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Why We Fight: One Man's Search for Meaning Inside the Ring
Shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
A physical and philosophical mediation on why we are drawn to fight each other for sport, what happens to our bodies and brains when we do, and what it all meansAnyone with guts or madness in him can get hit by someone who knows how; it takes a different kind of madness, a more persistent kind, to stick around long enough to be one of the people who does the knowing.
Josh Rosenblatt was thirty-three years old when he first realized he wanted to fight. A lifelong pacifist with a philosopher’s hatred of violence and a dandy’s aversion to exercise, he drank to excess, smoked passionately, ate indifferently, and mocked physical activity that didn’t involve nudity. But deep down inside there was always some part of him that was attracted to the idea of fighting. So, after studying Muay Thai, Krav Maga, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and boxing, he decided, at age forty, that it was finally time to fight his first—and only—mixed martial arts all in the name of experience and transcending ancient fears.
An insightful and moving rumination on the nature of fighting, Why We Fight takes us on his journey from the bleachers to the ring. Using his own training as an opportunity to understand how the sport illuminates basic human impulses, Rosenblatt weaves together cultural history, criticism, biology, and anthropology to understand what happens to the human body and mind when under attack, and to explore why he, a self-described “cowardly boy from the suburbs,” discovered so much meaning in putting his body, and others’, at risk.
From the psychology of fear to the physiology of pain, from Ukrainian shtetls to Brooklyn boxing gyms, from Lord Byron to George Plimpton, Why We Fight is a fierce inquiry into the abiding appeal of our most conflicted and controversial fixation, interwoven with a firsthand account of what happens when a mild-mannered intellectual decides to step into the ring for his first real showdown.
A physical and philosophical mediation on why we are drawn to fight each other for sport, what happens to our bodies and brains when we do, and what it all meansAnyone with guts or madness in him can get hit by someone who knows how; it takes a different kind of madness, a more persistent kind, to stick around long enough to be one of the people who does the knowing.
Josh Rosenblatt was thirty-three years old when he first realized he wanted to fight. A lifelong pacifist with a philosopher’s hatred of violence and a dandy’s aversion to exercise, he drank to excess, smoked passionately, ate indifferently, and mocked physical activity that didn’t involve nudity. But deep down inside there was always some part of him that was attracted to the idea of fighting. So, after studying Muay Thai, Krav Maga, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and boxing, he decided, at age forty, that it was finally time to fight his first—and only—mixed martial arts all in the name of experience and transcending ancient fears.
An insightful and moving rumination on the nature of fighting, Why We Fight takes us on his journey from the bleachers to the ring. Using his own training as an opportunity to understand how the sport illuminates basic human impulses, Rosenblatt weaves together cultural history, criticism, biology, and anthropology to understand what happens to the human body and mind when under attack, and to explore why he, a self-described “cowardly boy from the suburbs,” discovered so much meaning in putting his body, and others’, at risk.
From the psychology of fear to the physiology of pain, from Ukrainian shtetls to Brooklyn boxing gyms, from Lord Byron to George Plimpton, Why We Fight is a fierce inquiry into the abiding appeal of our most conflicted and controversial fixation, interwoven with a firsthand account of what happens when a mild-mannered intellectual decides to step into the ring for his first real showdown.
206 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 15, 2019
32 people are currently reading
254 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
September 23, 2020
Multiple moments during reading when I whispered "Hell yeah, dude" to myself
Lick Review
Sleeve: 6/10
Front Cover: 5/10
Random Page: 4/10
Lick Review
Sleeve: 6/10
Front Cover: 5/10
Random Page: 4/10
June 6, 2019
I wanted to like this book. I love MMA. I consume as much as I can through as many mediums as possible. This book was not a tasty consumption.
First off, the title reads weird. “Why We Fight: One Man’s Search for Meaning Inside the Ring”. Usually we is two or more people and one man is one man. So I thought that to be a little of. Plus it was his journey and his meaning inside the ring. And many people fight fir many different reasons. It should’ve been titled “Why I Fight”.
Secondly, he seems to have major problems with the church. Which is fine. A lot of people do and I understand. But it comes through in his writing way too much. He even takes needless digs at it on pg. 77. Not only that, but he grossly misinterprets Scripture to for what he needs to make his point on pg. 156. What he is quoting has nothing to do with the point he is trying to make. It was a lazy way to try to get his point across.
Another thing is that I’m pretty sure he may be an alcoholic. He has a whole chapter on the struggles to give up on alcohol. You are 40. Aren’t you a little old to still be getting drunk. But that isn’t even it. Throughout the whole book, he mentions his love of alcohol, going out to get drunk, the hardships he has with giving up. Over and over again. But he barely mentions his wife at all and what a struggle there relationship must be and the hardship of the sacrifice of his time to train on what he says will be a one-off right. That isn’t even mentioned really. So it made it seem as if alcohol was the worst thing in the world he had to give up instead of the many other things that should’ve been way more important.
The only other criticisms I have we that he book is way over-philosophized and the almost whole page of a run-on sentence on things he hates. A while page. One sentence.
First off, the title reads weird. “Why We Fight: One Man’s Search for Meaning Inside the Ring”. Usually we is two or more people and one man is one man. So I thought that to be a little of. Plus it was his journey and his meaning inside the ring. And many people fight fir many different reasons. It should’ve been titled “Why I Fight”.
Secondly, he seems to have major problems with the church. Which is fine. A lot of people do and I understand. But it comes through in his writing way too much. He even takes needless digs at it on pg. 77. Not only that, but he grossly misinterprets Scripture to for what he needs to make his point on pg. 156. What he is quoting has nothing to do with the point he is trying to make. It was a lazy way to try to get his point across.
Another thing is that I’m pretty sure he may be an alcoholic. He has a whole chapter on the struggles to give up on alcohol. You are 40. Aren’t you a little old to still be getting drunk. But that isn’t even it. Throughout the whole book, he mentions his love of alcohol, going out to get drunk, the hardships he has with giving up. Over and over again. But he barely mentions his wife at all and what a struggle there relationship must be and the hardship of the sacrifice of his time to train on what he says will be a one-off right. That isn’t even mentioned really. So it made it seem as if alcohol was the worst thing in the world he had to give up instead of the many other things that should’ve been way more important.
The only other criticisms I have we that he book is way over-philosophized and the almost whole page of a run-on sentence on things he hates. A while page. One sentence.
April 2, 2021
3.5 stars.
It's a sport that has been around since the age of ancient Greeks: fighting. Why do we fight? Why do we seek out to destroy each other for reasons other than survival? Why do we use our bodies to hurt other bodies? Author Josh Rosenblatt resolved to find out for himself, as he trained day after day for a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fight due in 12 months.
Fighting has been part of mankind since time immemorial, but to do it for reasons other than survival—sport, entertainment, enlightenment—is something that seem barbaric and irrational. Why do we fight? Personally, I don't like to engage in physical confrontations myself but I have to admit that it's exhilarating to watch people fight in the ring, and I can't explain why. Rosenblatt echoes the same sentiment, but he chooses to learn firsthand what is it about fighting that has enticed many people to get seriously hurt in the arena and enthralled millions of people all over the world.
Rosenblatt treats 'Why We Fight' like a personal diary: it explores his deepest thoughts and feelings about the art of hand-to-hand combat, from its ancient to contemporary history, the different forms of combat, and the philosophical aspects of people beating each other up until one concedes or even dies. At the same time, it takes an intimate look into the author's life and how preparing for his big fight is a huge transformation that he chooses to take upon himself, a huge leap of faith from for a guy who refrained from physical violence, and has engaged only in hedonistic pursuits (drinking, being lazy). Why would he—or anyone, for that matter—take up MMA and sign up for a fight that would potentially be life-threatening? That's the crux of the book.
It's interesting to see a fighter's point-of-view on what fighting means to him on a personal and even spiritual level. Some fight for the thrill, others fight for material gains. For Rosenblatt, and perhaps many others, he's doing it for existential reasons: to find purpose in life. Only when your life is threatened would you feel most alive, and that's exactly what the author learned for himself. The injuries he has sustained over the months, and the inner demons he had to faced are something that I don't get to read and hear from fighters, so it's very enlightening to read his thoughts in this book.
But at times, I feel like Rosenblatt is perhaps being too philosophical. Too zealous. He's waxing lyrical profusely about his upcoming fight, and the whole concept of hand-to-hand combat. Some readers might feel that his writing is pretentious, more so when he's not a professional fighter (he's just doing it for himself; it was a one-off fight after all). So to see him writing so in-depth about fighting makes it feel like the book is a little self-important, albeit interesting.
Fighting is not for everyone, but like Rosenblatt has found out for himself, it can be addictive. It's not farfetched to say that professional fighters might be masochistic to be enjoying beating people up in the arena, and sure, it's something that not everyone would understand. With 'Why We Fight', maybe you'd understand a thing or two about a fighter's psyche and mental processes before stepping into the ring. Pretentious or not, it's pretty informative and I hope I never have to go through the same experience he did just to have a rough idea on why people fight.
It's a sport that has been around since the age of ancient Greeks: fighting. Why do we fight? Why do we seek out to destroy each other for reasons other than survival? Why do we use our bodies to hurt other bodies? Author Josh Rosenblatt resolved to find out for himself, as he trained day after day for a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fight due in 12 months.
Fighting has been part of mankind since time immemorial, but to do it for reasons other than survival—sport, entertainment, enlightenment—is something that seem barbaric and irrational. Why do we fight? Personally, I don't like to engage in physical confrontations myself but I have to admit that it's exhilarating to watch people fight in the ring, and I can't explain why. Rosenblatt echoes the same sentiment, but he chooses to learn firsthand what is it about fighting that has enticed many people to get seriously hurt in the arena and enthralled millions of people all over the world.
Rosenblatt treats 'Why We Fight' like a personal diary: it explores his deepest thoughts and feelings about the art of hand-to-hand combat, from its ancient to contemporary history, the different forms of combat, and the philosophical aspects of people beating each other up until one concedes or even dies. At the same time, it takes an intimate look into the author's life and how preparing for his big fight is a huge transformation that he chooses to take upon himself, a huge leap of faith from for a guy who refrained from physical violence, and has engaged only in hedonistic pursuits (drinking, being lazy). Why would he—or anyone, for that matter—take up MMA and sign up for a fight that would potentially be life-threatening? That's the crux of the book.
It's interesting to see a fighter's point-of-view on what fighting means to him on a personal and even spiritual level. Some fight for the thrill, others fight for material gains. For Rosenblatt, and perhaps many others, he's doing it for existential reasons: to find purpose in life. Only when your life is threatened would you feel most alive, and that's exactly what the author learned for himself. The injuries he has sustained over the months, and the inner demons he had to faced are something that I don't get to read and hear from fighters, so it's very enlightening to read his thoughts in this book.
But at times, I feel like Rosenblatt is perhaps being too philosophical. Too zealous. He's waxing lyrical profusely about his upcoming fight, and the whole concept of hand-to-hand combat. Some readers might feel that his writing is pretentious, more so when he's not a professional fighter (he's just doing it for himself; it was a one-off fight after all). So to see him writing so in-depth about fighting makes it feel like the book is a little self-important, albeit interesting.
Fighting is not for everyone, but like Rosenblatt has found out for himself, it can be addictive. It's not farfetched to say that professional fighters might be masochistic to be enjoying beating people up in the arena, and sure, it's something that not everyone would understand. With 'Why We Fight', maybe you'd understand a thing or two about a fighter's psyche and mental processes before stepping into the ring. Pretentious or not, it's pretty informative and I hope I never have to go through the same experience he did just to have a rough idea on why people fight.
September 3, 2025
Starts off as a decent book, but deteriorating fast the further you go. A grand and beautiful topic being ruined by the senseless rambling. To me this book is no more than some hedonistic, and addiction-driven narcissist trying to find a new addition through fighting. The author also mentioned multiple times his Jewish background and his history of victimhood, the opposite spirit of combat sports. Another petty thing is how he's jealous of the youth of the blond teenagers joining the class and learning how to fight. He even went as far as comparing them to Hitler Jungen.
Not going to lie, the author sounds like the exact type of person I'd hate to practice or spar with.
Not going to lie, the author sounds like the exact type of person I'd hate to practice or spar with.
February 17, 2022
The writing was beautiful, excellent word choice and visualizations. Much of the book seemed self-centered and above the readers. But perhaps I'm just defensive since I'm not a fighter. Really loved the ending, definitely worth reading all the way through just for that.
April 20, 2023
A reasonable explanation of why grown men might want to punch each other in the faces for sport.
April 11, 2020
Dear Josh Rosenblatt,
How are you doing under COVID? Fauci basically said we will never fight again, ha.
Warning: This is the cliché fan letter.
I picked up your book during the lockdown just to maintain me throughout the drought. This is before UFC 249 got cancelled, even before Khabib pulled off. So, there were still things to look forward to. Getting fatter by the day, I took up running again and this was my time to listen to Why We Fight. It is a good combo. Gets me going. The mind wonders off and let uncontrolled it goes to weird places in these solitary, will testing activities. It was a treat to wonder off, this time, with someone else’s streams of consciousness. Familiar in many ways; in some a bit more troubled than my own (in relation to violence for instance), nicely developed and often funny streams. Thank you for sharing the unflattering bits.
And then on Friday, they called me. (Here is the cliché.)
https://slpssm.blogspot.com/2020/04/w...
How are you doing under COVID? Fauci basically said we will never fight again, ha.
Warning: This is the cliché fan letter.
I picked up your book during the lockdown just to maintain me throughout the drought. This is before UFC 249 got cancelled, even before Khabib pulled off. So, there were still things to look forward to. Getting fatter by the day, I took up running again and this was my time to listen to Why We Fight. It is a good combo. Gets me going. The mind wonders off and let uncontrolled it goes to weird places in these solitary, will testing activities. It was a treat to wonder off, this time, with someone else’s streams of consciousness. Familiar in many ways; in some a bit more troubled than my own (in relation to violence for instance), nicely developed and often funny streams. Thank you for sharing the unflattering bits.
And then on Friday, they called me. (Here is the cliché.)
https://slpssm.blogspot.com/2020/04/w...
March 28, 2019
Josh Rosenblatt’s “Why We Fight: One Man’s Search for Meaning Inside the Ring,” is one of the better fight books I’ve come across.
Rosenblatt decided he wanted to fight at age 33. He had a lot of past he wanted to work through, and his present of living the good life was far from fulfilling. He spent seven years preparing for his debut bout, studying various forms, and deciding it was mixed martial arts that would test him in the way he wanted. He was looking for maximum brutality. He got his first and only fight at age 40.
Rosenblatt’s writing strategy is also a maximum effort. He tells us about himself, his motivations and psychology, gives us a history of martial arts, and anecdotes galore. His wide open account of the terror of the ring is beautifully written. There’s a heavy dose of barroom philosophizing about humanity, manhood, and transcendence through physical violence, but only a few pages where the prose goes too purple, and I skipped those without missing a beat of narrative.
Fascinating from a fight perspective is his respect for the sweet science. He writes beautifully about his coach, his training, and his sparring practice. It turns out that it’s boxing that wins his first match for him, and he waxes poetic about the beauty of the jab, and the extreme efficiency of the jab – jab – cross combination.
It’s all here, desire and motivation, training, self-doubt, build up, fight and victory, followed by let-down, depression, and back to the gym. Rosenblatt ends the book wondering whether he’s going to retire after one fight, or fight on.
This is a good read for fight fans, I don’t know about civilians.
Rosenblatt decided he wanted to fight at age 33. He had a lot of past he wanted to work through, and his present of living the good life was far from fulfilling. He spent seven years preparing for his debut bout, studying various forms, and deciding it was mixed martial arts that would test him in the way he wanted. He was looking for maximum brutality. He got his first and only fight at age 40.
Rosenblatt’s writing strategy is also a maximum effort. He tells us about himself, his motivations and psychology, gives us a history of martial arts, and anecdotes galore. His wide open account of the terror of the ring is beautifully written. There’s a heavy dose of barroom philosophizing about humanity, manhood, and transcendence through physical violence, but only a few pages where the prose goes too purple, and I skipped those without missing a beat of narrative.
Fascinating from a fight perspective is his respect for the sweet science. He writes beautifully about his coach, his training, and his sparring practice. It turns out that it’s boxing that wins his first match for him, and he waxes poetic about the beauty of the jab, and the extreme efficiency of the jab – jab – cross combination.
It’s all here, desire and motivation, training, self-doubt, build up, fight and victory, followed by let-down, depression, and back to the gym. Rosenblatt ends the book wondering whether he’s going to retire after one fight, or fight on.
This is a good read for fight fans, I don’t know about civilians.
June 3, 2019
Perhaps because I find myself in a similar situation to Josh, perhaps the mesh of writer and wanna-be fighter in the flush of his 40s vigour, perhaps its the blend of biblical and melancholic, but this book really got me.
Its literary soul-searching is likely not for everyone. It certainly takes the roundabout route to explain why we fight, eventually concluding that "life is fighting to the point of incapacity and humiliation and shame, and beyond. Life is glorious failure". I'm not sure if that would be a sufficient answer to the reader searching for a rational answer to the question, but not does Josh claim to deliver that scientific rigour. Indeed, the science emerges throughout to be discounted in favour of the biblical, the menacing primal that lurks beneath it all. And I loved that.
There's a lot to like about this book in its honesty, in its attempt to encapsulate the struggle which stretches out 10 years into the past. And even further into what Josh describes as a dissolute life. It spoke to me. It won't necessarily speak to many, but perhaps it might. Understanding how a civilised writer might turn his hand to MMA is a story worth telling, and even better when told by the fighter himself with all of the poetry that seems to emerge from the ring. The cruel juxtaposition. The living that emerges from such proximity to death. There is no idealistic fantasy here, not pretence at chivalry or honour. It's brutal and it's glorious and it's lyrical all at once.
I loved it.
Its literary soul-searching is likely not for everyone. It certainly takes the roundabout route to explain why we fight, eventually concluding that "life is fighting to the point of incapacity and humiliation and shame, and beyond. Life is glorious failure". I'm not sure if that would be a sufficient answer to the reader searching for a rational answer to the question, but not does Josh claim to deliver that scientific rigour. Indeed, the science emerges throughout to be discounted in favour of the biblical, the menacing primal that lurks beneath it all. And I loved that.
There's a lot to like about this book in its honesty, in its attempt to encapsulate the struggle which stretches out 10 years into the past. And even further into what Josh describes as a dissolute life. It spoke to me. It won't necessarily speak to many, but perhaps it might. Understanding how a civilised writer might turn his hand to MMA is a story worth telling, and even better when told by the fighter himself with all of the poetry that seems to emerge from the ring. The cruel juxtaposition. The living that emerges from such proximity to death. There is no idealistic fantasy here, not pretence at chivalry or honour. It's brutal and it's glorious and it's lyrical all at once.
I loved it.
June 5, 2022
Astoundingly, tremendously bad. Self-congratulatory in a way that just keeps the skin crawling, this perpetual victim never grew out of his high school Bukowski phase. At 40. He talks about all of his drinking and addled self-abuse as though they are virtues -- ah, no junkie I, but rather a disaffected intellectual -- aggrandizing his cowardice as though it were an admirable trait up until he gets tricked into attending an MMA class.
He gets his shit rocked, of course, but desensitized as he is by the arrested development that led to his adolescent lifestyle, Peter Pan decides to stay in MMA and turn every sparring session into an elaborate psychodrama where he comes at his opponent as if it were an actual fight, and when they scale up their response (as every living combat sport participant does) he convinces himself it is due to antisemitism.
He also says 'soul' and 'decency' every other sentence, to talk about how decent he is, and how deep his soul. Over and over again. And how he fears the murderous instinct that may lie deep in his soul, under all the drunken cowardice, which, lest we forget, is only a function of his incredible decency.
That's as many words as I'm typing about this piece of shit book. I can't go purple enough to describe how bad it is. If you don't believe me, you can read it, but please don't pay for it. We can't reinforce this kind of behavior.
He gets his shit rocked, of course, but desensitized as he is by the arrested development that led to his adolescent lifestyle, Peter Pan decides to stay in MMA and turn every sparring session into an elaborate psychodrama where he comes at his opponent as if it were an actual fight, and when they scale up their response (as every living combat sport participant does) he convinces himself it is due to antisemitism.
He also says 'soul' and 'decency' every other sentence, to talk about how decent he is, and how deep his soul. Over and over again. And how he fears the murderous instinct that may lie deep in his soul, under all the drunken cowardice, which, lest we forget, is only a function of his incredible decency.
That's as many words as I'm typing about this piece of shit book. I can't go purple enough to describe how bad it is. If you don't believe me, you can read it, but please don't pay for it. We can't reinforce this kind of behavior.
March 12, 2019
I'm not particularly a fan of MMA nor boxing (although I was a fan of WWF like a bunch of other kids - Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, Macho Man era).
Bruce Lee wasn't my hero when I was growing up (more like Christian Slater type from Pump Up the Volume, 1990. Also, I should have watched Reality Bites when it came out in 1995. the 90s!). I have never considered being a fighter or practicing martial art until I started my strength training 2 years ago. I get used to training my body, exercising activities, and believing that - ough - body and mind are the same.
The author Josh Rosenblatt confessed that he had been a literature dilettante until he hit 33 years (maybe a symbolic age which once you passed that age without a magnum opus, without dying - suicide or/and drug addiction preferred - it's very clear that you're not a genius so you had better living forever) then started a martial art (Krav Maga). The book is about his personal journey and finished after his first MMA fight.
The great thing about this book: He is a writer and fighter so he writes with his personal experience so things get real.
Bruce Lee wasn't my hero when I was growing up (more like Christian Slater type from Pump Up the Volume, 1990. Also, I should have watched Reality Bites when it came out in 1995. the 90s!). I have never considered being a fighter or practicing martial art until I started my strength training 2 years ago. I get used to training my body, exercising activities, and believing that - ough - body and mind are the same.
The author Josh Rosenblatt confessed that he had been a literature dilettante until he hit 33 years (maybe a symbolic age which once you passed that age without a magnum opus, without dying - suicide or/and drug addiction preferred - it's very clear that you're not a genius so you had better living forever) then started a martial art (Krav Maga). The book is about his personal journey and finished after his first MMA fight.
The great thing about this book: He is a writer and fighter so he writes with his personal experience so things get real.
May 19, 2020
3.7. That's what I'd rate this book. So why do we fight? Even after reading the book, I'm not certain. But the author, a writer turned martial arts decides to find out by signing up for a single official MMA fight in the cage. This book follows his journey of what ensues beforehand. He attempts to find meaning in what it means to go on a path of "self-destruction" to engage in one of the most "archaic behaviors" that still continues to exist in our modern society. The book is a marriage between the brutal simplicity of fighting in its essence and the philosophies behind it to find out what it really means at the end of the day. Being someone with a history of combat sports, there were parts that I could definitely relate to. However, there were others that really made you think about it. What does it mean to get into a ring with someone, where their goal is to inflict damage on you? Unlike wrestling, judo,etc. this is a fight, where even more so than not your life and will are both on the line. I'd definitely recommend it to martial artists as I think they'd really be able to consider the information from a personal perspective.
October 12, 2019
Navel-gazing at its finest. Josh Rosenblatt follows somewhat of a cliche line of thinking and, after years of drinking, promiscuity, and general slothfulness, decides to dive into the world of fighting. He goes through roughly a year of reflection and training along with all the challenges along the way, taking detours into history and the philosophy of fighting.
It's a pretty simple and familiar formula. But it works for what it is. I got into martial arts for much the same reasons, with much the same ego and high expectations of myself.
At the end of the book, it's clear that this is a great big pro-fighting pamphlet. It says: modern life is full of confusion, lack of activity, weak and impersonal goals, and a surprising dearth of knowledge about oneself. Maybe try getting punched in the face? And punching someone else in the face? Maybe get choked or slammed or have your joints twisted? You might feel better for it.
And you know what? He's right.
Simple, quick, fun read.
It's a pretty simple and familiar formula. But it works for what it is. I got into martial arts for much the same reasons, with much the same ego and high expectations of myself.
At the end of the book, it's clear that this is a great big pro-fighting pamphlet. It says: modern life is full of confusion, lack of activity, weak and impersonal goals, and a surprising dearth of knowledge about oneself. Maybe try getting punched in the face? And punching someone else in the face? Maybe get choked or slammed or have your joints twisted? You might feel better for it.
And you know what? He's right.
Simple, quick, fun read.
August 21, 2020
An excellent book. I've been taking and teaching various martial arts for over 30 years, and I've often reflected on what you learn about yourself when you face someone else in combat (even sporting combat); Rosenblatt vocalizes many of things I've had floating around in my head for years, everything from the personal discoveries of training in martial arts to the feeling I had, as a Jew who is a trained fighter in the post-Charlottesville era. Written with clarity and honesty, I think everyone who has ever fight trained will find echoes of their own thoughts.
September 5, 2019
A memoir of an out of shape writer training for and fighting an MMA match.
This wasn't a bad book nor was it poorly written. There's a lot interesting things in here about history, psychology and physiology. It was just that the author got a little to overdramatic with his descriptions and musings. It became a little bit too self-abusive, if you know what i mean. Listening to this book I couldn't help roll my eyes several times.
Regardless, if you're into fighting and memoirs check it out.
This wasn't a bad book nor was it poorly written. There's a lot interesting things in here about history, psychology and physiology. It was just that the author got a little to overdramatic with his descriptions and musings. It became a little bit too self-abusive, if you know what i mean. Listening to this book I couldn't help roll my eyes several times.
Regardless, if you're into fighting and memoirs check it out.
April 19, 2021
Full five stars.. This book was fantastic and I couldn't put it down!
It's the account of someone who decided to take up combat sports relatively late in life. If you've got a passing interest in mixed martial arts you'll get something out of it, but it's definitely geared towards those more fascinated by the meaning behind fighting with a specific ruleset (hence the title).
It's well-researched too, the kind of book that's worth acquiring your own personal copy rather than borrowing someone elses (I know I'll be reading this again).
It's the account of someone who decided to take up combat sports relatively late in life. If you've got a passing interest in mixed martial arts you'll get something out of it, but it's definitely geared towards those more fascinated by the meaning behind fighting with a specific ruleset (hence the title).
It's well-researched too, the kind of book that's worth acquiring your own personal copy rather than borrowing someone elses (I know I'll be reading this again).
April 13, 2019
Very good, just not what I was expecting. This is primarily a memoir of the author's training for and eventually fighting in a sanctioned MMA match, with a lot of philosophical musings and history of all kinds of fighting, including a lot of boxing, thrown in. I went in thinking it was going to be more of a historical view of boxing - great fighters, books about the sport, portrayal in culture, etc. Good for what it is, and very entertaining, just didn't blow me away.
April 12, 2019
The book was an ok read.
A man of 40 prepares for his first MMA fight. Has great references to other fights and glimpses at history and wisdom of old.
But the writer wallows in his own self doubt, pity and loathing just too much and waffles quite a bit. Especially in chapter 7.
But entertaining and still worth a read.
Just my humble opinion
A man of 40 prepares for his first MMA fight. Has great references to other fights and glimpses at history and wisdom of old.
But the writer wallows in his own self doubt, pity and loathing just too much and waffles quite a bit. Especially in chapter 7.
But entertaining and still worth a read.
Just my humble opinion
April 30, 2019
I was worried this book would be too macho for me, but this isn't a book about masculine bravado. It's the opposite. It's a story of vulnerability, fear, self-knowledge, legacies, Jewishness, pain, and what it means to be alive with a brain and a body. It reads incredibly quickly, yet is lapidary throughout. I haven't underlined this much since reading Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts.
June 12, 2020
I liked what he said. I am not sure about the human nature of fighting and some bolder claims, but the man really did the research. Not to mention the sacrifice he took to get really deep into the matter. I for one love fighting sports, and see his point, but this book is useful for others that don't really enjoy this type of sport.
January 27, 2019
I don't like boxing or mma, but I really liked this book. Josh's writing style is great and it's a pleasure to read someone writing well about something he loves
May 31, 2021
The most eloquent average book I've read.
October 19, 2019
Josh Rosenblatt's memoir, Why We Fight: One Man's Search for Meaning Inside the Ring, is an experimental blend of narrative sports writing and reflective, mid-life male psychology wrapped up in a short, punchy package. It is clear from the start that he values his writing far more than his fighting, and the journey which he relates is one of self-exploration and testing the limits of his own abilities – both body and psyche – rather than a genuine foray into the fight game.
Indeed, while Rosenblatt's yarn of hitting and getting hit is authentic, his year-long training regimen and one-fight finale feels very much like it was constructed to be fodder for a story, like Gallico and Plimpton before him. Ironically, the author's interstitial vignettes of the fascinating characters he encounters in the gym and even the awkwardly-placed snippets of literary and fighting history tend to convey more gravity and insight than the personal experiences and perspectives that he chronicles.
This book is a personal journey, of course, and therefore it winds around and sometimes trips over Rosenblatt's crises of identity and mid-life agency: his struggles with alcoholism, his relationship with his deceased father, and his sharp feelings about religion and politics. These reflections are the least deft of the work, and while they function as emotional antagonists to fuel his ordeal of training and discovery leading up to the fight, they ultimately fail to conjure any real empathy – these are the reasons he fights (read: writes), not why we fight.
It is here that the book does not quite deliver on what it promises on the cover. Why We Fight is an autobiographical toe in the spit bucket of mixed martial-arts by an intellectual well past his fighting prime. It might be going too far to say that its targeted audience would not find much of value within, but much of the content features flamboyant literary references and poetic reflections upon existential concepts to which the standard 16 to 28-year-old fighter could have difficulty relating. Furthermore, the only thing that happens in Rosenblatt's titular "ring" is some sparring in the months before his fight. As the fighting style with which he chooses to engage is MMA and not boxing, the culmination of the story naturally takes place in a cage.
It so happens that this reviewer shares some of the salient context of the author's yarn, and for this reason I was pleased to have read it. In a similar fashion, I experimented with amateur boxing in my late twenties and trained both inside and out for two years leading up to my first official fight. Along the way, I knew the experience was not a deep dive but a try-out – something to help me understand what others go through and to learn more about myself. Perhaps also like the author, I stopped fighting shortly thereafter because I was old (in boxing years) and I needed my senses intact to follow the academic track on which I was already well along.
Carrying forward with Rosenblatt's conveyance of why we fight, however, our experiences quickly diverge. His narrative keeps coming back to struggles with addiction and the regrettable sacrifice of joy to get into fighting shape. He focuses on the act of violence as a primary draw for motivating the combatant, and repeatedly references the need to harness the misery and boredom of training against one's eventual opponent. Cultivating deprivation and abstinence into rage against another human being as the embodiment of everything one hates is the author's explicit motivation. None of these things represent an iota of why I fought. However violent this sport, the real combat that is recounted herein is clearly one within the protagonist's psyche.
Josh Rosenblatt is a gifted writer with a real head on his shoulders, and ultimately I am glad he has chosen to preserve it rather than to subject his 40-year-old body to a continued trajectory of blows and bruises. May he live to write another day.
Indeed, while Rosenblatt's yarn of hitting and getting hit is authentic, his year-long training regimen and one-fight finale feels very much like it was constructed to be fodder for a story, like Gallico and Plimpton before him. Ironically, the author's interstitial vignettes of the fascinating characters he encounters in the gym and even the awkwardly-placed snippets of literary and fighting history tend to convey more gravity and insight than the personal experiences and perspectives that he chronicles.
This book is a personal journey, of course, and therefore it winds around and sometimes trips over Rosenblatt's crises of identity and mid-life agency: his struggles with alcoholism, his relationship with his deceased father, and his sharp feelings about religion and politics. These reflections are the least deft of the work, and while they function as emotional antagonists to fuel his ordeal of training and discovery leading up to the fight, they ultimately fail to conjure any real empathy – these are the reasons he fights (read: writes), not why we fight.
It is here that the book does not quite deliver on what it promises on the cover. Why We Fight is an autobiographical toe in the spit bucket of mixed martial-arts by an intellectual well past his fighting prime. It might be going too far to say that its targeted audience would not find much of value within, but much of the content features flamboyant literary references and poetic reflections upon existential concepts to which the standard 16 to 28-year-old fighter could have difficulty relating. Furthermore, the only thing that happens in Rosenblatt's titular "ring" is some sparring in the months before his fight. As the fighting style with which he chooses to engage is MMA and not boxing, the culmination of the story naturally takes place in a cage.
It so happens that this reviewer shares some of the salient context of the author's yarn, and for this reason I was pleased to have read it. In a similar fashion, I experimented with amateur boxing in my late twenties and trained both inside and out for two years leading up to my first official fight. Along the way, I knew the experience was not a deep dive but a try-out – something to help me understand what others go through and to learn more about myself. Perhaps also like the author, I stopped fighting shortly thereafter because I was old (in boxing years) and I needed my senses intact to follow the academic track on which I was already well along.
Carrying forward with Rosenblatt's conveyance of why we fight, however, our experiences quickly diverge. His narrative keeps coming back to struggles with addiction and the regrettable sacrifice of joy to get into fighting shape. He focuses on the act of violence as a primary draw for motivating the combatant, and repeatedly references the need to harness the misery and boredom of training against one's eventual opponent. Cultivating deprivation and abstinence into rage against another human being as the embodiment of everything one hates is the author's explicit motivation. None of these things represent an iota of why I fought. However violent this sport, the real combat that is recounted herein is clearly one within the protagonist's psyche.
Josh Rosenblatt is a gifted writer with a real head on his shoulders, and ultimately I am glad he has chosen to preserve it rather than to subject his 40-year-old body to a continued trajectory of blows and bruises. May he live to write another day.
June 4, 2019
Clippings
A thousand beatings would have been better. In the Book of Revelation, God condemns cowards to spend eternity in a lake of fire alongside the “unbelieving and the abominable, and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters, and all liars.” In Dante’s Inferno, cowardly souls are so universally loathed, they aren’t even allowed into hell. They have to hover for eternity at its gates, barred from crossing the River Acheron, allowed neither in nor out, condemned for the sin of having no conviction, of living without “infamy or praise,” of never really having been alive at all. “These of death no hope may entertain,” Virgil tells Dante, urging him past the lowly band with their lamentations and moans, “and their blind life so meanly passes that all other lots they envy. Fame of them the world hath none, nor suffer. Mercy and Justice scorn them both.” Cowardice drains the life out of human beings; it turns them into shadows and makes them contemptible and hateful, something we turn away from instinctually.
John Marcher, the protagonist of Henry James’s “The Beast in the Jungle,” spends his entire life waiting for the arrival of the catastrophe he’s convinced he’s fated to experience, only to discover in the end that the calamity he was doomed to suffer was the realization that he’d wasted his life waiting for it. The Beast had lurked indeed, and the Beast, at its hour, had sprung.
An active amygdala under stress stimulates a region of the brain stem called the locus ceruleus to send noradrenaline to the prefrontal cortex, which becomes more active and focused.
Without alcohol life ceases to be stimulating or enjoyable. The glimmer is gone. Sufferers drink now not to get high but merely to feel normal. Some neuroscientists call this the “transition to the dark side.”
Boxers in Ancient Greece practiced sexual abstinence and extreme self-control, believing sperm was a source of masculinity and strength and not to be tossed away frivolously. Before fights, a boxer would tie up the foreskin of his penis with a small piece of string called a kynodesme to prove his restraint. Kleitomachos, a Theban fighter who won the boxing competition at the 216 and 212 BCE Olympic Games, was famous for his devotion to asceticism and sexual abstinence. Legend has it that he would refuse to participate in conversations about sex and even turned his head away when he saw dogs mating. Kynodesme is the Greek word for a dog’s leash.
Another side effect of all that dopamine and norepinephrine is the distortion of time called tachypsychia, from the Greek for “fast consciousness.” The mind is moving so quickly, the outside world slows down.
And all it took to wake it up was a willingness to risk the destruction of the body—to discover the soul through the body, like Walt Whitman! For the first time in my life I felt entirely undiminished and unchecked, unmitigated, untouched, beyond the reach of anxiety and self-awareness and even my own poisonous psychic influence to mar. Behold, the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern, and includes and is the soul.
Pankration, the ancient precursor to modern-day mixed martial arts, took its name from the Greek word for “all powers.” With its blend of boxing and wrestling, pankration was the toughest sport in a brutal age. Fights ended when one fighter surrendered, lost consciousness, or died. During one match in 564 BCE, champion Arrhachion of Philgaleia got caught in a chokehold and was about to slip into unconsciousness when he managed to wrench his opponent’s left ankle out of its socket. The pain was too much for Arrhachion’s opponent and he submitted. By the time the referee pulled Arrhachion from the chokehold, however, the champion was dead. The victory crown was placed on his corpse.
A thousand beatings would have been better. In the Book of Revelation, God condemns cowards to spend eternity in a lake of fire alongside the “unbelieving and the abominable, and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters, and all liars.” In Dante’s Inferno, cowardly souls are so universally loathed, they aren’t even allowed into hell. They have to hover for eternity at its gates, barred from crossing the River Acheron, allowed neither in nor out, condemned for the sin of having no conviction, of living without “infamy or praise,” of never really having been alive at all. “These of death no hope may entertain,” Virgil tells Dante, urging him past the lowly band with their lamentations and moans, “and their blind life so meanly passes that all other lots they envy. Fame of them the world hath none, nor suffer. Mercy and Justice scorn them both.” Cowardice drains the life out of human beings; it turns them into shadows and makes them contemptible and hateful, something we turn away from instinctually.
John Marcher, the protagonist of Henry James’s “The Beast in the Jungle,” spends his entire life waiting for the arrival of the catastrophe he’s convinced he’s fated to experience, only to discover in the end that the calamity he was doomed to suffer was the realization that he’d wasted his life waiting for it. The Beast had lurked indeed, and the Beast, at its hour, had sprung.
An active amygdala under stress stimulates a region of the brain stem called the locus ceruleus to send noradrenaline to the prefrontal cortex, which becomes more active and focused.
Without alcohol life ceases to be stimulating or enjoyable. The glimmer is gone. Sufferers drink now not to get high but merely to feel normal. Some neuroscientists call this the “transition to the dark side.”
Boxers in Ancient Greece practiced sexual abstinence and extreme self-control, believing sperm was a source of masculinity and strength and not to be tossed away frivolously. Before fights, a boxer would tie up the foreskin of his penis with a small piece of string called a kynodesme to prove his restraint. Kleitomachos, a Theban fighter who won the boxing competition at the 216 and 212 BCE Olympic Games, was famous for his devotion to asceticism and sexual abstinence. Legend has it that he would refuse to participate in conversations about sex and even turned his head away when he saw dogs mating. Kynodesme is the Greek word for a dog’s leash.
Another side effect of all that dopamine and norepinephrine is the distortion of time called tachypsychia, from the Greek for “fast consciousness.” The mind is moving so quickly, the outside world slows down.
And all it took to wake it up was a willingness to risk the destruction of the body—to discover the soul through the body, like Walt Whitman! For the first time in my life I felt entirely undiminished and unchecked, unmitigated, untouched, beyond the reach of anxiety and self-awareness and even my own poisonous psychic influence to mar. Behold, the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern, and includes and is the soul.
Pankration, the ancient precursor to modern-day mixed martial arts, took its name from the Greek word for “all powers.” With its blend of boxing and wrestling, pankration was the toughest sport in a brutal age. Fights ended when one fighter surrendered, lost consciousness, or died. During one match in 564 BCE, champion Arrhachion of Philgaleia got caught in a chokehold and was about to slip into unconsciousness when he managed to wrench his opponent’s left ankle out of its socket. The pain was too much for Arrhachion’s opponent and he submitted. By the time the referee pulled Arrhachion from the chokehold, however, the champion was dead. The victory crown was placed on his corpse.
August 21, 2020
Many moons ago, founder of "The Paris Review" George Plimpton decided that the best way to write about boxing was to get into the ring with a great boxer named Archie Moore (who, thankfully, wasn't a one-punch KO artist). Archie "the Old Mongoose" Moore peppered Mr. Plimpton with his jab and straightened him with crosses. According to the story, sometime after his sparring session, George Plimpton was walking around with blood from the fight still on his shirt, when the writer James Baldwin saw him. James noted the blood, asked, "Is that black blood or white blood?"
"Blue blood," Plimpton replied.
Author Josh Rosenblatt's blood is not blue, but rather (by his own estimation) the blood of a neurotic, if not an outright coward. One day he sees a mixed martial arts fight on television, and is fascinated and yet repulsed by his fascination. His interest (carefully hidden from his well-educated friends and wife) sheds into obsession and he sneaks off to a live show in Texas to watch two nondescript young men pummel each other senseless. Somewhere along the line he gets the idea to train and engage in a professional mixed martial arts fight himself.
"Why we Fight," is the chronicle of his journey, from a rank amateur to a ranked fighter (albeit admittedly ranked somewhere near the bottom of the 150 registered welterweights in his region). Along the way he marshals mythology, literature, science, and anecdotes from his own life to try to answer the question posed in the title of his book. Why do we fight?
His attempts to answer the question yield some true insights, perhaps some wisdom, and several stretches of truly brilliant writing. The portions on ageing, of being on the cusp of middle-age and both envying and hating his younger opponents, were especially stellar. Sometimes, though, the aforementioned neuroses can be a bit grating (he confesses to a desire to do bodily harm to gentiles to avenge historical grievances too many times), and at his weakest he can be a bit of a sophist and a soapboxer. But overall the book is worth your time, if you are interested in combat sports, masculinity, immersive journalism, or simply top flight writing. Recommended.
"Blue blood," Plimpton replied.
Author Josh Rosenblatt's blood is not blue, but rather (by his own estimation) the blood of a neurotic, if not an outright coward. One day he sees a mixed martial arts fight on television, and is fascinated and yet repulsed by his fascination. His interest (carefully hidden from his well-educated friends and wife) sheds into obsession and he sneaks off to a live show in Texas to watch two nondescript young men pummel each other senseless. Somewhere along the line he gets the idea to train and engage in a professional mixed martial arts fight himself.
"Why we Fight," is the chronicle of his journey, from a rank amateur to a ranked fighter (albeit admittedly ranked somewhere near the bottom of the 150 registered welterweights in his region). Along the way he marshals mythology, literature, science, and anecdotes from his own life to try to answer the question posed in the title of his book. Why do we fight?
His attempts to answer the question yield some true insights, perhaps some wisdom, and several stretches of truly brilliant writing. The portions on ageing, of being on the cusp of middle-age and both envying and hating his younger opponents, were especially stellar. Sometimes, though, the aforementioned neuroses can be a bit grating (he confesses to a desire to do bodily harm to gentiles to avenge historical grievances too many times), and at his weakest he can be a bit of a sophist and a soapboxer. But overall the book is worth your time, if you are interested in combat sports, masculinity, immersive journalism, or simply top flight writing. Recommended.
November 11, 2025
a book trying to trace back the history of fighting to its cultural, chemical and personal routes. what draws someone to fight someone else? should we be afraid, or intrigued? surrounded by history and science, we follow our author on his mission to compete in an amateur MMA fight, and the way he explains such a raw experience is quite eloquent. a poet fighter using all his muscles to find the story in his life. not usually really into non fiction, but this called to me on a lonely library shelf and I'm so glad I gave it a read.
"We're most exposed when we're trying. What a cruel metaphor fighting is." (page 187)
"We're most exposed when we're trying. What a cruel metaphor fighting is." (page 187)
October 30, 2021
Belongs to the garbage bin. The guy thinks he is Marciano (for having won a fight). After the fight ,he feels love for everyone, well would he have felt the same if he had lost. His only fight is presented as if this is movie script of a world champion.
He thinks his race and his father were sissies for not adopting his life views. Still thinks that he is being haunted by the ghosts of his race. Victim mentality. Head bloated with lots of weirdness which he spills out on pages as if poetry.
He thinks his race and his father were sissies for not adopting his life views. Still thinks that he is being haunted by the ghosts of his race. Victim mentality. Head bloated with lots of weirdness which he spills out on pages as if poetry.
July 10, 2023
Really good, cutting nonfiction writing, even if you don’t care about martial arts. Part history, part anatomy, part personal journey, the latter of which really resonated with me as someone who also got into fighting sports later in life.
June 19, 2024
Tiresome and turgid, though not without a handful of inspired passages. The author is clearly an egocentric ruminative mess, though found find his discipline and drive in preparing for a fight, and notwithstanding his lack of mental fortitude, quite inspiring
July 28, 2024
Fun read. Pointed me toward gratitude in knowing the purpose of life after hearing him wrestle with his own lack of clarity and insatiable thirst for the good life. He was trying to touch the sublime and Christ offers this true connection fully and forever.
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