,
with a very short rest time between fights,
it's an almost superhuman feat.
All the focus is on Jerome Le Banner.
You know, he'd fought Mark before,
and beaten him quite handily over the distance.
And he said, "I'm gonna have no problem,
"Mark couldn't hurt me last time.
"I'm gonna knock him out this time.
"I know Mark, I've unravelled him. It's easy pickings."
And then the Japanese media, I remember, asking Mark,
they used to ask him one question -
they said, "Jerome Le Banner hits hard.
"How are you going to handle Jerome's power?"
And Mark's answer was,
"I once got hit by a truck, and that didn't knock me out.
"I doubt Jerome Le Banner hits harder than a truck."
Ladies and gentlemen,
let's get ready to rumble!
MARK: It was good.
I was supremely confident the whole event.
I felt at ease, at home. I felt great.
I was like, "Man, I'm gonna frigging kick some ass!"
It was a great feeling.
MIKE: First round of the fight,
Jerome Le Banner is on the money.
Mark is being completely outclassed,
outschooled by a far superior kickboxer.
The second round starts again with Jerome beating Mark,
but then something inside Mark Hunt snaps.
Mark drops his hands,
like he did against Ray Sefo,
and says to Jerome, "Hit me."
Mark sucks him into a South Auckland style street brawl,
and then he lays upon Jerome Le Banner
the greatest combination
you are ever gonna see in any fight sport.
COMMENTATOR: Here comes the pain! Here comes Mark Hunt!
Here comes Mark Hunt!
The Vodafone Arena is exploding!
Mark Hunt is on a demolition mission!
Mark Hunt can feel it coming!
(CHEERING)
MIKE: I counted them -
a 16-punch combination to Jerome Le Banner.
I think Jerome was out by punch number six.
The eruption went up.
(LOUD CHEERING)
PETER: I was training in Japan at that time,
and I was about as far as I am to you are,
from when Mark Hunt hit Jerome Le Banner with that first punch.
(CHEERING)
I mean, I was so happy - it was like...it was like...
It was a win for the ultimate underdog.
Mark must have knocked him out
on, like, the eighth punch or something,
and just kept hitting him -
bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
For every Polynesian guy who gets called "some dumb coconut",
for everyone who ever just never got to be the man,
he just made it possible.
I'll never forget that for as long as I live.
COMMENTATOR: Mark Hunt!
65,000 people, not to mention the millions and millions
watching live on TV, in utter disbelief
because all of a sudden this unknown Mark Hunt
became the most famous fighter in the world at that moment,
and defeated the best K-1 fighter in the world.
COMMENTATOR: ..this place explode!
COMMENTATOR 2: Well, I tell you what...
MARK: He was supposed to win that,
and this little black arse just went in
and fricking ripped his face off.
And it was good because I came out of nowhere
so I was happy, I was like, "Ooh, yeah."
(BELL RINGS, CROWD CHEERS)
(JAPANESE COMMENTARY)
PETER: All the other guys in the tournament
were, like...they were shitting bricks,
and these guys are the best of the best,
and it's like this guy is the man,
he's gonna punch holes in people all night.
And he did.
(JAPANESE COMMENTARY)
MARK: So I was fighting Stefan Leko.
And what shit thing about it was
I was drinking with him the night before.
It was me and him, the last two drinking.
I was like, "Oh, shit."
And I was like, "Bro, well, this is just business
"and this is work, it comes down to that."
So the final, Mark Hunt takes on Francisco Filho
and again, even though Mark's done so well,
people are still categorising him as the underdog.
-(TRIUMPHANT MUSIC) -(CHEERING)
MARK: I was like, "Damn, I'm the man!"
(LAUGHS) Look at this shit - coming in on a cherry picker
just goes to show how big it was.
It was frickin' huge.
No, I was getting tingles. It was pretty cool.
PETER: Mark Hunt holds the record
for being paid the least entry fee to K-1.
So they went, "Here's some chump change,"
which is them basically saying, "We don't want you to come."
(JAPANESE COMMENTARY)
(BELL RINGS)
MIKE: You know, this same guy has changed
not only his fight game, but changed his personality
and become such a better person and a better character.
And the fans really adopted and embraced that side of Mark.
-(LOUD CHEERING) -(EXCITED JAPANESE COMMENTARY)
It opened up K-1 to a whole new world.
Mark changed the martial arts landscape forever.
-(EXCITED JAPANESE COMMENTARY) -(BELL RINGS)
PETER: You could see the fear in Filho's face,
well, I certainly could.
Mark was fast, he was balanced.
Filho was clearly a much better kicker.
Mark could just take it all day.
MIKE: Watch the video, there's a moment of silence
in disbelief, 65,000 people,
not to mention the millions and millions
watching live on TV, in utter disbelief
before the eruption went up.
-JAPANESE ANNOUNCER: Mark Hunt! -(LOUD CHEERING)
MIKE: Mark Hunt changed K-1 - he had opened the doors
to the rest of the world.
(CHEERS)
MIKE: It was a moment I'll never forget.
In the stadium that night,
fans saw something they'd never seen before.
They saw somebody win
the greatest combat trophy in the world
who two years before had no martial arts experience,
OK, was a fat dude roaming the streets of South Auckland,
getting into bar fights.
He went on to complete the biggest Cinderella story
in sports history.
MARK: For me it's like, "Wow!"
You know, to be working a job that doesn't make 30,000 a year
to becoming the best kickboxer in the world.
It's quite funny, the story was surreal.
It was like, "Jeez, this is my first year
"at the Grand Prix World Title and I win it."
Wowzers.
JULIE: I was at home when he rang, 'cause he'd ring
really late at night, it was 11, 12 at night
after they finished the Grand Prix.
And I could hear everyone screaming in the background,
we were all screaming and it was amazing.
It was good, I just rang her up
and I said, "I just made a million dollars."
She goes, "You won!" and it was a good feeling
to say that sort of thing, you know,
tell her, no, I wasn't just a worthless bit of dirt.
I was so happy and it was an amazing feeling
to ring her up and tell her that
I'd actually won something, you know,
and this path that I was undertaking
was actually... is actually worth it.
(CHEERING)
(LOUD CHEERING)
And she was so ecstatic. It was so good for me.
I was just saying, you know, how proud she was,
I was gonna buy a house.
It was amazing. It was a good feeling.
(CHEERING AND SQUEALING)
MIKE: After Mark won the K-1
there was so much pressure on him.
He became a demigod - not a superstar, a demigod.
He couldn't leave his hotel room in Japan,
walk anywhere, without people mobbing him.
HAPE: They were selling Mark Hunt dolls, 400 bucks a pop.
But that's Japan for you.
MIKE: The amazing thing is that
no matter how big Mark was in Japan
and the countries in Europe as well where K-1 was dominant -
France and Holland and Germany, etc -
he'd come back to Australia or go back to New Zealand,
and he could walk the streets and very few people,
unless they were hardcore fans, knew who he was.
He was up there. In Japan he was as big as a Michael Jordan.
You know, he was as big as a Jonah Lomu in New Zealand.
GLENN: We'd get letters from people saying,
"Oh, you touched my arm at the Tokyo Dome,
"and I've never felt confident in my entire life,
"and you touched me and I felt that
"you gave me some of your power and now I've got a new job
"and I'm achieving things in my life."
I mean, genuine letters like that.
Mark changed people's lives in some respects over there.
(CHEERING)
-(GENTLE MUSIC) -(BIRDS CHIRP)
VICTORIA: When Mark made a name for himself in the K-1,
we all cheered, but it wasn't satisfying for Dad.
Dad wasn't pleased
or proud of what Mark was doing in the ring.
And then I told Mark about it, Mark was sort of like...
You know, he just expected some appreciation at least,
or some...it wasn't ego, it was he just wanted his dad...
He just wanted Dad to be proud of him.
David Tua bought his parents a house, you know,
it was the right thing to do,
you know, regardless of the circumstances.
I bought them a house before I bought me a house.
(LAUGHS) You know?
I bought them a house in Papatoetoe.
And, I mean, even then, they just...he was,
they weren't still happy.
They wanted double-storey, they want fricking, you know...
They probably wanted, you know, radars from the roof
and, you know, a rocket ship to come from the top.
They wanted... I don't know what it is.
But I just thought it was a great house,
a good family house
and, most of all, it was free for them.
It was not... You know, I paid for it.
(SOMBRE MUSIC)
After I won the world title, I fell off the wagon.
I was into meth.
Friend of mine was dealing, I was just hanging out with him.
Just into a time to just party,
you know, eating shitloads of food
and smoking a whole lot of shit
because I was just a dumbarse at the time.
(SIGHS) You know, instead of setting things up,
getting ready for another onslaught of the next year,
getting the right people for finance and helping out.
I didn't know that shit, you know.
Didn't have anyone saying to me,
"Mark, you've gotta do this with your finance.
"With your finances, you gotta do this."
Yeah, that was hard. That was really hard.
Yeah, just stressed out.
And then we're going through the court. That was horrible.
That's the first time I ever saw Mark cry
because he was really upset about that
and how someone could rip him off.
Well, I mean, I was in court,
you know, I mean, I wasn't training.
I didn't know where I was at,
where the loyalty was at with anybody.
I was ballooned up size.
I just didn't... Do you know what I mean? I was just at...
..just didn't feel like doing anything.
You know, what's the point of fighting
when you get cheated by these little scumbags
and you have to go and fight them in court?
Just things weren't going too well.
-(DARK MUSIC) -(CHEERING)
MARK: I went back to the K-1 fight the next year.
I was defending the title.
I won the first fight.
Stefan kicked the shit out of my leg.
Got my PCL cut.
My leg was battered
and it was all blue and purple.
I couldn't... Nothing was strong.
So when I fought Jerome, he kicked it and it just snapped.
COMMENTATOR:Hunt's gotta throw the big punch.
It's a leg. That's the leg.
(CHEERING AND CHANTING)
COMMENTATOR:Oh, look at the bruises on that leg.
MARK: So, that was, you know,
the end of my K-1 kickboxing career.
You know, that was my world title gone
and my...you know, my everything else gone.
COMMENTATOR: What his other opponents have not been able
to do to his head and body, they have done to his leg.
MIKE: I think Mark had it in him
if he'd stayed on to become champion again,
maybe...hey, maybe two or three more times.
Because between 2003 and 2005,
K-1 went through a little bit of a slump
where Remy Bonjasky won the championship
against some very mediocre competition.
I think if Mark was in there, he would've won that.
(DYNAMIC MUSIC)
MARK: Glenn Elliot calls me. "Oh, we got an offer for you.
"Pride championships, you know."
"What the hell is that shit?"
"It's mixed martial arts, you know, they pay you $250,000."
I said, "What, one fight?"
And he goes, "Yeah, one fight, first fight.
"You sign a contract, the thing is a five-fight contract
"or three-fight contract for $250,000 a fight."
I was like, "Bullshit. Give me a look at that contract."
I never been doing mixed martial arts, but I signed up.
GLENN: The K-1 was a crazy thing
that had come out of boxing, right?
It was like stand-up and it was striking
and, you know, it kinda made sense.
This new thing, it was all like striking
and then everybody's on the ground
and it gets all Roman, and what the hell?
But I remember looking at Mark and looking at this MMA thing
and thinking, "I don't know, it doesn't look that far away
"from just your standard lunchtime brawl
"out in South Auckland schools, you know.
"This is how his...probably what they do every lunchtime,
"so he should be fine."
MARK: The money was more - I was getting paid 250,000 US
instead of paid 60,000 US.
At my first Pride press conference,
they asked me a question,
"Mark, how many hours on the ground work have you done?"
And I was like just, "Oh, I had about eight hours."
They all just fucking shit themselves laughing,
the whole...everyone.
It was a good eight hours, though.
(LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING)
MARK: Now, after the first loss against Yoshida,
I started winning some fights.
Now that I had found mixed martial arts,
I thought, "Wow, that's another mountain I gotta climb."
It reignited my interest.
"Right, I've gotta go and chase this dream."
STEVE: You know, physically, he's gifted.
But just look at Mark,
and he just doesn't fit into any category, mate, you know.
You think he's gonna be slow
and he's gonna be...have no gas.
You know, mate, he's just the total opposite.
He's got lungs, you know, for weeks.
And he's so explosive off the mark, it's amazing, you know.
He's one of the quickest men I've ever seen.
Mark went to mixed martial arts, took to it like a duck to water.
And pretty soon he's giving the likes of Fedor Emelianenko,
the greatest mixed martial arts fighter in history,
the toughest fight of his career.
You know, it was phenomenal.
He's giving Wanderlei Silva
one of the toughest fights of his career.
Mark Hunt! You know, it was incredible.
And, again, it did wonders for his popularity
because at that time, Pride was not only known in Japan,
but Pride had circulated across the world.
So all of a sudden,
people that didn't know Mark Hunt the K-1 champion
now knew him as a K-1 champion
and a guy shooting towards the top of mixed martial arts.
But there was a time in Pride
where he had a loss.
It wasn't a typical Mark in the ring that night.
It was a Mark that was going through problems.
He just gave up.
When we were in the room, the hotel room,
we were having a chat and he just said to me that, you know,
"My heart's not in it, you know,
"I think, you know, I might have one more and call it a day."
I couldn't beat anybody. I mean, I had middleweights beating me.
I got knocked out for the first time.
I was battling a different fight, man.
I was battling not in the Octagon, or the ring.
I was battling in my mind and other stuff.
Those results would have been certainly different
if he had a better management group around him.
Financially, it was going wrong. Things weren't going so well.
People were lying about shit. And I wasn't working.
I didn't have any more structure,
I was just...doing nothing.
That was a bad time for Caleb to come live with me.
I was in a bad way.
JULIE: When I met Mark, he told me that he had kids
but he had nothing to do with them.
I was like, "They're so cute, they look like you.
"Let's meet them and we'll bring them over to Oz.
"You don't have to do anything with them. I'll do it all.
"I'll take them places, the zoo and stuff."
But he didn't have much to do with them the first years.
Caleb always wanted to go with his dad.
When he was 10, 11, he went and come live with us.
And I thought, "Oh, this is gonna be wonderful.
"Mark's gonna finally realise what it's like to be a dad.
"He's gonna help him." It was the total opposite.
Didn't have nothing to do with him.
I was his mum and his dad.
You know, he absolutely doted his dad.
It was just sad because Mark just treated him like a friend.
I wasn't a good father. I mean, I didn't know how to be.
I mean, I was only... (LAUGHS)
I don't know what was going on.
UFC were buying Pride.
And Mark was having a hard time mentally around who he was,
how he was meant to be getting paid properly,
and he wasn't winning.
And then the UFC come in and were like,
"Oh, we want this guy, this guy.
"And by the way, oh, we don't really...
"You know, you're not winning and...
"Here's 50k, you can go away."
They didn't want me, but, you know, to be honest,
to be fair also too, I don't blame them
because I was on a six, seven fight losing streak,
and who would want that, you know?
But that's how I felt, you know.
(COINS RATTLE)
MARK: I just went back to my old ways.
I was doing the wrong thing, totally the wrong thing,
doing all sorts of stupid stuff.
I had a gambling addiction - I had plenty of money now.
Gambling every day, 6,000...18,000 a day,
credit cards, just gambling, though, you know.
And it just all caught up.
I wasn't making an income anyway because I wasn't working.
I'd end up borrowing money off my mum and dad
and not saying what for, but I'd always pay them back.
But, yeah, he'd come home shitty
so I knew straightaway he'd lost the money.
Didn't think nothing of it.
Money was just coming and going,
so he just spent it like it was...
When you've got nothing, you just blow it all on crap.
So, yeah.
MARK: You know, I was in big trouble.
Didn't realise it, though, but I was in big trouble.
I was always angry, turning on a dime on anybody.
I was just a real dickhead.
JULIE: We were just going in to EB Games in Campbelltown.
This guy come up to Mark and goes, "Let's go,"
and Mark goes, "Alright then."
MARK: I said, "What are you looking at?"
He said, "You wanna fight?
"Fuck, fight, ding, ding, ding, ding."
I went, "Alright, motherfucker, what did you say?"
JULIE: I said, "Mark, if you do this, I'm gone."
He wasn't gonna back down to a fight.
My gosh, that would've made him look weak.
That was the time when she said, oh, um...
..when she said she was gonna leave me.
(LAUGHS) Yeah.
So that was an altercation that I had.
Was one of the last ones - it was when it wasn't good.
I just gave him the ultimatum -
"If you don't get help, I'm gonna leave."
And so he started seeing a psychologist, which was amazing.
She was great - definitely opened up his eyes
and saw, you know, this isn't normal and stuff like that.
I used to feel a failure when I look at this place,
because, you know, I lost this house.
I failed at making payments.
And, you know, my wife was crying on the phone.
She was saying, "Mark, the sheriff's here,
"he's knocking here, he wants us to get out of the house.
"You have to get out. Can't afford it here."
She was crying, I was angry, and I was running out of money
because I was gambling $20,000 a day.
I was in the lawsuit with the UFC about employment.
No income,
still living like I was working, you know,
and, you know, a lot of it... mostly it was my fault.
All of it.
I made some mistakes here,
but, yeah, no-one told me how to do things,
so had to do it myself.
Had to fall in the hole, get back up, do it again.
And, you know, if it wasn't for my wife ringing me up crying,
saying, "Fuck, the sheriff just came here, Mark,
"we need the money,"
I wouldn't have taken the UFC deal.
(DYNAMIC MUSIC)
ARIEL: I was there at his UFC debut
and that was fascinating
because here we are in Indianapolis, of all places,
UFC 119,
and he's the first fight of the night.
You know, so we start to learn about the story,
like how did Mark Hunt end up here?
Losing streak, time off.
And he's fighting a guy named Sean McCorkle.
They're like, "Yeah, you know, we wanted to get rid of him,
"but he has a contract and he wants to take his shot."
So, first fight of the night and it goes horribly for him.
He gets submitted in a matter of seconds and we all think,
"Alright, it was really cool to see Mark Hunt in the UFC,
"but that's probably it."
Well, I had to just keep winning fights from then.
I mean, that contract that I got
was something that was legally binding,
and I had to start winning fights.
I won the Tuchscherer fight,
then I started winning more fights and...
And that's how I came back.
ARIEL: The place just exploded for Mark.
It was, you know, a walk-off KO,
and it was just brutal and it was sudden
and it was painful to watch.
The place went nuts. It was just great.
That was his first UFC win, so I was like,
"Wow, Mark Hunt is gonna stick around, it seems."
It was a day fight and by 3:00 I was mowing the lawns.
JON: The king of the walk-off knockout.
There's just nobody like him.
He knows when he lands
that you're not getting up.
And if you do get up, you really shouldn't get up.
And if you are the referee,
you should probably stop it down here
because I don't need to give this man more concussive damage
or knock him out again.
(CHEERING)
Sometimes the knockout punches,
like, it feels like nothing, like, literally just pillow.
And he's done it so many times now
that he just knows the feeling.
It's like, "Boom, there it is. OK. Alright."
JON: December 7, 2013, Brisbane Entertainment Centre,
we knew we had a great fight on paper,
but I don't think it was until the third round
that me and my broadcast partner Kenny Florian
started to realise just how special this fight was.
COMMENTATOR: Nice hit from Silva.
Hunt's under pressure here.
Now Hunt strikes back.
The output that those two men
were able to sustain over 25 minutes
was really one of the greater athletic feats
that I have ever seen from any professional athlete.
COMMENTATOR: Unbelievable.
Hunt just split Silva's head wide open.
Ah, it's a bloody mess, and too tough to call in Brisbane.
(CHEERING)
It's a fight the world's gonna talk about.
I put a lot into that fight, I mean, it was a great fight.
I used to train at the American Top Team
with Bigfoot, he's a nice person.
He ruined that fight by doping.
And I broke my hand, and I was out for nine months
and I couldn't work.
He got suspended for nine months,
and then he was still competing before I was.
He was cheating and I wasn't.
And that's an unfair playing field.
It ruined the fight,
it just ruined everything.
(PULSING MUSIC)
Well, I was adamant that I was gonna go and train my arse off
to fight Bigfoot for the rematch.
ALEX: You know, Mark's a good Samoan boy
and he loves his food.
I think the record's 33 kilos
that we've had to get off before a fight.
That was about 14 weeks out.
But as I say, it's sort of one of those things
that potentially has actually given him longevity
because he's letting his body rest in between.
He gets grumpy a lot when he has to lose some weight
and not eating carbs.
And he gets really, really grumpy in training,
and, you know, sometimes he throws tantrums -
"No, don't wanna do this, I wanna do that," you know.
But that's because of, you know, he doesn't get to eat
his favourite cakes or carbohydrate sweet stuff.
You know, one day we were getting food
and we pulled into KFC and he's like,
"Oh, can I have a chicken 10-piece pack,
"two bottles of drink and two fries?"
And then he looks at me, "What do you want, Hape?"
ARIEL: His fight against Bigfoot Silva, the first one,
one of the greatest fights I've ever seen.
They fought to a draw, somewhat marred
by Bigfoot's post-fight drug test failure.
But the second fight against Bigfoot Silva,
UFC 193 in Melbourne, was incredible.
COMMENTATOR: It's a hard right hand that's rocked Silva.
It's all Hunt tonight.
Another walk-off KO for the big man.
MARK: And when he wasn't cheating,
he didn't even last one round.
You know, you take away their steroid use,
they just become average fighters again.
They shouldn't be up here with the elite.
The UFC has gone to great lengths to clean this up
with USADA, the US Anti-Doping Agency.
Now, certainly for Mark Hunt, it's been unfortunate.
MARK: What I didn't realise that...
..that cheating was an issue...for me.
But, you know, as you learn,
as you go on through things, you learn these things
and then you realise - what are you gonna do?
Trying to do what's right,
you know, coming from the bad side of, you know, an ex-con,
to trying to do the right thing these days
as a productive member of society,
I only felt there was only one way to go with this.
REPORTER: UFC superstar Brock Lesnar
has been suspended for a year.
On Thursday, the Nevada State Athletic Commission announced
that along with the suspension, Lesnar will be fined $250,000
for testing positive to two banned substances.
MARK: Yeah, man, yeah. Grab a photo, yeah.
-Thanks. An honour to meet you. -MARK: See ya, bro, see ya.
REPORTER: The fine is equal to 10%
of Lesnar's $2.5 million payday from the fight.
MARK: I'm always about being even,
and especially when it's concerning people's health.
You know, this business is the hurt business
and people get hurt, they could die.
And when you're cheating and you're putting hurt on someone,
it's a harsh enough sport and reality in the world as it is.
It's hard when you are a clean athlete
and have been for your whole career,
when you're fighting guys
who you presume even before the contest,
like Mark Hunt against Lesnar at UFC 200,
to be not just dirty but filthy.
CHRISTINA: Brock Lesnar's purse for UFC 200 was 2.5 million.
His pay-per-view proceeds
are estimated to be between 3 and 5 million.
So in Brock's case, he was fined $250,000,
which is 10% of his $2.5 million purse,
and he got to keep all of his pay-per-view proceeds.
Mark took home 700,000 that evening.
He'd like to have a provision in all bout agreements
that if his opponent is found
to have been using a banned substance,
that the cheating opponent
would have to forfeit all of his prize money,
including any other monetary gain received.
He believes all that
should go to the person who wasn't cheating.
He fights for a living, so he felt it was important
to stand up for himself and for other fighters who fight clean.
(THUMP!)
(FLOWING PIANO MUSIC)
(BIRDSONG)
-CHILD: Dad! -MARK: Yeah!
MARK: I've got a family to feed, and I've got a...
You know, my job is just different from others.
-BOY: Snap. -I said it before you.
-I said it before you, I won. -Same time. Same time.
Share, equal, equal. Snap!
JULIE: Definitely does it for the kids.
I mean, I think he'd be lost without family.
Like, when we first met, his first words were,
"I don't want kids, I don't wanna get married,
"I'm never gonna get a house, I don't want a girlfriend."
And, hello, we're married, four kids, or six, including his.
Caleb's such a good kid,
like he's so respectful, he'll do anything for you.
He's a good kid. He's good with our kids.
And now he goes, yeah, everywhere with Mark now.
MARK: I'm just trying to set a good example for my kids,
and I feel that's my duty.
You know, don't get me wrong, I've made shitloads of mistakes.
I've made plenty of mistakes in my time. Plenty.
(LAIDBACK MUSIC)
MARK: They've asked me to fight Barnett in Melbourne.
I said no, because they wouldn't put my clause in.
And the clause was just to...
..so if he's caught doping, the money comes from him.
Two days later, the guy pops for steroids, fuckin' hell.
And then after that they offered to fight again in Canada,
I said yes to the fight, but they've gotta put a clause in,
and they wouldn't do that.
CHRISTINA: Mark had already turned down a few fights,
and the UFC sent a letter to me
threatening that if Mark didn't fight,
that he was going to be in breach of his contract.
(COOL MUSIC)
ANNOUNCER: Next, we move to thenmain card, live on pay-per-view,
Alistair Overeem vs Mark Hunt.
(CHEERING)
Official weight - 265 for the Super Samoan.
ARIEL: He accepts a fight with Alistair Overeem
and I'm thinking, "Wait a second, what happened
"to all these things that you were asking for?"
Especially Overeem, who has a history
with this sort of thing, unfortunately.
"Did you just drop all that? I know you have to make money."
I was like, "Wow." I was a little disappointed.
Official weight, 256 for The Reem.
CHRISTINA: After Mark accepted the Alistair Overeem fight,
he felt backed in a corner because he didn't get
the provision that he wanted in his bout agreement.
He felt like he had no choice but to sue.
So we filed a lawsuit on his behalf in federal court
against the UFC, Dana White and Brock Lesnar.
Mark's lawsuit includes several different causes of action
against the defendants.
ANNOUNCER:Mark Hunt and Alistair Overeem,
ladies and gentlemen!
REPORTER:Alright, what are your thoughts
on fighting Alistair Overeem again?
I don't like Alistair Overeem.
I think he's a cheater.
And I guess this gives me an opportunity to beat him up.
And only until I lost against Brock is when I realised
this isn't about winning or losing or beating cheaters,
it's about, you know, people's lives.
It's a whole lot of different things going on. It's unfair.
He's trying to make a new sort of pathway
for these young fighters
because it's giving a wrong message across.
You know, kids that are wanting to get involved within sport,
it's not the best message to sort of promote,
"Hey, if you wanna fight within MMA sports, you've gotta cheat."
I think drugs and steroids in sport,
especially fighting sport because you're hurting someone,
is important and I think needs to be addressed
like one of the high priorities, like, one.
JOHN: What he's asking makes a lot of sense.
It's kinda funny when you think about it - a guy misses weight,
he has to give part of his money to you.
But a guy gets busted for taking steroids and we just move on.
REPORTER: He's kind of on a crusade
to get drugs out of the sport.
What do you say about that?
Well, what I say about it is that,
again, I appreciate his efforts,
but this is something between him and the UFC.
The UFC has a very stringent drug test policy.
I fully support that, I'm in that program,
and I have to give my whereabouts 24/7.
You know, Mark feels that, you know,
because he's fought guys who've tested positive
that he should receive their money or whatever the deal is.
That has nothing to do with me.
That's with the athletic commission.
And as far as testing goes,
there's no organisation in sports
that you could be in that test better than we do.
I mean, with the USADA program, guys are gonna pop.
Guys are gonna try to cheat, guys are gonna...
But guys will get caught - it's part of the deal.
REPORTER: How do you take these very vitriolic things
Mark's saying about you?
What is he exactly saying?
REPORTER: So basically he's accused you
of being a drug cheat, you know, a needle taker, etc, etc.
That's what he said in the press.
-Yeah. -What do you think of it?
How would you respond to that?
Well, I'm focused on the positive. I'm a positive guy.
He is on a bit of a crusade, but that's Mark Hunt, right?
Once he gets behind something, he's gonna stick with it.
That's just his personality. That's who he is.
And, listen, I think it's great.
Here's a guy that, such a fantastic story.
You go to the backstory of him coming to the UFC,
and them saying, "Hey, we'll just pay you to walk away."
And, you know, him accomplishing what he's accomplished -
become a fan favourite just with his style, his whole attitude.
And now he's got kind of a mission.
I think this is something that's important because
if he's able to accomplish what he wants to accomplish -
and, granted, it's a little bit of an odd way to do it,
to sue Dana White, to sue Brock Lesnar,
but, man, if he can get something accomplished,
he could be very important to the entire future of the sport.
ARIEL: I wish that they could sit down and figure this out,
because I think Mark Hunt is an important part of the UFC.
This is such an unprecedented thing.
Here's a guy competing for an organisation
that he's actively suing.
This is not normal. (LAUGHS)
But nothing with Mark has been normal in his UFC career.
What happens when he starts losing fights, you know?
He might be on the first train out.
So this is a really important fight for Mark Hunt.
But if he loses this fight, then loses another,
you know, he's in his 40s now,
do they just say, you know, he's not worth the trouble?
It's possible.
MAN 1: Gotta get through the Samoan.
MAN 2: Let's do it, Mark. This is it. It's why we're here.
(CHEERING)
COMMENTATOR:Here we go. Good footwork from The Reem.
Now a big right hand.
It's turning ugly for Mark Hunt.
Oh, he's down.
MAN: He's a big fucking unit, though.
Mark's not a type to make excuses,
but first couple minute I watch the fight,
I knew he had injury.
Course, it was clarified by Zen and the boys
that, yeah, he did, in fact, have injuries.
Well, the next fight's gonna be a very, very tough fight.
Derrick Lewis is a beast
and he's probably the strongest in the UFC at the moment.
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
MAN: Action.
Super Samoan vs the Black Beast.
June 11, Sky Sport.
Catch the best... Catch the best live action.. Is it?
Champions, warriors and legends, live on Fan Pass Pay-Per-View.
Catch me for the first time fighting in my home town,
live on Sky Sport.
Super Sa... Super Samoan vs...
"Catch me outside, how 'bout that?" Hss! Hss! Hss!
(CAMERAS CLICK)
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, Derrick Lewis and Mark Hunt.
BRIAN: If I had to fight Mark Hunt,
this is not the place I'd wanna fight him.
He's coming off a loss and he's mad.
He's mad about the people he's been fighting.
He's mad about things that have happened to him.
It's not a great time to take on Mark Hunt.
..coming out, man, appreciate it.
Derrick Lewis is an interesting guy in that
he looks one way, right, he looks so intimidating.
The way he fights, people would be scared of him.
He's got a trick up his sleeve.
I'm still renegotiating my contract
just to fight Mark, so I'm happy with that.
MARK: You know, I do believe Derrick isn't a cheater.
I give him respect, you know, because he's from the hood also.
Well, you know, he's in the heavyweight division.
I've been saying this over and over all the time -
it doesn't take much from a heavyweight
just to land one punch,
so he has just as much advantage, as the same as I do.
For Mark, I think having the hometown crowd,
some of those pressures - he's got a lot of people,
a lot of family coming to this fight.
When you're at this stage of the career for Mark Hunt where
he's done everything, he doesn't have anything left to prove.
MARK: This is where I started not too long,
just down on K' Road there.
I was just over in Raro, paying homage to my first trainer.
And coming to fight here, like started here,
like I said, may be the last time here, it's fine.
Me getting my hand raised, either if it's an ugly way
or a pretty way, it's going to happen.
MARK: It's gonna be good in front of friends and family.
It's gonna be a great show.
And, first time here in the big show, in the big show,
so, you know, in good old little New Zealand, so, yeah.
MAN: I love the way he fights.
I've been following him since K-1 and Pride.
He's had a few fights in Auckland, I understand, but...
(LAUGHTER)
..he's never fought professionally
here in New Zealand.
ZEN: He's in a good headspace.
Sometimes, you know, he'll get sort of frustrated again
with the whole UFC saga.
Trying to keep him focused.
And, you know, we're looking at maybe four fights left
and then that's pretty much, you know, his retirement after that.
MARK: There's always nerves as it's a different battle,
but, you know, here we are again.
We ask to keep his mind calm and sharp at the same time, Lord.
We ask you to protect and everyone else tonight, Lord.
We ask you, Lord, to give us wisdom in the corner
so we can pass it on
and give you this glory in the holy name of Jesus Christ.
-MARK: Amen. -Hear that, boys?
MARK: I mean, if I don't win this fight,
I might as well retire, just stay retired.
Because, I mean, I have no business
if I cannot beat this guy.
(LOUD CHEERING)
COMMENTATOR: Big right hand from Hunt.
They're trading blows.
-Oh! Hunt's hurt Lewis! -(CHEERING)
It's a TKO!
Hometown victory for Hunt. The crowd love it.
MAN: For Samoa!
Oh, thank God he won.
Oh, he's looking good, he's not injured, which is great.
So we wanted...
-Thanks a lot, darling. -MAN: Jules.
-MARK: Are we right? -MAN: Yep, yep.
I get the cheques. (LAUGHS)
Jeez, I get my own seat. Wow. That's pretty cool.
REPORTER: Well, Mark, congratulations
on a big victory for you tonight.
MARK: I've been doing this a long time. I started kickboxing.
I had my first fight about a K down the road from here,
ever, in a ring, at Muay Thai.
So to be back here with the biggest company in the world,
UFC, in a different sport is pretty amazing,
especially being the oldest guy, the oldest guy fighting.
So, you know, 43 years old and, you know, still getting it done.
You know, why not see the contract out and then retire?
Well, I'm not slurring my speech and I'm still alive,
so you can't kill me yet, man.
The old dog is still going, man.
Yeah, nah, I mean, I just... I'm doing what I'm doing.
I'm still beating the top end guys.
I said if I can't start beating these guys, then I would retire,
you know, if these guys are too good for me.
But, you know, I don't like listening to anyone saying,
"You can't do this, can't do this,"
otherwise I wouldn't be a fighter.
REPORTER: You took a stand, you've been on this thing -
we've gotta get steroids out of the sport.
If you take away the money, they wouldn't do it.
It's just a clause in the contract
saying the cheater doesn't benefit at all -
because right now it pays to cheat.
REPORTER: Mark, amazing win tonight.
I just wanna know what's gonna be
the go-to meal tonight after the weigh-in.
-What a smart prick you are. -(LAUGHTER)
I've got some Polynesian food at the gym, waiting. I love it.
I was gonna take my boys out to have some KFC,
some steak and cheese pies maybe.
Maybe a couple of long donuts. That'd be nice.
(LAUGHTER)
-It's all here. -(APPLAUSE)
I still feel like I'm one of the best fighters in the world.
I wanna finish my career happy and compete fiercely.
(GENTLE MUSIC)
LOLO: I'm proud, I mean, you know, everybody's happy.
But it's good for Mark, you know.
With all the dramas
and all the challenges we've gone through
and still be able to come on top and then have the last say.
You know...you know, it's awesome.
Yeah, awesome, yeah.
It was quite scary to watch, actually.
I don't like watching them at all.
I'm glad it's over and everything turned out good
and no-one got injured and...fight of the night.
Ha ha ha!
We were gonna have a little celebration anyway
because some of our kids did well in the Golden Gloves.
And then tonight, of course,
the big bonus with Mark take out Lewis - yeah!
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
MARK: Family's everything to me - I do this for money
because I love my family and I want my kids to have
better advantages than I had, more opportunities.
I want them to have better options in life than I did.
That's why, I think, a lot of parents do this.
A lot of people, a lot of parents get up and go to work
because they love their family.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for tonight.
And we just thank you for
the grace you've given over this entire event,
and over Mark and his family.
And just thank you for such a good night.
We ask you to bless our lives in Jesus' mighty name.
-Amen. -OTHERS: Amen.
I am not with my ex... with Jules now.
We are separated. That's been hard.
Fighting's taken a toll on my life.
I made a lot of sacrifices,
spent a lot of time away from my children.
I want my kids to be good, productive members of society.
I don't want them to be criminal,
a little criminal thief like I was,
I want them to be good members of society
and do the right thing.
That's all I want. I don't care what they do.
Just do good for the community, do good for themselves,
and, um, yeah, that's all.
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
(MEN CHANT IN LOCAL LANGUAGE)
-(YELLS IN LOCAL LANGUAGE) -(MEN YELL)
(MEN PERFORM HAKA)
(INSPIRING MUSIC)