Caged: Kai Kara-France is available on TVNZ+ from March 23. Video / TVNZ+
REVIEW
So, you want to be a fighter?
It’s a question that is often asked after combat sports athletes suffer an injury, or after two athletes contest a particularly bloody fight.
Caged: Kai Kara-France explores it from a different perspective.
TVNZ’s new mini-series, comprising six 15-minute episodes, pulls the curtain back on the life of a professional mixed martial artist and what it takes to reach the top level, while recounting UFC star Kai Kara-France’s loss in his interim flyweight world title fight last July.
The opening moments of the series give viewers an idea of what to expect, as the 29-year-old discusses his loss to Brandon Moreno in the biggest fight in his career, welcoming the viewer into his rollercoaster of a journey.
Kai Kara-France stars in a new mini-series on TVNZ+. Photo / TVNZ
With insights from Kara-France, members of his family including his wife Chardae, City Kickboxing coaches and teammates, over the course of the series the viewer learns more about the fight game and comes away feeling like they know Kara-France on a personal level.
Kara-France’s story is an interesting one in itself; bullied for his size at high school before falling in love with MMA and dropping everything to move abroad and pursue a career in the sport. As teammate and fellow UFC fighter Dan Hooker says in episode two of Caged: “He’s pushed shit uphill for the longest period of time to get to where he is. He’s had one of the toughest roads of any fighter I’ve ever come across.”
But what makes this series a particular treat is diving beyond what happens inside the cage and into the many, many layers that go into getting fighters to that point.
Intense training camps, cutting weight safely, additional coaching outside of the walls of City Kickboxing such as mental skills and breathwork coaching, how you can do everything right and have it go wrong in one moment, and how all of this impacts his time at home with his wife and young son are all addressed throughout the series, in - at times - confronting detail.
Kara-France himself also takes a deep dive into who he is outside of the cage, discussing being picked on when he was younger as well as why he makes a point to embody and represent his Māori heritage on the world stage.
While this is a series in which fight fans can nerd out over the intricacies of the sport, you don’t have to enjoy combat sports to appreciate this story.
“What I want people to take away is just what it takes if you want to go down this route of being a professional fighter, and all the layers to it,” Kara-France tells the Herald of the series.
“People think fighting is a tough man’s sport, but it’s definitely a thinking man’s sport... it all starts with your support system, your upbringing and the will to want to do this; the will to win, to lay it on the line, and when things are working out, staying at it.
“I want people to realise that if you want to make it in anything at life, whatever your passion is, just keep turning up, holding on to that hope and those dreams, and one day you’ll look back and thank yourself. It’s all right there. We have so much talent in Aotearoa, especially of a Māori and Polynesian background where we’re brought up with this humble mentality of downplaying our achievements.
“You have to embrace it; you have to be willing to break down those barriers.”
Caged: Kai Kara-France is available on TVNZ+ from March 23.
