Four Fighters. Four True Stories.

There's a version of the fighting movie where the underdog trains hard, wins the big fight, music swells, credits roll. These aren't those movies. These are four true stories where the fight in the ring is the least difficult thing happening to the people involved.

American Warrior (2025)

Vishy Ayyar co-founded a real estate venture that hit a $55 million valuation. Then 2008 happened. He lost everything. Filed for bankruptcy. Turned to the Bhagavad Gita, specifically the story of the warrior Arjuna, to make sense of what was left of his life. That became this film.

Ayyar spent a year and a half training in MMA under an actual UFC fighter to play the lead. The character Jai mirrors his own fall: convicted of mortgage fraud, working as a janitor in an MMA gym, going viral after stopping a convenience store robbery, getting pulled into a brutal tournament.

Danny Trejo plays the trainer. In interviews he said this was only the second time in his career he'd played a mentor instead of a villain. Veronica Falcon won Best Actress at the Santa Fe Film Festival for her role. The film premiered to a packed house at the International Film Festival of India in Goa.

The story underneath is about an immigrant rebuilding an identity after the American Dream collapses. The fights are real. The wreckage that precedes them is realer.

Action/Adventure

Fight to Live (2025)

Bec Rawlings grew up in Launceston, Tasmania. She discovered MMA in 2010 and met Australian pro fighter Dan Hyatt. Within three months he was belittling her. The abuse turned physical when she got pregnant. He was a professional fighter himself, which made it impossible for her to defend herself. He burned and tore her clothes. He pulled a knife on her and told her he was going to kill her and her children.

She filed an Apprehended Violence Order. In 2018 Hyatt was found guilty of abusing three women in subsequent relationships.

Rawlings didn't stop fighting. On June 2, 2018, she fought in the first American-sanctioned bare knuckle bout since 1889. That's a 129-year gap. It was also the first legal female bare knuckle fight ever. She won. Days later the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame awarded her the National Police Gazette Diamond Belt, a title that hadn't been given out since the 19th century. She became the first BKFC champion of any gender.

The documentary, directed by Tom Haramis, won Best Inspirational Film at the World Film Festival in Cannes.

Documentary

Bare Knuckle (2017)

Lenny McLean was born in the East End of London in 1949. His stepfather Jim Irwin beat him and his brothers for years. By the age of ten McLean had suffered multiple broken bones. Irwin would stand over him shouting "I'm the guv'nor!" That became the title McLean claimed for himself.

Unable to get a boxing license because of his criminal record, McLean entered unlicensed fighting. He claimed two to three thousand fights over his career. The defining rivalry was with Roy Shaw. Their first fight, Shaw won. Their second, McLean knocked Shaw physically out of the ring in the first round. Their third, McLean won again at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park. The title of Guv'nor was settled.

McLean eventually got a role in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. During filming he got sick. Diagnosed with pleurisy, then lung cancer that had spread to his brain. He died on July 28, 1998. One day before his autobiography, The Guv'nor, hit number one on the bestseller list. Initial print run was 3,000 copies. Guy Ritchie changed the film's billboards to feature McLean as a tribute.

The film casts Josh Helman as Lenny, Michael Bisping (at the time the reigning UFC middleweight champion) as Roy Shaw, and Sir John Hurt in his last completed big-screen role. McLean's own nephew co-wrote the screenplay and plays the abusive stepfather.

Sports & Fitness

A Real Life Underdog Story (2023)

Nicholas Zarrillo was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2016. White spots nearly blinded his field of vision. First his left eye, then his right. His memory started going, which was devastating because he was an actor. Then his family abandoned him.

He started training at the World Famous 5th Street Gym in Miami Beach. The same gym where Muhammad Ali trained with Angelo Dundee. While coping with relapsing MS symptoms, he challenged UFC star Mike Perry to a boxing match.

Perry said yes. More than that, Perry mentored him through the process. Zarrillo wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the documentary about the whole thing. One man, fighting a degenerative disease, training in Ali's gym, making a movie about himself challenging a professional fighter.

The film also features Chris Algieri, a former WBO champion, and Corey Anderson from the UFC. But the center of it is Zarrillo, undersized, outmatched, losing his vision, refusing to stop.

Documentary

---

Four films. Four people who fought because they had no other option. Streaming now on Relay.