Having listened to Michael Bisping on the Joe Rogan Experience a year or so ago – he made me feel a lot better about my annoying sport and MMA related injuries.
The guy not only has one eye, he has a weird neck/shoulder injury that seizes up all the time on him and a knackered knee, amongst others.
I thought listening to his audiobook, might help me toughen up a little bit – like David Goggin’s book did (see my review of “Can’t Hurt Me” here). To be honest, it didn’t inspire me to go training like the David Goggin’s book did, but it was immensely entertaining.
I started listening to the book one evening, when the rest of the family was upstairs asleep – bad idea because I was too scared to get any shuteye after the story about some guy in a ‘black KKK’ hood trying to set his house on fire. Possibly a slight spoiler, sorry.
The book goes on to describe how Bisping started his MMA career – or martial arts training at least, with a guy called Paul Davis. Who I think is this guy:
He trained a form of Jiu Jitsu, which was basically MMA without the vast mixture of evolved techniques and styles that we see today. It involved stand up striking, takedowns and submission wrestling – very similar to BJJ by the looks of it.
Like myself, Michael had a bit of a nightmare start to his working life. He had no direction and ended up working jobs with little prospects such as in a slaughterhouse and in an upholstery shop. I could empathise with how shit this can be, with a first class degree and a Master’s degree in nutrition, I was stuck working in a gym for minimum wage for years; which was made worse by my family constantly bollocking me for not getting a decent job “show me the job online and I’ll apply for it, ya cunt” was my last resort rebuttal in the end.
Anyway, back to Micheal – he decided to apply to the army to be a boxer; that didn’t work out for him though – I won’t say why – so as a last resort, feeling a bit hopeless, he emails his old Jiu Jitsu coach.
He ends up training MMA in Nottingham, and ends up winning a couple of British Light Heavy Weight titles.
The book then talks about the aditions for The Ultimate Fighter and then his time on the show.
The book is then basically a step by step outline of his MMA fights, his family growing up and his injuries. The nastiest one being the eye injury.
it’s interesting to listen to him talk about what actually happened in the fights, I didn’t realize (or remember) for example that Elvis Sinosic had his arm ‘popping’ in an arm-lock just prior to Bisping winning.
Then there’s the time he won the belt, of course…
It’s very entertaining and interesting to hear about how everything came together, eventually for Michael in terms of his MMA career. I’ve also heard of a few guys that he talks about in the book, his coach Kazeka Muniz for example, did a bit of coaching with my team in sunny Wrexham just before Wolfslair opened.
It’s also cool to hear about how fighting affected his family life and a bit terrifying to hear about how bad (and painful) his eye was.
Review Score
5/5
Very entertaining book for any MMA fan
