Some Other Way
Jason Cordero has not fought in three years, sitting on an MMA record of five wins and five losses when he agrees to step back into the cage on March 23rd. Director Eliot Rausch follows the buildup with the camera close on Cordero's face and hands rather than on highlight-reel action, letting him talk through what pulled him out of the sport and what is pulling him back. The gym sessions are quiet and unglamorous, more about doubt than training montage, and the people around him, coaches and family, describe a fighter who has spent the layoff wondering if he has anything left to prove. The film treats the fight itself as almost secondary to the decision to have it at all. What comes through is less a sports story than a portrait of a man testing whether a body and a will that have already failed once can be trusted a second time, shot with the patient, observational style that made Rausch's short work stand out on the festival and Vimeo circuit.