Review: Fight by Eugene S. Robinson

Fight: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking but Were Afraid You'd Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking

by Mike

One Liner:

If you know enough to realize that the hands on the cover are not wrapped properly, you don't need to read this book; if they look menacing to you, your friends will be impressed when they see it on your coffee table.

Overview:

Fight: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking but Were Afraid You'd Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking by Eugene S. Robinson is a book about fighting for the Vice and Maxim crowd, Robinson travels the country to talk to MMA fighters, prisoners, hockey players and assorted beatdown artists. We get little bits of history, a smattering of technique, a couple "best of/worst of" lists and some fun anecdotes.

Unfortunately, there's not much more to the book. It doesn't go in-depth enough to be a "look into the world of," there aren't recurring characters to any significant degree, so there's no hope for a narrative and the book doesn't build to anything significant. It would seem to be a piece of gonzo journalism, but Robinson doesn't enter into the picture as anything more than an interviewer or occasional sparring partner.

A couple lists on how to start (or end) a fight are fun, but most of the interviews are not particularly substantive (the bits on Maurice Smith and Kevin Randleman end up being, "I spent some time with these guys and they're pretty cool and can hurt you") and some of bits of the interviews are just plain odd - one guy talks about how wrestlers can probably handle themselves the best in jail, but no one fights in jail anymore, so it's a moot point.

The Good:

• Robinson knows his stuff, no doubt and is able to provide a view into the subject's world (as it were) that is neither too technical nor too obscure for the reader who may or may not be a dedicated martial artist or fight fan.
  
  
• A couple spots where the pros show that a life of fighting isn't always something to aspire to. Robinson devotes an entire chapter to the etiquette of being knocked out, which was the most fun part of the book.

The Bad:

• An awfully annoying amount of alliteration.
  
  
• Very few pictures for a coffee table book and those that are present seem random (KOTC pics unrelated to the people he's talking about) or intriguing, but unnecessary (LaBell popping a wheelie).
  
  
• Overall, the book gives the impression of being a repository for all the articles Robinson couldn't sell to a magazine.

Recommendation:

Not a book of technique. Not a book of aphorisms. Not a book of history. I think your time and money would be better spent elsewhere.