In the opening pages of his autobiography entitled Why I Fight (released last month by William Morrow/Harper Collins), BJ Penn spends a moment to describe his parents’ background. According to Penn, his father “had a very difficult childhood…I’ve always known it best not to dig for answers.” It’s sadly representative of the book that, with some very noteworthy exceptions, ends up mostly skimming the surface of the champion’s life and legendary career.
Sam Sheridan’s first book, A Fighter’s Heart, has become a favorite of MMA enthusiasts since its 2007 release. It chronicled Sheridan’s travels around the world, training and talking with many of the fight games’ biggest names, on a quest for insight on what drives them to win — and to find his own “fighter’s heart.” Along the way were stops with Brazilian Top Team in its heyday, a stint with Fairtex in Thailand, where he fought a Muay Thai bout, and a time in Iowa, including an MMA bout, under the tutelage of Pat Militech.
Last month, Sheridan released his follow-up, A Fighter’s Mind, where he turns his focus on the mental game of the world’s fighters and trainers. He describes it as “a gift back to the fighters who gave me so much in the first book. A book for fighters, and we are all fighting something.”
Sheridan spent a few moments with Total-MMA to talk about the book last week.
More than a month has passed since his death in Brazil, but sadly, we still don’t know what really happened to Arturo “Thunder” Gatti. It remains uncertain as of this writing if he died of suicide, as Brazilian authorities ruled, or if a full autopsy which has begun by Canadian officials will reveal he was murdered by his wife, as was first suspected.
What is clear is that he will be missed in many circles, one of which includes the opponent Gatti was most associated with, “Irish” Micky Ward. Last year, Ward was the subject of a book from longtime Boston sportscaster Bob Holloran, Irish Thunder. It offers a strong if not quite perfect portrait of its strong but never perfect subject, and particularly of the trilogy with Gatti which defined Ward’s career.
There have been a ton of autobiographies from MMA champions released in the last year or so. Here at Total-MMA we have reviewed releases from legendary champions (and controversial figures) like Randy Couture, Tito Ortiz, Matt Hughes, and my favorite of the bunch, Chuck Liddell. Forrest Griffin, a good-but-not-legendary-fighter who has avoided any controversy in his career, may strike you an odd choice to offer a worthy addition to that MMA library. You’d be right on all counts: his “Got Fight?” which was released by HarperCollins a few months ago, is a worthy addition, and… it’s a pretty odd one.
As the sport of Mixed Martial Arts grows, as does the public’s interest with the fighters, the personalities and the history of the sport. Of course, to meet that demand that means that publishers are going to start to demand books on the subject are available. With that being said, Total MMA: Inside Ultimate Fighting by Jonathan Snowden sets itself away from the rest of the pack by doing what nobody else has done; present a thorough history of Mixed Martial Arts dating back to the inception of Judo and everything else leading up to modern Mixed Martial Arts. Not only is it the information that sets Total MMA apart, but the narrative style and passion the writer has for the sport of MMA.
A few years ago, Jonathan Snowden, an attorney-turned-soldier in the US Army, looked for a substantial book on the rise of mixed martial arts.
Unable to find one, he wrote one himself.
Anyone reading Total-MMA.com will know at least some of the Randy Couture story, but his recently published memoir, Becoming the Natural, which landed on the NY Times best seller list last month, may offer a surprise. Always lauded as an inspirational figure, Couture’s book, co-authored by longtime MMA journalist Loretta Hunt, ends up surprisingly downbeat.
It seems that father issues drive many of today’s most popular fighters. Chuck Liddell didn’t have a father; his left him to be raised by his mom and grandfather. Matt Hughes and his brother Mark hated their dad so much that they once gave him a beating for having the temerity to tell Mark he had no business riding a motorcycle with no training or license. Tito Ortiz had it worst of all.
In his new book This is Gonna Hurt, Ortiz details a childhood that is startling and more than a little sad.
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By Lee CaseboltÂ
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Welcome back to the Total MMA Book Club. Today we take a look at the latest MMA literary offering, a new autobiography by former Light Heavyweight champ Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell, appropriately titled Iceman: My Fighting Life. Read the rest of this entry »
