Sheridan joined the merchant marines after high school, eventually graduated from Harvard, and worked his way to Australia on a yacht. There, in 1999, he decided to indulge his fascination with fighting, hoping to test himself and explore what has become a mostly sublimated aspect of masculinity. After some months of training in Australia, he moved to Bangkok to train with a legendary Muay Thai (kickboxing) champion. That experienceโ€“and his first professional boutโ€“expanded into a multiyear odyssey in which he trained with Olympic boxers, Brazilian jujitsu champions, and Ultimate Fighting combatants.
This didnโ€™t exactly get me stoked for the book. Oh great, I thought a dilettante from Harvard is going to tourist his way through the world of fighting and then pump out a pompous tome of first person โ€œinsights.โ€ When a cursory scan of the book revealed that a series of injuries (ribs, rotator cuff) prevented him from rolling with the Brazilian Top Team, cancelled his amateur boxing match and a dispute with a shady promoter precluded his participating in a head-butts-allowed match in Myanmyar I was even less impressed. When I noticed there was a chapter on dog fighting I was really turned off and put the book down.
Then when my bud asked if Iโ€™d read the book and launched into a pretty interesting discussion of ideas he picked up from Sheridan, I reconsidered and Iโ€™m glad I did.
I donโ€™t think this is a timeless classic but it is a worthwhile read. The injuries and screw-ups that prevent him from engaging in most of his bouts do give an anti-climatic feel to several of the chapters. But that doesnโ€™t mean he doesnโ€™t glean some real insights from his experiences.
He spends quite a bit of time with Pat Militech and the MFS crew and is backstage with Robbie Lawlor before his UFC loss to Nick Diaz. His bad luck might have been communicable as he travels with the Brazil Top Team to Japan and is backstage with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira before his third fight, and second loss, to Fedor Emelianenko.
One of the most interesting chapters details his month in Oakland training with Olympic Gold Medal winning boxer (and current WBO NABO supermiddleweight champion) Andre Ward. Wardโ€™s trainer took Sheridan under wing and trained him alongside his boxing thoroughbreds and a promising female boxer.
Sheridan also dabbles in tai chi and spends time at a Buddhist meditation retreat in Thailand, focusing on the internal aspects of the fighting game. And yes, he spends a chapter investigating dog fighting in the Philippines and Thailand. Despite my revulsion, Sheridan does have come to interesting insights into the human psyche of fighting by learning about the loathsome practices of dogfighting. I still donโ€™t approve of dog fighting, but I hardly think it is the most brutal or inhumane practice in our society (industrial pig farming is infinitely worse IMO).
All in all, Iโ€™m glad I read Sheridanโ€™s book and I think his conclusions about the reasons men and women train and fight professionally are interesting and mostly valid.
Hereโ€™s a bit from the conclusion I liked:
โ€œFighting revealsโ€ฆthat manhood, that endless test is a sham, an illusion of sorts; because when you start fighting, you realize thereโ€™s never an end to it, thereโ€™s always somebody better โ€” stronger, faster, bigger, younger, whatever, somethingโ€ฆThe quest to be the toughest in the world is an empty quest, and fighters realize that pretty quickly, I thinkโ€ฆ.Thereโ€™s always someone out there who can beat you. Itโ€™s about being the best you can be, bringing yourself closer to the perfect version.
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