Raw Combat: The Underground World of Mixed Martial Arts hits bookstores this week. The book, written by Jim Genia, who has been covering the sport since 2001, focuses heavily on New York’s Underground Combat League.
If you haven’t heard of the UCL, that’s probably because you’re not supposed to hear about the UCL, a clandestine organization that puts on unsanctioned fights around the New York City area.
Despite the state’s efforts to keep MMA out of New York, one man, Peter Storm has made it his goal to bring MMA to those that want to see it in New York City.
Early in the book, Storm talks about what the UCL is, and isn’t, “The UCL is a place you compete for you, not for a career or a camera. It’s where real fighters come to fight.”
Some of the fighters that have competed in the UCL have gone to be champions in larger promotions that will be familiar to even the most casual fans of MMA. Other fighters that Genia profiles have not fared nearly as well, becoming guests of the state of New York.
Genia covers the good and the bad in Raw Combat, the success stories and the failures and he does it with a storyteller’s voice. The author uses his intimate knowledge of the organization and the people involved with the UCL to take the reader to the small gyms where the fights are held. Sometimes the fights are held in boxing rings, other times they are held on a mat with little to separate the fans from the fighters.
Genia is not just reporting on the fights and everything surrounding them. The scale of the UCL gets him involved with the fighters and the promoter; something that writing on larger scale promotions may fail to show due to the many levels involved in those promotions.
With the UCL there are two levels: Storm and the fighters. That level of intimacy really pulls the reader into the book.
Not only does Genia cover the unsanctioned New York fights, but he covers the sanctioned fights across the river in New Jersey and details how the highly regulated bouts falling under the Unified Rules of mixed martial arts differ from the UCL’s more wide-open style.
Genia also looks at the growth of Tiger Schulman Karate in the world of MMA. Familiar faces also show up in Raw Combat, specifically Dan Miragliotta and Kevin Mulhall and their involvement in the early days of New Jersey’s MMA fight cards. There is also a chapter devoted to the quick rise and even quicker fall of EliteXC.
Raw Combat: The Underground World of Mixed Martial Arts comes across as a labor of love for Genia. He’s been there and wants to share his tale to the fans of a sport that is growing by leaps and bounds. By reading Genia’s book the reader will get a glance into a world they most likely have little chance of seeing first hand.
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