Mixed Martial Arts, or more specifically the UFC, has been growing in popularity for a few years now. There’s one thing in this year alone that perfectly highlights just how huge the sport has gotten. It’s not all the TV programming on Spike TV, nor is it the coverage on ESPN and NBC Sports. You know you’ve made it huge when you have a “Complete Idiot’s Guide” written, and thanks to authors Rich “Ace” Franklin (former middleweight champion) and Jon F. Merz, we now have “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ultimate Fighting.”
The “Idiot’s Guide’s” are usually written to be tongue-in-cheek, but I found this one to be surprisingly informative. It’s a great overview of the sport, where it’s been, where it’s going, and what it takes to become an ultimate fighter. All the fighting styles are broken down, giving a brief history of what they are, and how to both apply them and counter them in the fight.
Though, if you saw his last fight, author Franklin may have wanted to read the part about “how to escape from the clinch” a little more closely. I digress…
The book is broken into five parts. Part 1 is your basic speed reader’s tour of the UFC, looking at the history of the sport, the organization, and goes over the basic rules. Chances are if you’re reading this, you know all that schtuff already. Part 2 looks at the different fighting styles and goes into what “styles make fights” means. It also covers different strategies, using different example from past UFC encounters.
Part 3 and 4 is where it gets really interesting, because that’s where it discusses the “stand up game” and taking the fight to the ground. They cover every possible hold, punch-kick combination, and counter you can think of. Not only do they use step-by-step (and picture-by-picture) instructions, they also explain why to do it, what the benefits are to do it, and what to do to prevent it.
In Part 5 they discuss the preparation that goes into the fight. The basics are pretty common knowledge: train, work out, eat healthy, train some more, get another work out in, drink a protein shake, and then decided on either training or working out. But it also looks at the mental preparations that go into a fight: studying your opponent, developing an effective game plan, and how to work that game plan into your training. We also get the “Rich Franklin Story,” looking at his background and how he applies everything we just read into each of his fights.
All joking aside, “A Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ultimate Fighting” is a great read for anyone who is just getting into mixed martial arts, as well for those of us know-it-all’s who think we know more than we actually do.
