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    Got Fight?: The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat
    Got Fight?: The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat
    Got Fight?: The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat
    Ebook344 pages4 hours

    Got Fight?: The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat

    By Forrest Griffin and Erich Krauss

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    A New York Times Bestseller, Got Fight? is an hysterical, entertaining, and in-your-face guide to fighting from the most enigmatic and unpredictable fighter in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Forrest Griffin is the light-heavyweight champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and was the winner of the first season of Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter; in Got Fight?, he shows you how he did it. With Erich Krauss, Muay Thai fighter and co-author of “The Prodigy” B.J. Penn’s Mixed Martial Arts: The Book of Knowledge.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 2, 2009
    ISBN9780061879630
    Got Fight?: The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat
    Author

    Forrest Griffin

    Forrest Griffin is one of the top-ranked light-heavyweight mixed martial artists in the world. He won the first season of The Ultimate Fighter in 2005 and has been one of the most beloved UFC fighters ever since. He is the Day man, fighter of the Night man, and champion of the sun. He is also a master of karate and friendship for everyone. But calm down, ladies, Forrest and his main squeeze, Jaime, live in Las Vegas.

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    Reviews for Got Fight?

    4/5

    48 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I loved this book, minus the tests. This is a great read.
    • 4/5
      Not bad for a fighter, and it is his first book.
    • 4/5
      A mix of MMA and comedy. Funny and informative book.
    • 4/5
      I found the book pretty interesting. I am a huge MMA fan. Forrest Griffin is a n extremely funny author, and I think anyone, regardless of MMA knowledge, would love this book. Honestly, this book is probably most beneficial to anyone who knows little about mixed martial arts, and wants to understand what is going on a bit more.
    • 5/5
      I've recently gotten into MMA, via obnoxious boyfriend, and was forced to read Got Fight? by Forrest Griffin. I was more than pleasantly surprised to find that Griffin was not only hilarious (one of the funniest books I've ever read) but was also very informative when it came to all things fighting. The tips at the end of the book have helped me understand what I'm seeing, what kind of submissions are being used, when watching the fights. And I can now perform a perfect Asian Dart! I highly recommend this book for anyone getting into MMA, be it guy or unfortunate girlfriend.
    • 4/5
      This book sounds like Forrest Griffin - brash, irreverent, self deprecating, street smart. An unusual mix of anecdotes, advice, and technique, this book is really only for those who appreciate mixed martial arts - otherwise, you just won't understand what the heck Griffin is talking about, nor will you understand the passion bordering on obsession that drives MMA fighters. I enjoyed reading this book, but was saddened to see Griffin lose to Anderson 'The Spider' Silva at UFC 101 and then completely disappear off the radar for months after fleeing the ring. I hope Griffin gets his voice - and his swagger - back.
    • 5/5
      Not a huge fan of sports biography books, there usually inane muck penned by ghost writers. But if your into UFC, MMA or a fighter then this is the book for you, and as Forrest says, it will also make you more manly :). Its a good book and an insight into the lunatic mind of a professional MMA fighter, Forrest has a great writing style, self-deprecating, warts and all (literally), but quite clever. His stories range from laugh-out-loud funny to making you wince.Because the book is so "manly" it does have appeal outside of the Martial Arts arena. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Five stars for a Comedy-Sports-Biography. You probably wouldn't care for this book if you weren't a fan of Mixed Martial Arts or things that are funny. Forrest is hilarious in that self-deprecating way, so be warned if you aren't a fan. Also, has some nice fighting tips at the back of the book (good for an average, non-fighter like me anyway).

    Book preview

    Got Fight? - Forrest Griffin

    BOOK 1

    THE PHYSICAL

    The Devil Wears a Pocket Protector

    The toughest dude on the planet is not competing in the UFC or any other MMA organization. He doesn’t train in the martial arts, shoot roids into his ass cheeks, or even hit the heavy bag. He couldn’t have. From the looks of him, it’s impossible. I don’t know his name or what he’s been up to for the past six years, but I’ll never forget his face.

    Back when I was attempting to play football for the University of Georgia, I’d occasionally catch a ride with a group of meatheads who were also attempting to play football. One afternoon, four of us were packed into a Jeep with the top down, cruising around for a while, when someone had the bright idea to go down to Georgia Tech and harass some of the smart folk. With nearly a thousand pounds of muscle, fat, and attitude weighing down our ride, we trolled around campus. I wasn’t exactly sure what my cohorts had in mind until one of the guys jumped out of the Jeep while it was still rolling and headed straight for the only person in sight. The target happened to be the biggest geek I had ever seen. Now, I’m not calling this kid a geek because he had more brains than all of us combined and actually went to class, but he was five nine, packed at best a hundred twenty pounds, wore a button-down shirt, and had, in his breast pocket, half a dozen pens crammed into a plastic protector. But there’s more. He had on horn-rim glasses and hugged a handful of books to his chest like a ten-year-old schoolgirl. Hands down, he was the most pathetic-looking kid in existence.

    So what does the dickhead who jumped out of the Jeep do? He goes straight up to the kid, slaps his books out of his hands, and then begins laughing at him and calling him names. Dork, dipshit, fuck nuts—he let this kid have it. Pretty early on in the verbal assault, I suggested that we get moving and, to expedite our departure, started to say that the cops would be showing up. Now, I was certain this short, scrawny kid would begin wailing and running in circles, which only would have prompted this asshole I was with to chase after him.

    It would have been a horrible (although hilarious) sight to watch—a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound linebacker chasing down a hundred-and-twenty-pound kid, pens flying everywhere. But that’s not what our geek chose to do. Out of nowhere, he charged directly at my dickface associate and swung for the hills.

    I couldn’t fucking believe it. Swear to God, the football player was so big that even if you had ten buddies getting your back, you’d still think twice about charging him. And here, this little kid was doing it all on his own, petite fists looping through the air like pesky mosquitoes. But before the kid could land a single shot, the football player cracks him and he goes down. I thought that would be it. The kid had probably watched too many kung fu movies and thought he was some kind of tough guy. Daniel-san or some shit. Anyone who saw this exchange would have figured now that he had taken one to the face, he would stay down and play dead. That’s not what happened. Getting socked only seemed to fuel his passion for justice. He popped back up like a weeblewobble and again charged forward.

    By this time, another one of the guys in the Jeep had jumped out. Harnessing the pack mentality, he grabbed the kid by his neck, dragged him over to the edge of a grassy slope, and threw him down it. The kid tumbled head over tail, but when he reached the bottom, he didn’t lie there in a tattered heap. He came storming back up the hill. When he reached the top, he stopped for a moment, casually removed his glasses, set them down on the grass, and then panned his eyes back and forth between his two assailants. The four words that came hissing out of his mouth will be etched into my frontal lobe for an eternity.

    I’M READY TO DIE!

    He began his charge at five hundred pounds of muscle. He ran straight into one of them and knocked him backward into the Jeep, producing a decent-size dent. This naturally angered the driver, so he jumped out and joined in on the fun. Together, they began beating the holy hell out of this kid. They’d throw him down, kick him in the guts and back, and then begin to walk away. Before they could make it five feet back to the Jeep, the kid would leap up again and charge them. So they’d smack him around, throw him down again, and do some more kicking. All the while the kid threw his fists for all he was worth, head butting, trying to bite. Meanwhile, I’m urging these boneheads to get moving.

    After this went on for a little while, I could see the fear growing in the eyes of my fellow football-player wannabes. They weren’t worried about this kid causing them damage with his fists—they were scared of his heart and soul. It suddenly dawned on these geniuses that they had started something they couldn’t finish, not unlike a twenty-pound burrito. The kid really was prepared to die for the sake of his dignity. Unless they were willing to go to that end and actually kill this kid, they could not win this fight. Eventually, the three of them picked the kid up, carried him back to the hill, and threw him over. The second his sinewy frame left their hands, all three of them came scrambling toward the Jeep, scared that they wouldn’t make it back before the runt clawed his way up the slope and began his next charge.

    All of them fell inside, as though they were trying to escape some terrible onslaught. The driver revved the engine and peeled out. As we sped away from the scene, I looked back over my shoulder. I saw the kid come over the top of the hill in all of his hundred-and-twenty-pound glory, and a chill went down my spine. His face was bloody, and his button-down shirt was torn and grass-stained, but there wasn’t a trace of emotion on his face. Instead of running for  the police, the kid dusted himself off, put his glasses back on, and then headed casually off, I assume, to Gryffindor or Hogwarts or wherever, hugging his books in his arms. Right then, I realized that not only was that kid the coolest guy in the world, he was the toughest son of a bitch to ever walk the face of this earth.

    Toughness can carry you a long way, especially in fighting. Personally, I don’t have the best strikes or submissions in the business. The reason I’ve won most of my fights is that I’m too stupid to back down. It’s always been this way. When I was a kid, my mother went to night college, and every afternoon she’d drop me off with a group of older kids. One day when she came to pick me up, she watched them repeatedly chuck me into the bushes. As any mother would do, she stormed over to them and demanded to know what they were doing.

    He’s just a little kid! she shouted.

    Immediately they all went on the defensive. You don’t understand. We’re playing king of the hill, and he won’t quit charging us.

    I’m not claiming that those who have a never-say-die attitude are superior to those who don’t, because in certain situations, it can actually be detrimental, but when it comes to fighting, it can be one of your most important tools. If an opponent lands fifteen hard punches to your face, and you smile as though you enjoyed the ride, it fucks with his head. After all, the majority of people are equipped with an easily accessible lever in their head that, when pulled, switches them from fight mode to flight mode. We’ve all seen what flight mode looks like in the Octagon—it can come in the form of severe backpedaling, clinging to your opponent on the ground, or even giving your opponent your arm so he can finish you off with a quick submission. When you take incredible abuse and refuse to make the switch to flight mode, it causes your opponent to doubt that you have the lever in your head at all. At that point, you start to appear more like an angry wild animal than a human. And the majority of us fear angry wild animals because they have no reason. I would have no problem scrapping with a bear or a baboon if I knew that once I hurt it or it hurt me, we’d both say, Okay, that’s enough, time to call it quits and go home. But that’s not what angry wild animals do. They don’t get into fights; they get into scraps that go to the finish. And once you’re lying dead in the dirt, they take it one step further by tearing off your genitals and eating them.

    When up against this type of opponent, you don’t see the battle as a sport—you see it as a struggle to remain alive, and a lot of fighters aren’t prepared for that. It breaks them mentally. A perfect example of a wild animal in the ring is Wanderlei Silva. It doesn’t matter how hard or how many times you hit him—as long as his lights are still on, he’s coming forward swinging for the fences. The guy fights like a Neanderthal, and that’s downright intimidating because in order to stop him, you damn near have to kill him.

    The most intriguing fights are when two competitors with this never back down attitude square off. A perfect example is when Diego Sanchez fought Karo Parisyan in UFC Fight Night 6. Both fighters headed into that battle with the game plan of going balls to wall until the other broke, and they kept that game plan for all three rounds. I got tired just watching them go at it. Another example is my bout with Stephan Bonnar. That fight was fought in both of our heads. For three rounds, it was a nonstop flurry of punches and kicks. The only reason either one of us kept going was that each of us was certain his toughness would break the other. I have since talked with him about that fight, and it was funny because we were both thinking the exact same thing: I’m catching him with some good shots, and eventually he’s going to get tired of this. He’s going to break. However, with both of us being too stupid to quit, neither one of us

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