Never Back Down

Never Back Down is a 2008 American sports drama directed by Jeff Wadlow. It premiered in the United States on 14 March 2008, was produced by Mandalay Independent Pictures and released in cinemas by Summit Entertainment. Jake Tyler, an angry and insecure high school student played by Sean Faris, moves to Orlando and starts at a new school. There he discovers an underground fight club, begins looking for a trainer and learns MMA. The trainer Jean Roqua is played by Djimon Hounsou and the character Ryan McCarthy by Cam Gigandet. The martial art at the heart of the film is MMA, shown in training and in the fights of the underground club. The actors playing fighters prepared for their roles by training in MMA. It was filmed in Orlando, and the opening scenes were shot at Cypress Creek High School and East Ridge High School. Critics compared the film to Karate Kid (1984) and Fight Club. According to the critic Michael Phillips, the film lacks the ironic distance from violence that Fight Club has. According to English Wikipedia, former UFC champions Dricus Du Plessis and Jiří Procházka named the film as their inspiration. The film was followed by the sequels Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown (2011), directed by Michael Jai White, Never Back Down: No Surrender (2016) and Never Back Down: Revolt (2021) by director Kellie Madison.

Martial arts in this work

Fight choreography

According to English Wikipedia, the actors who play fighters in the film underwent three months of MMA training in Orlando, Florida, before shooting. We did not find any mention in the sources that Sean Faris or Cam Gigandet had trained in MMA before preparing for the roles. We have not been able to reliably establish who led the fight choreography. We did not find real MMA fighters in the cast of the first film. They appeared only in the sequels: in the second film Todd Duffee and Lyoto Machida, later Josh Barnett and Michael Bisping. The fight between the characters of Sean Faris and Cam Gigandet won the 2008 MTV Movie Awards prize for Best Fight.

People and martial arts

• Jeff WadlowDirector
• Sean FarisActor — as Jake Tyler· MMA (portrays the art on screen)
• Cam GigandetActor — as Ryan McCarthy· MMA (portrays the art on screen)
• Djimon HounsouActor — as Jean Roqua· MMA (portrays the art on screen)

Awards

• Won · MTV Movie Awards, Best Fight (2008)