Did Brendan cripple Marcos Santos on purpose?

Question

Just something I noticed last time watching Warrior (2011): When Brendon gets swapped into Sparta, it’s because Frank's #1 (Marcos Santos) has a knee problem during cardio. The thing I noticed is it’s the very same knee that Brendan strained with a heel hook during sparring a few scenes earlier.

Now it’s sparring and you’re not supposed to hurt each other (even more so before a big tournament) and Brendan having experience would probably know how much pressure is too much (heel hook is notorious for being the cause of pretty terrible knee injuries if applied carelessly) and so one might think that he did it on purpose to get into the Sparta tournament. Doesn’t exactly fit the overall theme of the movie but still…

Or maybe it does if you consider Brendan to be the guy that hurts even those close to him to get what he wants but he didn’t seem that way to me.

Answer 1

I would say that depicting Marcos's injury due to slipping/falling while running is a very sloppy plot. If it had happened during sparring we could hold Brendan guilty for stealing Marcos' chance of Sparta.

But that's not the case here.

Movie does show Brendan locking Marcos with heel hook while sparring. And it might set the narrative that Marcos' knee got injured while sparring but caused major injury while running.

But if Brendan had an eye on Sparta, he would had talked to Frank about it prior to Marcos' injury. He was only focused on small fights to make some money to pay for his mortgage.