First Pre-ordered Book
Cover via Amazon
I thought of writing Unlocking the Cage (UTC) more than a dozen years ago, but back then I’d only envisioned the sociological study. I was part of a world I’d never thought I’d be in and I wanted to understand why. But time went by and I stopped fighting, the idea thrown in my bottom drawer where it’d remain for eight years.
There’s a story behind why I finally decided to start the project, but that’s for another day. I dug out my notes, pretty upset to only find a few scraps of paper, the electronic documents lost over the years. I thought about what I really wanted to accomplish with UTC and developed my plan of attack. The first step was checking out what had already been written. I’d spent the last eight years of my life paying little attention to MMA, just knew it’d grown into a beast I hardly recognized.
It took me two seconds to find Sam Sheridan and his books, The Fighter’s Mind: Inside the Mental Game and A Fighter’s Heart: One Man’s Journey Through the World of Fighting. Things weren’t looking good. I read the descriptions and tried not to be disappointed. Sheridan had beaten me to the punch, trained with and interviewed elite fighters around the world. He even fought.
I wasn’t looking to be a copycat so, even though I rarely read nonfiction, I ordered both books and crossed my fingers, hoped they wouldn’t be too similar to what I wanted to do. I also kind of hoped they sucked. This guy was from Harvard. Maybe it’d be meaningless fluff.
While I waited for the books to arrive, I listened to Sheridan on the Deathsquad podcast. They talked about his fighting books enough to depress me, but it was the one he was working on that really got my attention. The Disaster Diaries, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Apocalypse.
Being a father raises new fears, amplifies old ones. I try to turn my fears into fiction. Sheridan is more pragmatic and took the offensive, figured out ways to improve his odds if his fears ever turned true.
Again I was jealous. He’d gone around the world learning survival skills, ways to protect his family, while I looked into buying a year’s worth of emergency rations. Everything he described sounded like fun. That could partly be because I’d been a stay-at-home dad for the past three years and all the Dora episodes and Mommy and Me classes had drained all my testosterone. Going around shooting guns, fighting with knives, stealing cars and driving like a stunt man. Sign me up. Who wouldn’t want to learn how to survive in the wilderness, or make an igloo? (I’m guessing his might look a little better than mine, but probably not so pretty.) 
But jealousy wasn’t the only thing I took from the podcast. Sheridan seemed very cool and down to earth. Instead of waiting until after reading his books, I shot him an email, told him my hesitation about writing UTC.
He wrote back and told me not to worry about it, exactly what I needed to hear because his books had arrived and I was once again ready to scrap the project. Both books were excellent and took me less than a week. I learned a lot about myself reading Sheridan’s books, his story-telling taking me back to the cage, the memories I’d all but forgotten. Reading those books was the real start of UTC, part of the process of figuring out who I was.
I wrote to Sheridan about how much I enjoyed his books and he was kind enough to discuss UTC in depth, give me some tips and a vote of confidence I won’t forget. He also introduced me to a good friend who’s also been more help than he knows. Sheridan’s probably always been that kind of guy, but part of me wonders if it’s because he’s a fighter, part of the MMA community that’s been awesome.
Sheridan’s name comes up a lot in my travels, I’ve even been asked a few times if I’m him. Most conversations are about his fight books, but I always bring up his new book, tell them they’ve got to check it out. Disaster Diaries is the first book I’ve ever pre-ordered. I’m pretty sure I won’t be disappointed.
