Frank Grillo is currently juggling Rick Flag Sr. in Peacemaker and a Kansas City gangster in Tulsa King, but the role he can’t stop thinking about is a retired MMA fighter from a show most people missed entirely. At the Tulsa King Season 3 premiere, Grillo told Us Weekly that he, creator Byron Balasco, and Jonathan Tucker had a three-way call to figure out how to revive Kingdom, the MMA drama that ran for 40 episodes on DirecTV’s Audience Network between 2014 and 2017.
“We were trying to figure out how we could possibly, I’m not kidding, put it together,” Grillo said, adding that the three of them were actively working on ideas to “get the band back together” for an eight-episode run. For a show that finished with a 97% Rotten Tomatoes audience score and still has people bingeing it years later, that call was probably long overdue.
Why Kingdom Hits Different Than Any Show Cobra Kai Fans Have Seen
Cobra Kai‘s action drew viewers in, but the characters’ drama is what kept everyone watching and invested in what happens next. Before The Karate Kid continuation arrived, Kingdom, the 2014 MMA-based show, hit the screens and did a similar thing — but with a more mature intention. It might not have had the fanfare that Cobra Kai has, but Kingdom deserves credit for finding the sweet spot between fighting and drama.
Created by Byron Balasco (Without a Trace, FastForward), Kingdom follows retired MMA fighter Alvey Kulina (Frank Grillo) who runs his own MMA gym called Navy St. Alvey trains a variety of people, as well as his sons, Jay (Jonathan Tucker) and Nate (Nick Jonas), who hold aspirations of being prized fighters like their father. While they know how to put up their dukes and choke people out, they struggle to deal with their own personal issues and family problems. Ultimately, they need to learn how to fight for each other as much as they do on the mat. Grillo himself has described the show as The Sopranos — but with an MMA backdrop instead of crime.
The Real Reason Nobody Watched Kingdom (And Why That’s About to Change)
Kingdom ran for three seasons and 40 episodes from 2014 to 2017, airing on the Audience Network which was a part of DirecTV. Now, Audience Network wasn’t a major network like Fox, ABC, or CBS; it was far smaller, which also meant it didn’t have the financial power to promote the show like other networks might have. In fact, Kingdom found more success and reached more eyeballs when it moved to streaming services after its initial run.
On the surface, the pairing of Kingdom and the Audience Network sounds like a case of wrong show on the wrong network. However, Frank Grillo disputed this. Speaking to Collider, he said they received the ability to do the show they wanted because of it. “I did not want to do network television,” Grillo said. “I didn’t really have an interest in doing that. I liked the idea that DirecTV was doing this because I knew we were going to get the freedom we needed to execute the show that was in that script. So, for me, it made it all the more exciting.”
Dana White Found This Show on His Own — And Became Its Biggest Fan
Hollywood loves MMA stories. There have been numerous films like Warrior and Never Back Down about the combat sport; however, UFC President Dana White isn’t the biggest fan of these movies, believing them to be unrealistic and wide off the mark, as Frank Grillo revealed on the Inside of You podcast. Yet, Kingdom didn’t try to turn this into an underdog to champion story that steals all its beats from Rocky. Instead, the series demonstrates the good, bad, and ugly of the Kulina family — and it doesn’t exactly end on a happy ending either.
Creator Byron Balasco explained to Square Mile how the show focused on authenticity, even if it means the negative aspects of MMA. As a result, the community responded. “The UFC really embraced us, Dana White really embraced us when he found out about the show,” he said. “Dana found the show on his own and reached out. He was a huge fan.”
Frank Grillo Loved It So Much, He’s Fighting to Bring It Back
In his own personal life, Frank Grillo is both a fan and student of martial arts. He boxes and practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu, so a show like Kingdom is a match made in a heavenly cage for him. In an interview with GoldDerby, he explained how combat sports force people to face the truth about themselves since there’s no place to hide or pretend to be someone else. There’s an honesty in this that’s liberating and cannot be replicated to him.
On a personal level, Grillo loved Kingdom and what it stood for. “If I were to write my own TV show, it would be this,” he said, “because this is my passion, this is my hobby, this is what kind of consumes me when I’m not working.”
The good news for fans is that Kingdom is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, and Pluto TV — and with Grillo, Balasco, and Tucker actively discussing an eight-episode revival, there has never been a better time to catch up before the rest of the world does.
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