“Smashing Machine” talks about Pride FC and Yakuza. With some of the loudest crowds and wild nights in the mixed martial arts world, Tokyo Dome became a hot topic for more than just a fight jitter. In the early 2000s, Pride FC had an international star, a monumental showdown, and if you ask anyone you know, there was a bit of an undercurrent of organized crime.
Smashing Machine’s Pride FC and Yakuza
The Pride FC, which runs from 1997 to 2007, was not just Japan’s answer to the UFC. It was a spectacle, an unforgettable stage of a match, and according to lasting whispers, the country’s renowned organized crime syndicate, a yakuza magnet. For years, the expected impact of the Yakuza has been the worst secret of business. Fighters, journalists and fans swapped stories. Mystical men behind the scenes, money flowing in strange directions, and iron curtains separating star athletes from less shiny power brokers in the shadows.
Mark Kerr, the subject of the acclaimed documentary “The Smashing Machine” and fighter who spent the wild heyday of Pride, cut straight in a recent interview. “Rumours of Yakuza… many of them were far away. That was really true. For example, I was walking down the hallway behind Tokyo Dome and there was one room where a lot of Japanese people were smoking, and then I passed it, and there was a guy standing at the door… not in front of the camera.
For athletes like Kerr, the unwritten rules were clear. I’m not too interested in people who stuck to business, stayed in the right hallways and didn’t bother with fight tickets or media passes. “I had a handler that kept me away from Mr. Ishihara. There’s no photos or anything.” If the biggest trick of the Yakuza was to disappear from the public eye, their second greatest thing was to carefully protect the fighters from themselves.
Now about their names: “Mr. Ishihaka” was a ghost figure and was often confused with the media. Ishizaki, real name Kim Dok Suu, and insider says Kim Dok Suu, the Korean and Japanese Yakuza Underworld boss. Not only Ishizawa, but his early supporters, Philosophical Philosophy, and founder of K-1, Kazuyoshi is ishii. Ishii’s own promotion, Kickboxing Juggernaut K-1, faced similar rumors, including unmarked doors, fixer-driven transactions and legal troubles regarding tax evasion.
Handlers confirmed that fighters like Kerr remained at distance. “I’ve been to Japan and with all the photographers there, no one took a photo with me and Mr. Ishihaka… he was the first president… The man I was involved in was a Korean man.
The rumors were more than a locker room gossip. In 2006, Japanese weekly magazine Shukan Gendai ran Pride’s executives to exit exposure to organized crime, sponsors and television broadcasters. Fuji TV, which aired Pride’s biggest night, has canceled its contract. Suddenly, the organization’s financial backbone was snapped, and in 2007 Pride was sold to Zuffa, and the times were over.
The K-1 didn’t run away either. Founder Ishii’s founder was arrested for tax evasion, promoting doubts about backroom deals, secret payments to fighters, and contracts written by the kind of fixed stalkers normally reserved for noir films. The “unofficial” boss parade disappeared, but Cloud couldn’t lift it at all.
None of this has officially happened, the handler wants you to know. Most admissions are between lines like Kerr’s and internal interviews. Or it is woven through documentaries such as “The Smashing Machine.”
“The Smashing Machine” is also a biopic, released on October 3, 2025, produced by A24 and starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.