Tuesdays With Brock: No Holds Barred By Clyde Gentry III

After taking last week off for the holiday, we return to our regularly scheduled programming. In tonight's installment of Tuesdays With Brock, I review the first part of No Holds Barred, Clyde Gentry III's epic (430 pages!) history of MMA in the United States. Because the book is so long and comprehensive, today I'll review the first 270 pages, which covers MMA in the years before Zuffa bought the UFC in 2001. The last 160 pages deal with the modern, post-Zuffa era, which I for one am more familiar with, and I'll cover that next week. Today I want to focus on the pre-modern era, on what Gentry can teach us about the origin and early years of American MMA. The main take-away? The early years were kind of scuzzy, filled with people doing questionable things. You know how in The Wizard of Oz there's a curtain, behind which almost no one gets to look, because back there is just a little old man essentially pretending to be all that? Well, apparently there's a similar curtain in MMA, and Gentry draws it aside a bit and lets you, the reader, peek into the darkness. IF YOU DARE . . . and if you do dare, you will learn some disturbing things.

Disturbing Thing I Learned #1: Rorion Gracie, one of the founders of the UFC, was not a nice guy. He refused to let one brother, Rickson, reputedly the best fighter among the Gracies, compete in the UFC because he wanted to punish the kid; he sued other members of the Gracie family for teaching Gracie jiu-jitsu . . . because Rorion had trademarked the name "Gracie jiu-jitsu". And he allegedly tried to keep good groundfighters, like Sambo champion Oleg Taktarov and wrestler Alexander Karelin, out of the UFC, because they might have been too much competition for his brother Royce Gracie.

Disturbing Thing I Learned #2: John McCain Was A Dumbass Politician. The failed Presidential candidate tried to outlaw MMA on the grounds that it was too violent, starting a race to the bottom that nearly killed the sport in America, as many other politicians jumped on McCain's bandwagon, all trying to score political points by appearing more anti-violence than the next guy. Never mind that McCain is a boxing fan and former amateur boxer himself, and that boxing, with its far more numerous blows to the head, is actually far more dangerous than MMA, where allows fights to end by submission. Concussions, anyone? Brain damage, anyone? Early dementia, suicide, death, anyone?

Disturbing Thing I Learned #3: the Ukrainian Mob Was Scary, But Also Hilarious. One of the early American competitors to the UFC was the International Fighting Championships, which was based out of California but put on its first show in the Ukraine. The show was apparently co-promoted by the Ukrainian mob, and the struggle for control of the videotape of the event was like something out of a screwball comedy. The Ukrainian gangsters wouldn't let the Americans come home with the videotape, so the Americans bribed a guard to take them to the airport, knocked him out so the gangsters wouldn't think he was in on it, and dropped the tape in a FedEx box on the way. But FedEx, apparently fearing the Ukrainians, refused to ship the tape. The Americans had to sneak back into the country to retrieve it, which they were only able to do with support of . . . rival Ukrainian mobsters and a Moldavian general.

Disturbing Thing I Learned #4: Tank Abbot Was a Low Class Thug, And His Entourage Was Worse. Really. They beat up one guy who was waiting for an elevator at their hotel. They threatened to beat up Big John McCarthy's wife . . . because she had the temerity to question Tank's girlfriend for inciting him to beat up another guy . . . in the stands at a televised UFC event . . . while McCain and his ilk was trying to outlaw the UFC for being too violent.

Bonus (Minor) Disturbing Thing I Learned #5. Bloodsport was completely fake, not even based on a true story. Frank Dux just made the whole thing up! Does Van Damme know about this?

In sum, this book is an eye-opening expose, which, really, is all you can ask for from a history book. It's worth reading for the early stuff alone . . . if you can handle the truth about our beloved sport.