Got Fight? Forrest Griffin KO's The Publishing World

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By Thomas Gerbasi

The Ultimate Fighter season one winner. Former UFC light heavyweight champion. Cover athlete on the UFC 2009 Undisputed video game. Not a bad resume, but now you can add the phrase bestselling author to the list of accomplishments garnered by Mr. Forrest Griffin, whose book “Got Fight – The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat” currently sits at number eight on the New York Times Best Seller List for Hardcover Advice books.

“You can hope, but you never know,” said Griffin when asked about the success of his first foray into the publishing world, which was co-authored with Erich Krauss. “We all like to be listened to in conversation, so for people to actually spend money to find out your thoughts on stuff is a very flattering concept. I thought that it might just get lost in the shuffle of there being so many fighters’ books. Now, it having the success it has, I’m almost thinking, man, if I had really tried, I could have really written a good book.”

For those of us who have covered Griffin over the years, that type of self-deprecating humor is a regular part of his makeup, along with a deadpan delivery, a quick wit, and a unique approach to the fight game. But sometimes what works well on television or in person doesn’t translate very well to the written word. Luckily for readers, “Got Fight” captures Griffin – warts and all – perfectly, making it one of those rare books that has moments that are simply laugh out loud funny.

“I’ve always been pretty decent sitting around the bar telling the story in a conversational sense,” he said. “So that’s kinda what I wanted to make it, just telling a story where you can picture me telling it.”

And you can, whether the stories are coming from Griffin, or buddies like former trainer Adam Singer, who recalls one instance when Griffin refereed a 2004 fight between 19 year old Evin Rohrbaugh and 60 year old Skip Hall, and let the fight go on too long, simply telling Hall, “Skip, it’s up to you,” over and over before finally halting the bout.

“Officiating is probably not in my post-fight career,” said Griffin. “It’s probably not gonna be an option for me. But I hate when the guys pop up and say, ‘hey man, I wasn’t out.’ I never wanted to be the guy hearing that.”

And whether it’s tales of refereeing, of growing up in Georgia, or dealing with life as a mixed martial artist, “Got Fight” delivers plenty of anecdotes that you will end up repeating to your friends in the future. Not everyone finds it funny though.

“My wife was reading the book, and she never laughed,” said Griffin. “She’s reading the first copies of the stories I’m giving to her and I’m having her edit it for me. Occasionally she yells at me about something embarrassing, but she never laughed. So she’s reading Chelsea Handler’s book ‘Are you there, Vodka?’ and she laughs out loud. I’m like ‘so what’s up? Her book’s better than mine?’ ‘No, no, no, her book’s just different than yours.’ ‘How’s it different?’ ‘Well, it’s funny.’”

Ouch. Well, maybe Griffin’s humor is a ‘guy thing’. One thing is for sure though – “Got Fight” is for a more mature audience.

“I thought the fact that I cuss a lot and appear to be a profane individual would be kind of a warning,” he said. “If they rated books, this is an ‘R’. Not a hard ‘R’, but an ‘R’, and let’s face it, that’s what’s funny.”

And unlike the slew of MMA biographies that have come out in the last year from the likes of Chuck Liddell, Matt Hughes, Randy Couture, and Tito Ortiz, Griffin’s book isn’t a straight biography, and in breaking the mold, he may have come up with the most entertaining tome of the bunch.

“I never really looked at those books that much,” said Griffin of his peers’ biographies. “A book that I actually really liked was ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King, and it’s really good. It’s just stuff about his life and then he talks about writing, and that was the kind of book I thought I could do, and have it be on fighting. I would talk about fighting and then talk about my own life. So the final format we came up with was to do principles of my life that are universal in nature. Kind of like ‘The 48 Laws of Power’, which is another book I just read – basic things about how to influence people, how to handle yourself, how to do things. Some of it would relate to fighting and how I either used the principle and had some success with it or didn’t use it and suffered the consequences. I thought that was more of an interesting book. It’s not like an account of my life, it’s just quirky stories. And then I read that book “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell’ and then I realized that I didn’t even have to do as much as I did, and maybe I should have written it in more in memoir style.”

There will be time for that, especially considering that Griffin – who faces Anderson Silva at UFC 101 in Philadelphia on August 8th – has plenty left to do in the fight game. But it’s evident that the Las Vegan still has more to tell the world through the written word, and even though his first book has been well-received, he wants prospective readers to know a few things before plunking down their hard-earned cash.

“I would like to make some wild claims about the book,” said Griffin. “I guarantee – a money back guarantee – that this book will not help your fighting, will in no way better your life or improve your life in any way. Not only that, but I also guarantee that this book will not help your love life in any regard.”

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