Sam Sheridan - A Fighters Heart: One Mans Journey Through the World of Fighting

ONE MANS JOURNEY THROUGH THE WORLD OF FIGHTING

Atlantic Monthly Press
New York

Copyright 2007 by Sam Sheridan

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Excerpts from Cut Time: An Education at the Fights by Carlo Rotella. Copyright 2003 by Carlo Rotella. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner by F. X. Toole. Copyright 2000 by F. X. Toole. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
The Professional by W. C. Heinz. Copyright by W. C. Heinz. Reprinted by permission of William Morris Agency, Inc. on behalf of author.
Excerpt from Chinese Boxing: Masters and Methods by Robert W. Smith. Published by North Atlantic Books, copyright 1990 by Robert W. Smith. Reprinted by permission of publisher.
These are forcesredefines the possible by Ronald Levao and when we did notwe were high and dry by Ted Hoagland from Reading the Flights: The Best Writing About the Most Controversial of Sports, edited by Joyce Carol Oates and Daniel Halpern, copyright 1998 by Joyce Carol Oates and Daniel Halpern. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
No doubt muchhunters than ourselves and thus the ritualis a carnivore by Barbara Ehrenreich from Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of Wars copyright 1997 by Barbara Ehrenreich. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
Excerpt from The Fight by Norman Mailer, copyright 1997 by Norman Mailer, Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Excerpt from Shawdowbox by George Plimpton. Copyright 1977 by George Plimpton. Reprinted by the permission of Russell and Volkening as agents for the author's estate.
Excerpts from Without Apology by Leah Hager Cohen, copyright 2005 by Leah Hager Cohen, Random House, a division of Random House, Inc.
Excerpts from On Bullfighting by A. L. Kennedy, copyright 1999 by A. L. Kennedy, Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Excerpts from On Agression by Konrad Lorenz, copyright by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co. English translation copyright 1966 by Konrad Lorenz. Harvest Books, a division of Harcourt Brace & Company. Excerpt from A Neutral Corner: Boxing Essays by A. J. Liebling, edited by Fred Warner and James Barbour. Compilation copyright 1990 by Norma Liebling Stonehill. Reprinted by permission of North Point Press, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Excerpts from Manhood in America: A Cultural History , copyright 1996 by Michael Kimmel. Oxford University Press.
Excerpts from On Boxing copyright 1987, 1995 by Joyce Carol Oates, used by permission of Harper Perennial.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sheridan, Sam.
A fighters heart : one mans journey through the world of fighting /Sam Sheridan.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-55584-735-7
1. Sheridan, Sam. 2. Martial artistsUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.
GV1113.S243S45 2007
796.8092dc22
[B] 2006043084

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To my parents, Susan and Michael, for the unwavering support

To Claudia, thanks, regrets, love

To Panio, my brother

Apidej sit-Hirun at Fairtex Gym, Bangkok, Thailand, May 2000.

Elephant behind Fairtex Gym.

Samrong Stadium, in Bang Pli, an hour from Bangkok, is dirty, dingy, and high ceilinged, with concrete floors, rows of folding chairs, and crowds milling around drinking Singha beer and smoking Krum Thip cigarettes. A fight has just ended and the canvas ring is brightly lit and empty. Now its my turn to fight, and I look at Johann, a short, muscular, bald Belgian, and say, Win or lose, I want a beer in my hand as soon as I climb out of the ring. He smiles tightly and nods. I roll my neck like a real fighter and step through the vermilion ropes. Im wearing a robe designed for Thais who fight at 130 pounds and it barely covers my oily thighs.

My heavily tattooed opponent ignores the screaming crowd and I ignore him, even though I can feel his eyes on me across the ring, his attempt to engage me in a samurai stare-down. I am absurdly, frenetically excited, and yet calm in the knowledge that Im as ready as possible for my first fight. I can ignore my opponents mind games because, heywell find out whos tougher soon enough. I suppress an urge to smile at him. I have no ill will toward the guy.

My body is aglow with the power of recuperation and heating oils, and my face is greased with a layer of Vaseline. The harsh blatting horn, the lilting pipes, and the stomping drum begin their song. There is nothing left to fear.

When I was in junior high, at the Eaglebrook School in the green hills of Massachusetts, I read a book about John F. Kennedy that said he used to carry an anonymous poem with him in his wallet:

Bullfight critics, ranked in rows,

Crowd the enormous plaza full.

But only one is there who knows,

And hes the man that fights the bull.

I loved that quote. I carried it in my own wallet for years, well through college, until that wallet was lost when I flipped the dinghy during a hurricane in Bermuda. I wanted to be the one who knows. To me, the quote wasnt just about critics and performers and artists. The man in the ring knows, and not just about that particular bullfight and whether or not he did a good job. He knows.

I grew up romanticizing fighting and fighters: matadors, soldiers, knights, samurai. There was nothing more noble. That boys should worship fighters was as unquestioned as patriotism, bred into the fabric of masculinity. Little boys pick up sticks and turn them into swords and guns no matter what their mothers might do.

I went to high school at Deerfield Academy, a fancy prep school where my father was the business manager. I had a circle of friends who were locals and sons of teachers, and we had our own sort of world between the rich kids who lived in the dormitories and the surrounding rural public school kids.

We watched a lot of kung fu movies, but we didnt fight. Deerfield wasnt that kind of place; nobody fought, although they did wrestle, and in hindsight I wish I had wrestled, too. Our favorite part of any kung fu movie wasnt necessarily the climactic fights; it was the training sequence, when the hero becomes an invincible warrior.