The Professor in the Cage
April 24, 2015 8:02 AM   Subscribe

What a 39-year-old English adjunct learned by taking up cage fighting.

"Over the next months, I began to plan a book about a cultured English professor—a lifelong specialist in the art of flight, not fight—learning the combat sport of mixed martial arts (MMA). The book would be part history of violence, part nonfiction “Fight Club,” and part tour of the sciences of sports and bloodlust. It would be about the struggles—sad and silly and anachronistic though they may seem—that men endure to be men.
. . .
When I first joined the gym, I expected to write a book about the rapid rise of cage fighting in America and what its massive popularity says about us—not just as a nation, but as a species. I thought MMA was bad for the athletes who did it and bad for society at large. I saw cage fighting as a metaphor for something darkly rotten at the human core. But my library research convinced me that MMA tells us nothing particularly interesting about our place or time; everywhere and always, people have loved to watch men fight. And my gym research—sparring, interviewing, and finally fighting myself—upended all my other preconceptions. In short, I set out to write about the darkness in men, but I ended up with a book about how men keep the darkness in check."

Also:
Fighting: A Conversation with Sam Harris: But this crisis about fighting and about courage and about whether I was brave is an old crisis. I was a very late bloomer as a kid. I came into my adult size and muscle very late. Whenever I was confronted in the schoolyard, I found some way to avoid the fight. I ran for it. I backed down. Psychologically and emotionally, that isn’t a low-cost course of action for most boys. You avoid a physical beating, but you pay a real social and psychological cost for it. Those moments of walking away from fights, even though I knew it was the rational and civilized thing to do, cost me tremendously. I think that’s why I finally got in that cage to fight.
posted by mrbigmuscles (56 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
....Back in the day, there were a bunch of green anarchist dudes who were convinced that fighting each other was a way to build up skills for fighting the man. They had a lot of ideology about toughness, willingness to use violence, etc etc. One night, I was in a mixed-gender group after a meeting. There was a huge storm and it was really late, so I was going to stay over in someone's graduate dorm (not one of the green anarchists; just a sympathizer). We got treated to quite a lot of men-being-men ideology stuff that night - a lot of quite literal straight-guy dick swinging (to desensitize each other to the grossness/tabooness of the male body; it certainly did do a bit to destabilize my then putative heterosexuality, lots of little dangly bits, mostly unwashed) and then I ended up watching these guys beating up on each other on this concrete cheapo-sixties-construction dorm floor. It was the dumbest thing I've ever seen, and lives on in memory as Why Macho Rhetoric About The Importance And Ritual Of Fighting Is Not What It Is Cracked Up To Be.

I was also in a kind of offputting situation a few years ago where radical women were fighting, but despite the fact that there was a lot of radical talk about "being tough" and so on, it was pretty intentionally eroticized by the women for the mixed gender, queer audience and had a strong cat fight/foxy boxing vibe that was super, super gross. It's really difficult to get outside of bullshit gender ideology in this stuff, is what I'm saying.

I do not care for display fights.
posted by Frowner at 8:12 AM on April 24, 2015 [25 favorites]


posted by mrbigmuscles

Natürlich.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:18 AM on April 24, 2015 [7 favorites]


The first rule about Fight Club is that you do not write about Fight Club.

...The second rule is no smoking.
posted by delfin at 8:20 AM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


What a 39-year-old English adjunct learned by taking up cage fighting.

"This will make a great article for something like Vice or Salon, perhaps even get a book deal out of it, yeah".
posted by MartinWisse at 8:40 AM on April 24, 2015 [21 favorites]


No one expects the skirmish exposition
posted by Auden at 8:41 AM on April 24, 2015 [21 favorites]


The discussion about guns is really interesting.

In fact, the logic of the monkey dance erodes from the other side as well: If you’re carrying a gun, or even a knife, you really must avoid those kinds of confrontations. And given that you are armed, you can avoid them in a way that is face-saving, at least internally. It may not be face-saving in the eyes of your antagonist, but if you know you’re carrying a weapon, you should also know that you can’t afford to be throwing punches or rolling around on the floor with some stranger just because he told you to go fuck yourself.

This makes total intuitive sense. It also makes clear that male fighting is not really about group social standing or dominance, it's about something completely internalized. Running from a fight results in guilt as much as shame, without some kind of morally-convincing excuse to justify it.
posted by vogon_poet at 8:45 AM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


I read the Salon thing and the interview both and while I think he probably has some worthwhile things to say, his thesis rings a bit hollow:

"But [duels] serve a vital function: they help men work out conflicts and thrash out hierarchies while minimizing carnage and social chaos"

I mean, do they? Really? I feel like that's a perspective you can only take if you don't grow up surrounded by a certain level of acceptable violence which I think is a really relatively new concept.
posted by griphus at 8:45 AM on April 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


Frowner, this is the short story or longform essay I want to read.
posted by blue suede stockings at 9:07 AM on April 24, 2015 [3 favorites]




Then, once they have fought out where each of them fits in the hierarchy, we kill all the ones at the top of it.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:57 AM on April 24, 2015


Our assistant chair boxes. He's a medievalist, probably close to fifty. Apparently, when some young punk comes to the gym and wants to fight the top boxer, they make him fight our assistant chair first, just to see if they're in shape. He has hit some of them so hard they have started crying. He offered to have me come to the gym and learn some basics, but given our history I suspect he may want to just beat the crap out of me without any legal repercussions.
posted by mecran01 at 9:59 AM on April 24, 2015 [16 favorites]


Then, once they have fought out where each of them fits in the hierarchy, we kill all the ones at the top of it.

Or, y'know, just remove any pretense of civility, suspend all rules, and just let them fight to the death. Guaranteed record-breaker on PPV.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:00 AM on April 24, 2015


Master: These our witness, Aunty. Us suffer bad. Want justice. We want Thunderdome!

Aunty Entity: You know the law! Two men enter, one man leaves... with a tenure track position
posted by Auden at 10:07 AM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


A bit of context from a Washington Post review:

"The gimmick of the cage-fighting prof falters somewhat when you learn that Gottschall was a dedicated weightlifter in college and eventually built himself into a 210-pounder with a 300-plus bench press. He got serious about karate in his early 20s, too. Though he’d left such interests behind, this guy knew some monkey dance steps ahead of time."

and

"If you think this sounds gimmicky, Gottschall admits it. This is a 'memoir stunt,' he writes, with a simple approach: 'ordinary schmuck enters an exotic world; suffers humorous setbacks, agony, and shame; learns a lot along the way.'"
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:09 AM on April 24, 2015 [9 favorites]


'ordinary schmuck enters an exotic world; suffers humorous setbacks, agony, and shame; learns a lot along the way.'

He might be a cage fighter, but he'll never be George Plimpton.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:13 AM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Could you imagine a story from a female adjunct about how she'd ditched it all for, I don't know, a career in beach volleyball, without a picture of her with acres of skin? But with a man, not a single pic. Fight Club pic is irrelevant. I want to see him almost naked. Gendered bullshit.

This is Ultimate Fighting. Might be even more homoerotic than World's Strongest Man.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 10:19 AM on April 24, 2015 [10 favorites]


Telling someone to “just walk away” is going against the grain of hundreds of thousands of years of hominid evolution, during which it really was damaging to suffer a slight to your honor.

Oh look, Evo-psych. Citation needed... I don't expect one will be forthcoming.
posted by smidgen at 10:26 AM on April 24, 2015 [5 favorites]


Gottschall was a dedicated weightlifter in college and eventually built himself into a 210-pounder with a 300-plus bench press. He got serious about karate in his early 20s, too.

While not utterly insignificant, neither will give you any real preparation for MMA. Body-building is of no use whatsoever, aside from getting you used to the concept of physical training. Getting yoked will do nothing to help you in martial arts.

As for karate, it's going to, again, give you some basic familiarity with training but that is it. MMA is so different from pure grappling and non-grappling arts, very little translates. When you finally understand MMA, you can apply other techniques, but you won't be walkin into a gym with any sort of advantage over any other novice.
posted by Dark Messiah at 10:27 AM on April 24, 2015 [4 favorites]


This is Ultimate Fighting. Might be even more homoerotic than World's Strongest Man.

It looks like porn if you have absolutely no idea what is actually happening. I can sort of see the point you're trying to make. Trying.
posted by Dark Messiah at 10:29 AM on April 24, 2015 [7 favorites]


Our assistant chair boxes. He's a medievalist, probably close to fifty. Apparently, when some young punk comes to the gym and wants to fight the top boxer, they make him fight our assistant chair first

The second toughest man in the prison is......the Assistant Warden!
posted by thelonius at 10:53 AM on April 24, 2015


Dark Messiah, I think the point is rather that Gottschall isn't some weedy poindexter starting out from square one. He was a weightlifter, not a bodybuilder proper, and some sort of martial arts background can help with MMA, as witness Ronda Rousey.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:11 AM on April 24, 2015


Our assistant chair boxes.

OH! I parsed this wrong, as, our assistant is a person who enjoys the sport of chairboxing and I was all excited that I was going to learn about a new event (my wife is disabled and we talk about the issues a lot), but it's actually an assistant chairperson who just-plain-boxes. Darn.
posted by Mogur at 11:31 AM on April 24, 2015 [13 favorites]


When men of color started taking almost all boxing titles, white guys had to find another way to make themselves feel tough by identification -- hence, MMA.
posted by jamjam at 11:32 AM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Could you imagine a story from a female adjunct about how she'd ditched it all for, I don't know, a career in beach volleyball, without a picture of her with acres of skin? But with a man, not a single pic. Fight Club pic is irrelevant. I want to see him almost naked. Gendered bullshit.

I don't think he ditched anything; he just trained and took a fight while teaching. There's a pic of him fighting in the Sam Harris interview, and another in the WaPo review of his book. I question your assertion that a female adjunct writing an experience book like this would have a photoshoot involving anything but the clothing worn in her sport. (And if you want sexy nearly-nude male MMA fighters, there's no shortage.) Your conflation of MMA, Strongman, and erotica isn't just an admission of ignorance about those sports, it's homophobia, and it's part of an ignorant, simple-minded perspective that makes it hard for gay professional fighters to come out.

In short, I didn't much like your comment.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:33 AM on April 24, 2015 [9 favorites]


When men of color started taking almost all boxing titles, white guys had to find another way to make themselves feel tough by identification -- hence, MMA.

Do we really have to debunk this crap in every thread that relates to MMA? You are actively erasing the very real accomplishments of Brazilian, Hispanic, black, and Japanese fighters that made this sport what it is today.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:37 AM on April 24, 2015 [17 favorites]


I really wish fancy-types concerned about their masculinity would stop dipping their asses in the MMA pool.

If you ask someone like Fedor or Anderson Silva what is great about MMA, they're not going to give you some shit about manliness or establishing hierarchies or unleashing your man-anger.

Fedor on anger:
In a lot of interviews you say you don't feel aggression towards your opponent.

I don't think a faithful person can feel any other way. And not just a fighter. You can hit a birdie with a racket as though the person on the other side of the net is your personal enemy.

But there is the term "sport anger". Is it usually considered useful, does it help?

I don't agree with that at all. "Sport anger" is some made up term- what's it about? Patience, self-control, developing your abilities- that exists. When you think you can't do any more, take control of yourself, swallow your emotions, and move forward. Why is anger necessary? It's in the way. It clouds the mind, a person cannot evaluate a situation soberly, cannot react correctly. Sometimes you need to be careful, but the person does not notice anything. There's a feeling of revenge, to rush forward, to hit harder- but that doesn't lead to anything good. In my mind that doesn't apply just to sport, but also to generally relationships between people.
Anderson Silva on manliness:
They tease me. Sometimes people think I’m gay. A lot of people have asked me if I’m gay. I answer, “Look, not to my knowledge. But I’m still young, it could be that in the future I’ll find out that I’m gay. I take good care of my things, I put everything in a bag, I use soap, I put on a cream after training. People think it’s capricious. To each his own. Doesn’t mean you’re more man or less man, more gay or less gay.
To me, practicing martial arts (I never got the chance to mix them) is about controlling your body under pressure and establishing order in a situation that's total chaos to most people. It is difficult and beautiful, like playing a game well. (It is also exercise, which feels good.)

Martial arts gyms should just ask people up front when they want to work out if they're there because of some Fight Club bullshit.
posted by ignignokt at 11:37 AM on April 24, 2015 [22 favorites]


Thanks for linking that, daveliepmann. BTW, Robbie Lawler is half-Filipino.
posted by ignignokt at 11:42 AM on April 24, 2015


Do we really have to debunk this crap in every thread that relates to MMA? You are actively erasing the very real accomplishments of Brazilian, Hispanic, black, and Japanese fighters that made this sport what it is today.

I don't think I'm ignoring those very real accomplishments, but I think you might be blinding yourself to the extent to which a substantial proportion of nominally white men at the top accounts for the current popularity of MMA among young white men.
posted by jamjam at 11:48 AM on April 24, 2015


jamjam, you threw out white disenchantment with boxing as the reason MMA exists and seem to be implying that it is complicit in racism. No doubt there are racist fans that just want to see white champs (just like in football or baseball), but they might actually better served in boxing now, given the current dominance of Europeans in the heavier weight classes. MMA has always had a worldwide fanbase, and in fact, was supported in the beginning primarily by Japanese audiences and Brazilian fighters.
posted by ignignokt at 11:55 AM on April 24, 2015 [4 favorites]


See? I get swept up in the erasure when trying to prove a point. Sorry, Robbie Lawler.

I will disagree slightly with your other point, in that I do see a masculine-specific element in fighting sports. I think it shouldn't be primary and it can be kind of gross when it's allowed to run rampant (see: UFC trash talking), but testosterone and aggression are deeply linked, and fighting is a big part of dominance patterns in human males. I think that at their best, fighting sports are a way to channel that energy—and all the poisonous beliefs, social behaviors, and conflict that come with it—safely.

For example, it's common for a hormonal teenage male to think he's top dog at anything and everything. The gym (whether wrestling, jiujitsu, boxing, or whatever) can force them to acknowledge that there exist people who are better than them, that pure brute force doesn't always win, and that people who aren't as good are still valuable.

However, I think that the way this prof (and Sam Harris) talk about masculinity's relationship to fighting sports is still fairly poisonous and basic.
posted by daveliepmann at 11:55 AM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


And he's down again, and I don't think he's going to get up this time. No, so Jack Bodel has defeated Sir Kenneth Clark in the very first round here tonight and so this big Lincolnshire heavyweight becomes the new Oxford Professor of Fine Art.
posted by charlie don't surf at 12:04 PM on April 24, 2015 [4 favorites]


He was a weightlifter, not a bodybuilder proper, and some sort of martial arts background can help with MMA, as witness Ronda Rousey.

Being good at lifting things isn't conducive to fighting. At best, it won't hurt, at worst it probably indicates you have questionable endurance.

As for Ronda, Judo is a way better base, though far from perfect. It's closer to wrestling, which is by far the best traditional sport base.

Ronda is a freak athlete who works really hard. She would be successful at anything she cared enough to work at. She's not good at MMA because of Judo, she's good at Judo which helped her learn MMA. Her striking is still very under developed, but her talent still has her so far beyond her peers I honestly believe the woman who beats her hasn't even set foot in a gym yet.

Plenty of other incredibly gifted Judo players have failed to make a significant impact in MMA beyond the regional scene.

Other disciplines help, but MMA has really shown that it is it's own beast. (You mix striking with grappling and it invalidates a lot of ingrained behaviours and understanding of things like distance, etc.)
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:05 PM on April 24, 2015


The thing is, I'm not sure that's about dominance. I think that's about devaluing dominance, unless you're at a shitty gym where the best people are always lording it over you. The teenager that gets tapped learns to focus on how to be better, not to be obsessed with dominance.

That's what the best players do. They are OK with losing. They work, they win, and they don't shame those they beat. Winning happens if you are good enough, and if you're not good enough, you have to train more. It is not a failure of manliness or whatever.
posted by ignignokt at 12:07 PM on April 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


But I think you might be blinding yourself to the extent to which a substantial proportion of nominally white men at the top accounts for the current popularity of MMA among young white men.

This is not correct, not even remotely. I have followed this sport since its inception. It's first figurehead was an under-sized Brazilian.
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:09 PM on April 24, 2015 [6 favorites]


Furthermore, the MMA community has actively shunned and driven off sponsors and fighters who adorn themselves with racist imagery. The MMA community still has a lot of issues (read: bros), but to lump MMA in with racists is an uninformed perspective given the global popularity of the sport and the demographics of the talent base.
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:12 PM on April 24, 2015 [5 favorites]


I think part of the reason Rousey has been more successful than other Olympic-level judoka is that her training has been particularly well-rounded, not just focused on the most optimal point-scoring. All judo Olympians are great on the ground, but they try to limit their time on the ground. Rousey's training has been much more evenly split between standing and newaza.
posted by ignignokt at 12:13 PM on April 24, 2015


Being good at lifting things isn't conducive to fighting. At best, it won't hurt

Uh, this is egregiously wrong. Being stronger definitely helps in fighting. I've experienced it as a weak fighter and as a not-weak fighter. Your muscles are what make you able to execute techniques.

Most good fighters have strength and conditioning programs. They have them for a reason.

Now, a 300 pound bench press doesn't mean you're good at fighting...but if you can wrestle and box, then that 300 pound bench press makes it easier to escape side control than a 200 pound bench press.
posted by daveliepmann at 12:14 PM on April 24, 2015 [5 favorites]


All tenure should be awarded after such contests.
posted by Renoroc at 12:17 PM on April 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


I mean, one of the hallmarks of being a champion is being strong for your weight class. People say it of GSP, Jon Jones, Ronda, and many other fighters. None of those fighters focuses their training on their powerlifting total but you'd better believe they train to be strong.

Here's Jon Jones deadlifting 425 lbs. Remember that Cormier specifically noted that Jon felt "strong".
posted by daveliepmann at 12:21 PM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Being stronger definitely helps in fighting. I've experienced it as a weak fighter and as a not-weak fighter. Your muscles are what make you able to execute techniques.

A teacher of mine says (maybe he stole this, I don't know), "Strength is there for when technique fails." It never, ever hurts to be strong (except if you're clipping kitten toenails and sneeze or something, maybe).
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 12:22 PM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Thanks for your comment ignignokt. I don't watch MMA but a colleague of mine trains at an MMA gym with her husband, and those comments definitely fit with my impression of how they view the sport. Yes, there is violence, but it is not "barbarism" by any definition of the word.
posted by muddgirl at 12:24 PM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Uh, this is egregiously wrong. Being stronger definitely helps in fighting. I've experienced it as a weak fighter and as a not-weak fighter. Your muscles are what make you able to execute techniques.

Most good fighters have strength and conditioning programs. They have them for a reason.


Brute strength will not make you a good fighter. You will hit the wall as soon as you fight someone with actual technique.

Strength and conditioning, focused on MMA, absolutely help. Going to the gym and lifting heavy stuff without a clear plan does not. If you don't know how to shoot for a takedown, or how to apply leverage, you will not do well in MMA regardless of how much you lift.

Tank Abbott is legendary for his lifting feats, and is a sub-.500 fighter who never evolved.
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:25 PM on April 24, 2015


Of course brute strength alone doesn't make a good fighter. But strength is a general-purpose attribute. Someone who can deep squat 300 pounds isn't just strong at squatting, they're strong at all the fighting skills they have. Squatting and deadlifting are MMA-focused strength because they're whole-body strength that can be applied to nearly any task.

I mean, the best thing to happen to my judo (after, um, going to judo class) was a double bodyweight deadlift. Suddenly I could maintain posture! There were all these techniques that I "knew" but couldn't execute before I got strong that suddenly became possible. Strength made my technique shoot through the roof.
posted by daveliepmann at 12:35 PM on April 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


Just look up Bob Sapp. Huge guy, broke into combat sports with a win over Ernesto Hoost in kickboxing (on pure brute strength). He quickly regressed to the mean: he had his eye fractured in a bout with Mirko Cro Cop (link), submitted by Antonio Nogueira (link) — both of whom were outweighed by 120-150 pounds in their bouts.

Sapp is now retired, with a record of 11-18. He was huge, scary looking, and an utter joke outside of a few wins he got because Japan loves throwing out the concept of weight classes.
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:36 PM on April 24, 2015


I mean, the best thing to happen to my judo (after, um, going to judo class) was a double bodyweight deadlift

It enchances technique, but it is not a substitute. That is all I am saying.
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:37 PM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Has anyone who trains read his book? I would love to hear it compared to Sam Sheridan's A Fighter's Heart. I also think I read somewhere that Gottschall lost his MMA fight and doesn't plan on fighting again. I'm interested in how he addresses that.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:10 PM on April 24, 2015


I read the Salon piece, and for some reason I find his work to be an example of a rather offputting strand of nonfiction. I can't really put my finger on it, but here is an attempt. Going into it with the intention of writing a book is distasteful. It gives the enterprise the character of tourism, which renders him perpetually an observer, and not fully part of the world he is reporting on. To plan to write the book from the very start, makes his participation less than humble, somehow. He's not giving himself fully to this sport. He's treating other people as subject matter. It would have been more tasteful to give himself a few years of training before he considered it even a possibility that he would write a book. The plan to write a book seems disrespectful of the sport.

I realize George Plimpton did this sort of thing decades ago, but this kind of magazine-worthy, lowbrow experiential reporting is really tiresome. And yes, despite his professorial (no, actually his adjunct) credentials, this is cheesy and lowbrow and a sad way for a person with a Ph.D. to end up.

It would be more dignified to just take up the sport and be humble enough to focus on learning it, not writing about it.
posted by jayder at 2:07 PM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Jonathan Ames, writer, creator of HBO’s Bored to Death - My Career as a Boxer (mcsweeneys).
posted by Lanark at 2:12 PM on April 24, 2015


Haven't read either, but have them both on my to-read list.

I've read that Sheridan's book was better. Less preciousness in the "An English professor discovers [building a shed / fixing a motorcycle / learning to hunt / planting a garden], then wrote a book about it" vein.
posted by mrbigmuscles at 2:23 PM on April 24, 2015


That's what the best players do. They are OK with losing. They work, they win, and they don't shame those they beat.

I was cheering for family and friends at an amateur competition this weekend, and that's what I saw: a lot of fighters showing a lot of grace while losing (and while winning, but with multiple fights per weight class, more people get to show how well they can take a loss than not.)
posted by asperity at 3:01 PM on April 24, 2015 [5 favorites]


Your conflation of MMA, Strongman, and erotica isn't just an admission of ignorance about those sports, it's homophobia, and it's part of an ignorant, simple-minded perspective that makes it hard for gay professional fighters to come out.

I'm gay. So is the cartoonist.

And you know that women wear those nothing "uniforms" in beach volleyball specifically to give straight male viewers something to get hard to so they have an audience. There's nothing about the sport that requires them to be almost naked.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 4:05 PM on April 24, 2015


Nobody but you is talking about beach volleyball. I'm not here to defend beach volleyball uniforms.

The fact that you're gay makes me think of Frowner's comment up top: you don't get a pass on sexualizing a sport just because you're sexualizing it for your preferred orientation. Your comment and the cartoon still come across as proudly ignorant of mixed martial arts.
posted by daveliepmann at 4:37 PM on April 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


Aunty Entity: You know the law! Two men enter, one man leaves... with a tenure track position

That's actually significantly less hilariously abusive than the actual academic hiring process.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:57 PM on April 24, 2015 [7 favorites]


There's nothing about the sport that requires them to be almost naked.

If you've ever had a gi grappler choke you out with your own shirt, you'd realise the folly in this comparison to MMA.
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:11 PM on April 24, 2015


Not to belabour the point, but MMA is contested with a minimal amount of coverage because elite grapplers can — and will — use everything at their disposal to make you tap. Wrestling shoes, even tape on the ankles can give much-needed grip to apply potentionally career-ending submission holds (heel hooks, knee bars, etc).
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:14 PM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Why couldn't it have been AJ Jacobs taking the beatings?
posted by yellowcandy at 7:13 PM on April 26, 2015


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