Razak: I believe MMA now would have blown Mask’s mind

Once TapouT represented love – and I’m not using the word lightly – for mixed martial arts. Now TapouT is workout wear for the WWE brand. It went from being as real as it gets to as fake as it gets. TapouT died.

The demise of the brand followed the death of co-founder Charles ‘Mask’ Lewis in 2009, when his vehicle was struck by a drunk driver. In 2011 Mask’s friend, the premier documentarian in MMA Bobby Razak, set out to tell his story. Only this year did Razak release it.

During a recent appearance on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, Razak talked about the long, strange trip to completion.

It was brutal, said Razak, as transcribed by Dave Doyle for MMA Fighting. Every time you go into edit bay, every time you shoot, every time you work on it, it was like a knife was going through your heart. It’s one of the most extreme filming/edit/documentary sessions I’ve ever been in in my life. It took so long, it was brutal. It’s so brutal, I feel like I need emotional distance from Charles now. I kind of need emotional distance. The film has come out and I feel I need to have a little bit of separation. That is how much of a hardcore journey it was for me.

[Charles Lewis] was incredibly personal with deep and emotional issues in his life — sexual abuse and peeing the bed throughout high school. All this stuff he had never told anyone, he was concerned about his image a lot of the time and what he was trying to portray. He was a very big fan of KISS, and so costumes and what he’d wear was all really a mask to really cover what was going on with him.

So he wouldn’t really have wanted that stuff, so I really reconciled myself, do I really want to make a fan movie about someone who is great? Or do I really go deep into the guy and really talk about who he was and what he had to overcome? … I wanted to show that regardless of where you came from, you can overcome anything.

I feel like Charles wouldn’t want this to happen, Charles wouldn’t want this to come out. Maybe that’s why it took so long, I needed that 2011-18 to maybe become comfortable, because I remember the earlier cut, ‘Charles is great, Charles is great.’ But as more time, you know, from his death part, I become more, ‘Okay, let me explore this subject as a documentary filmmaker, let me step out of the box.’ As I was mourning the first couple years, the film was more of a mourning film, and then as time passed, I had reconciled to myself just I have to be true to myself as a filmmaker, I have to be honest and I have to show the fans and show people what he’s really about.

MMA is now mainstream, and Mask helped get us there. But what would he think about the sport now?

It would have blown his mind, said Razak. I think about that all the time. Especially when sometimes there’s a FOX Fight Night on Saturday or Sunday morning or Wednesday. I mean, this was not around when he was alive. I mean, we had Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather. You had Ronda Rousey — women’s MMA wasn’t around in that way. So much of this sport has moved forward. It would have blown his mind, I believe.

Of all the steps the UFC taken to mainstream success, the most reviled is the Reebok Deal, which initially appeared to be a contest to see which fighter can be made to most resemble an Uno card.

Charles was about the free market and free enterprise, said Razak. He did not hate the competition. He understood that you needed competition in order to crush the competition. You needed someone to crush. … If Charles was alive, he would have made sure if there was going to be one clothing company, it would have been Tapout.”

Mask is must watch for any MMA fan, or anyone at all that seeks inspiration. It’s available everywhere including iTunes, Xbox, PS4, and Amazon.