Xander Cage is a man with xXxtreme skills and xXxtreme understanding of when your MMA fighter co-star has to split for professional punching and kicking reasons. At least, that’s the way Vin Diesel paints Conor McGregor’s exit from his upcoming motion picture.
As reported by MMA Fighting, Diesel discussed the subject on Brazil’s Giro Combate. According to the Find Me Guilty actor, the initial inspiration for having the Irish money magnet came from a very particular desired element of xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.
“I wanted to have an English accent in the movie,” he said. “I had created a role for Conor McGregor and after he lost to Nate Diaz, he had to go to a dark place, he had to go get his manhood back to fight the second time, so he wasn’t able to do this film at the time.”
Well, when you think “English accent” and “feature film” you immediately ring up Conor McGregor, don’t you? We kid, but as a “Mac” I understand that weird bog part of the world kinda sounds the same accentwise. Hell, maybe Conor’s got a Streep-esque chameleon quality that we’re completely underrating. (Move over, Daniel Day Lewis, etc.) Anyway, Diesel wasn’t going to let his wish for an English voice go unanswered.
“I wanted this English accent to be speckled in the movie,” he said. “But I also wanted someone that could do fight sequences. A lot of the UFC guys do great fight sequences in movies. You saw when I put Gina Carano in 6, and Ronda Rousey in 7. I had great experiences when putting UFC fighters in the movie, so I wanted someone that had that English accent, they talk like this, and I got Michael Bisping to come and do that.”
Bisping should consider putting that on the “special skills” portion of his résumé. Also, Vin Diesel makes a good point about his past experience bringing in MMA notables for the Furious franchise. How long until Sage Northcutt pops up in Fast & Furious & Mechagodzilla or whatever the post-F8 movie ends up being?
xXx: Return of Xander Cage promises to bring Bisping and viewers to the “Xander Zone” on January 20, 2017. (SOON!)
(Via MMA Fighting)
