As the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) expands its reach globally, mixed martial arts (MMA) is bigger than ever. But will it ever win the battle for respectability? Millions tuned in to see the much-hyped smackdown between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 in Las Vegas earlier this month, only to witness an ugly post-match brawl outside the wire-fenced octagon that seemed to play up to every thuggish stereotype about MMA.
Timed for release in the aftermath of the McGregor/Nurmagomedov clash, Netflix’s five-part travelogue Fightworld feels like a conscious attempt to reset the UFC’s current glitzy, overblown, self-sabotaging narrative. At its centre is actor Frank Grillo, a sinewy New Yorker and MMA practitioner who – perhaps because of his first-hand experience in the ring – has always brought a plausible toughness to movies like The Grey and The Purge: Anarchy. With Fightworld, Grillo’s aim is to un-mix the martial arts, travelling to a different country in each instalment to embed in the local fight culture.
In Mexico, he seeks out now-avuncular boxing veterans Julio César Chávez and Carlos Zárate, legends of the sweet science who have never forgotten their fight out of extreme poverty (he also rather nervously judges a fiery woman’s match in a prison). In Thailand, the home of muay thai – where whirlwind arm strikes are augmented by punishing kicks and sharp knees – he tags along with a 17-year-old fighter in a Man United top, awestruck at a training regime that begins at 5am each day. In Myanmar, he adjusts to the ancient art of Lethwei, a stripped-down fighting style where tape is favoured over gloves and headbutts are permitted. Ultimately, he finds himself in the middle of a proto-UFC tournament where, Enter the Dragon-style, MMA hopefuls have travelled from all over the world to compete.
During his globetrotting trip, Grillo meets dozens of different fighters and their families, while remaining infectiously wide-eyed throughout. For a dude in his early 50s, he also literally cannot wait to get into every new gym to spar and learn from his hosts. Each episode may begin with his shock of black hair in the rakish near-pompadour of a Hollywood headshot but it is inevitably soon hanging sweatily over his eyes, often within the opening five minutes. After these sessions, he gets the fighters to take him out on to the local streets to hear about their lives while soaking up the atmosphere. Here, they are often the celebrity getting hailed and cheered, not the Hollywood star.
Aside from Grillo’s enthusiasm and desire to cede the spotlight to his subjects, Fightworld’s smartest move is to reject the usual grim-and-gritty aesthetic of fight stories in favour of making something beautiful. Partly, this is down to current digital camera technology, where it is possible to walk in almost anywhere and capture astonishing hi-def footage that feels both textured and breathtakingly immediate. Fightworld’s roaming eye either bobs off to one side to surveil the in-ring action or shadows a subject as they walk through a bustling crowd, so close it feels like you might bump into someone. It often looks ravishing, finding beauty in both the gorgeous skies and hardscrabble gyms of Thailand, Senegal and Myanmar. (“This was my wife’s garden,” chuckles a Lethwei trainer conspiratorially, casting an arm around a makeshift ring.)
Presumably Fightworld presents its authentic experiences in this deliberately artful fashion because getting a casual viewer to tune in to a doc that occasionally features headbutts could be a hard sell. So why not present your story in a way that could slot into a viewing queue alongside any of Netflix’s hip food travelogues? Nowhere is this stylistic break more pronounced than in the music. For years, the UFC’s recurring theme was the juddering nu-metal thrash Bodies by Drowning Pool, a song so aggressive it makes you want to punch yourself in the face. Fightworld is all down-home but non-intrusive blues and serene Mogwai-style post-rock, and is all the better for it.
n its determination to show the nobleness of combat, Fightworld does occasionally lay it on a little thick. For all the talk of spirituality and self-discipline, it lingers perhaps a little too long over the bruised and damaged faces of its participants. Witnessing a young fighter crumple after some nasty knee shots to the ribcage is one thing, but seeing him being verbally demolished by his trainer then shadowing him into a squalid shower stall as he hangs his head in defeat under the tepid water moves beyond immersion and into voyeurism. If violence makes you feel queasy, not even the Instagram-ready styling may be enough to change your view.
Grillo is terrific, though. While zigzagging through a bustling square in a rural Thai village, he begins to look a little nervous. “I am the anti-Anthony Bourdain,” he tells his guide. “I’m not daring with food, so when I go to the market, I get a little afraid.” While happy to learn head strikes with a Lethwei legend or be on the wrong end of a crash course in krav maga, Grillo is a scaredy-cat when confronted with a durian fruit. But he also gets a tattoo from a local artist to commemorate his experiences in Thailand, which seems like something that might have impressed Bourdain, another wiry New Yorker hungrily seeking out authenticity in the wider world simply by seeking out those who do it day in, day out.
Fightworld is available on Netflix now
