No Holds Barred: The Complete History of Mixed Martial Arts in America

Description

Called the bible for MMA, No Holds Barred is the definitive American history of MMA and its rapid rise in the sports and entertainment world. Armed with a recorder and a press pass to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, creator Clyde Gentry III set out to tell the story of MMA in the late 1990s when the sport used to be barely treading water as a result of the political backlash that threatened to relegate the sport to smoky bars and venues generally reserved for tough-man competitions and low-level professional wrestling matches. Instead, MMA has grow to be a billion-dollar business and has changed martial arts ceaselessly. This book takes readers from the controversial event that spawned it all in 1993 to the breakout reality show The Ultimate Fighter and beyond. An unprecedented 125 interviews, together with boxes of rare documents and notes collected over 10 years, serve as the backbone for the ultimate tome on the ultimate sport. The phrase no holds barred may be a misnomer for MMA, but it aptly describes the true, compelling story of how the sport evolved in The us. This is the most definitive, in-depth and thoroughly researched book on the history of the sport ever written and a will have to-have book for each mixed martial arts fan.