Friday, 8 February 2008

Reedin, ritin, spellin... I loves me a gud buk

I've always loved reading. I've been a pretty voracious reader since my early childhood, and my book collection is, to be honest, a bit ridiculous. My bookshelves are not only completely filled but stacked two deep as well.

I'm not a huge fan of sports books, mostly because I find them tedious. Books on combat sports are slightly more appealing only for the subject matter, with boxing literature being particularly noteworthy.

Until now, not withstanding the dime a dozen ghost written biographies, we've only had a few MMA books to choose from. Most notable is Clive Gentry's No Holds Barred, probably the best on the market. Eric Krauss put out Brawl, which just about held my attention but felt like a watered down version of what could have been a great idea. He also wrote the UFC propaganda pamphlet Warriors of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which I gave a token read but found nothing of interest in.

Sam Sheridan's excellent A Fighter's Heart is a fantastic story. Well off, well educated and well travelled, Sheridan stepped into a ring in Thailand and a cage in the Midwest. He sparred with Olympians and meditated with monks. All in all he lived about five lifetimes in the space of five years, and put it all down on paper for us to share. It is one of my favourite books in life inside a gym, and Sheridan spent time with Miletich, BTT and more.

My other favourite is Marcus Trower's The Last Wrestlers. While not strictly MMA, it is the story of Trower's own love of the grappling arts, and on his travels (Mongolia, Kenya, India etc) he stopped off in Brazil and met legends such as Goes, Sperry et al. I liked his book so much I hired Marcus to write for the magazine.

I was wondering when we'd see more books come out on the subject of MMA. Given it's current boom in popularity I figured it would be no time at all before we saw someone come along and try to cash in. I have heard of a few book projects on the go but usually these things are kept pretty quiet.

I was browsing the web earlier and found this (go to about halfway down the page).

"Sports Illustrated writer L. Jon Wertheim's ULTIMATE GLADIATORS, an inside look at the colorful champions of the rapidly emerging sport of mixed martial arts and the explosion of the Ultimate Fighting Championships league (UFC), to Houghton Mifflin."

Link to publishers website.

So I guess it'll only be a matter of time before we see a tonne of hastily written books hitting our shelves. I remember that for years the only books about MMA on my local bookstore's shelves were Ken Shamrock's Lions Den and Gentry's NHB. Looks like we'll be getting a section of our own at this rate.

posted by Fighters Only Mag Editor at Friday, February 08, 2008 << Back To Main Page