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After mistakenly killing an opponent in a freak training accident, professional fighter William Rockman (Mandylor) switched to being a martial arts instructor for children. When Congress bans UFC-style underground fighting, it changes into an even deadlier sport called ‘Terminal Combat.” One can argue that the name adequately describes what the movie is about because it isn’t a pretty thing to look at that is for sure. On the contrary, ‘Terminal Combat’ indeed sets a fitting tone, mostly to rename the movie Whatever happened to my brother during this form of combat? The King (Shamrock), who is known to be the reigning Brakus/Tong Po style super-evil baddie, kills William’s brother Ray Rockman (Wolfe) and this serves as the catalyst for William emerging from retirement and seeking revenge for his brother’s demise by taking on the King. At the same time, Max Brito (Trejo), a ruthless promoter of ‘Terminal Combat’ sets out on hosting his first ever multi-billion dollar promotion with the help of advanced technology and satellite broadcast leading to him imprisoning experienced fighters in his lair. He then implants chips in their necks to control them and makes them fight to the death all for pennies in the grand scheme to get rich and have fun. One thing they certainly didn’t count on was the scrappy and tenacious William Rockman. William needs to rally the other non-dead fighters to escape the prison that Brito has forced them into and eliminate the scheme once and for all.
Will they become champions or will their fate be terminal?
A Punchfighting doctor watching Champions is somewhat like what has to go through a doctor’s mind in real time, witnessing a patient battle for their life. There are periods of flatlining on the Electrocardiograph where the doctor watches hopelessly, but then there are spikes of activity that generate excitement followed by a rush of relief knowing that there is still life left in the patient. In other words, this movie is over 10 minutes too long and is equal parts problematic and encouraging with Champions making it to the cinema screen. Because there are still charismatic moments captured, they are few and very far between. The opportunity is here to reinvent how this film looks. It could drift into being a cult classic if the lead weight was removed. If the timeframe is instead reduced to 80 minutes, we would really have a winner here.
Alright, let’s talk about the 90s, particularly how Ken Shamrock came into the picture and the UFC first appeared. Most of the fighting sequences can be likened to those of the well-known video game Hut Fighter with worse pants (or no pants at all – check out the cover above). This must be the reason these illegal punch fights are heavily circulated on VHS tapes. Most fans and players tend to scream “Yeeeeaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!” and that is also the reason why George Buck Flower is part of this movie (or maybe they just wanted to avoid confusion between him and Randall Tex Cobb).
Many would argue that Louis Mandylor, from our list of heroes, is continuously diminishing in size, one frame at a time. As the film progresses, he seems to become as tiny as Tom Cruise. While he is busy ‘getting smaller’, he also perniciously narrates the story for the audience for whom the plot is too convoluted. In this narration, it appears that he has some background with ‘The King’ and his fellow fighter Kimberly Pepatone has some romantic involvement with him. We know Blackford as a Paget Brewster doppelganger, a woman who starred in ‘Trigun Force’ and ‘Total Force: The Silent Force’. There is also a fighter who strongly resembles a younger David Letterman but is a total meathead. I assume he has some romantic entanglement as well. This gentleman whose name we are suggesting to be David LetterMeat, is played by Lee Reherman and what a coincidence, has a last name very similar to Letterman’s.
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