February 16th, 2012 
No Holds Barred: The Complete History of Mixed Martial Arts in America
No Holds Barred is the definitive American history of mixed martial arts (MMA), arguably the fastest-growing sport in the world. Armed with a recorder and a press pass to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, author Clyde Gentry III set out to tell the story of MMA in the late 1990s when the sport was barely treading water due to the political backlash that threatened to relegate the sport to smoky bars and venues typically reserved for tough-man competitions and low-level professional wrestling matches. Instead, MMA has become a billion-dollar business and has changed martial arts forever. No Holds Barred takes readers from the controversial event that spawned it all in 1993 to the breakout reality show The Ultimate Fighter and beyond. An unprecedented 125 interviews, along with boxes of rare documents and notes collected over 10 years, serve as the backbone for the ultimate tome on the ultimate sport. The phrase no holds barred may be a misnomer for MMA, but it aptly describes the true, compelling story of how the sport evolved in America. This is a must-have book for every mixed martial arts fan.
List Price: $ 16.95
Price: $ 3.89
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Fantastic History of my favorite Sport,
I’ve been looking for a book like this for a while. I’ve read many UFC or MMA fighters autobiographies such as Forrest Griffin, BJ Penn, Randy Couture, and Chuck Liddell to name a few. Autobiographies are great to read if your in the mood, but reading how a sport like this began at its early hisotry stages and where it is today is undeniably interesting. I am almost done reading it and if your looking to know more about MMA and how the UFC, Pride, and WEC began, turn to this book. Great job to the author Clyde for doing his research… This is a book I’m proud to own and have in my library as its truly the fastest growing sport in the world today.
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|The Author Missed Some Holds,
While in Hawaii on the way from Japan, where we live, I found this book (2011 ed.) for sale in a store going out of business, and was happy to see it. Having started my martial arts career in wrestling in 1966 and going from there to Judo and other Asian arts, I’ve always loved grappling. I found the book to be extremely detailed in the area of modern MMA and submission fighting, but very lacking in a couple of areas.
First of all, here is the positive side. Clyde Gentry III has done a tremendous job of writing down the oral history of the modern MMA phenomenon as given to him through dozens of interviews with the participants. His sources for the history of the UFC, for example, are unmatched. For his book he interviewed everyone from various Gracie family members to Dan Inosanto to Randy Couture. So this book is outstanding and literally without peer as a compilation of the oral history of the modern MMA movement.
Again, in spite of listing no original Japanese sources save Kano Jigaro’s book “Kodokan Judo” and an article by Kano, Gentry has done a fairly good job of giving the history of Japanese MMA. He does well in describing the influence of Karl Gotch on the Japanese scene, though he entirely misses Lou Thesz.
This brings us to the main fault of the book. In spite of this being touted on the front cover as “The Complete History of the Mixed Martial Arts in America,” Gentry appears not even to know the existence of catch-as-catch-can wrestling (also called catch wrestling and American folk wrestling), which is nowhere mentioned. It is inconceivable that a true history of the MMA would have nothing about this style. The above mentioned Karl Gotch and Lou Thesz were both catch-as-catch-can wrestlers. Again, in spite of the showboating and the “worked” matches, modern “pro wrestling” is based upon this style. Again, the incredible record of Abe Lincoln in this style is not mentioned. Again, modern Olympic freestyle wrestling is based on this style. (I remember my high school coach in the 1960s telling us that Olympic wrestling was going to replace our catch-as-catch-can in the high schools.) This list could go on and on. I recommend that for the next edition of the book, the author do some serious research in the area. An excellent place to start would be the classic 1937 book about wrestling in the 1920s-30s, “Fall Guys” by Marcus Griffin.
Another fault of the book is the inexplicable Appendices I, “The Best of Tank Abbot,” and II, “Bas Rutten: the Flying Dutchman.” Tank Abbot comes across as a foul-mouthed, arrogant, drunken brawler with no respect whatsoever for any other fighter than himself. Rutten is also portrayed as a drunken brawler, though one with serious skills. One wonders if the author is truly trying to sabotage the sport by including these appendices!
Finally, while the author gives a nod to the traditional martial arts in several places, his ignorance is woeful. For example, in his glossary he says that “Jigaro Kano’s Judo eventually replaced Japanese Jujutsu” (p. xii). What, no mention of how Teddy Roosevelt learned jujutsu? Again, he writes, “Several styles of kung fu do exist.” (p. xiii). The number may actually be several thousand. (No complete survey has ever been done.)
All in all, this was a fun book to read, and sums up an important oral history. But it is not scholarly. (I mean, an article from “Mad Magazine” in the sources? Really?) Because of its readability I gave it three stars, but because of its lacks gave it no more than three.
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