Combat Memoirs

With a string of punishing victories and an undefeated record, the UFC has been left reeling, wondering where this MMA superstar came from. Coming from the independent state of Dagestan, Khabib has spent his whole life training for his career in MMA. From brutal training sessions in the mountains with his father to wrestling training starting at eight-years-old, Khabib’s style has been the result of a life devoted to one thing, becoming the most dominant MMA fighter on the planet.

For 21 years, Dan Russell trained for four to six hours a day, six days a week in pursuit of winning an Olympic Gold medal in the sport of wrestling. He pushed his body to the limits, enduring brutal weight loss regimens, shattering injuries, personal tragedy, and constant inner battles with the voices from his past telling him that he wasn't good enough.

For countless fans of professional wrestling and mixed martial arts, Brock Lesnar has long been known for his freakish athleticism, mind-blowing speed, and meteoric rise to the top. Yet despite the fame and fortune that have come with his enormous success, Brock has shunned the media, choosing instead to remain intensely private about his life and his accomplishments. Now, for the first time, he tells his remarkable story in his own words, describing the journey from his South Dakota farmboy roots to becoming the most popular pay-per-view attraction in the world.

On January 5, 1971, Sonny Liston was found dead in his home - of an apparent heroin overdose. But no one close to Liston believed that his death was accidental. Digging deep into a life that Liston tried hard to hide, Shaun Assael treats the boxer's death as a cold case. The result is a riveting whodunit that evokes a glorious and grimy era of Las Vegas.

This is the riveting true story of Paul Martelli, a 15-year-old German-Italian who fought in Pomerania, on the Eastern Front, in 1945 as a member of the 33rd Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS "Charlemagne" and later as a soldier with French forces during three years (1951-1954) in the Tonkin area, Vietnam.

Bartley Gorman was the greatest bareknuckle fighter of modern times. He reigned as King of the Gypsies for 20 years, beating all comers in illegal contests at fairs and racetracks, down mineshafts and in quarries, on campsites and car parks. He fought for honour and pride and became a legend among the travelling community.

In 2005, Brad Balukjian left his position as a magazine fact-checker to pursue a dream job: partner with his childhood hero, The Iron Sheik (whose real name was Khosrow Vaziri), to write his biography. Things quickly went south, culminating in the Sheik threatening Balukjian’s life. Now seventeen years later, Balukjian returns to the road in search of not only a reunion with the Sheik, but something much bigger: truth in a world built on illusion.

Dan Hardy's first book is much more than a straightforward MMA autobiography. Taking the key fights from his career, Hardy explores the sport with the unparalleled insight that has made him the best analyst working today, from training in China with Shaolin monks to how MMA helped him channel his rage, to psychedelics and the ceremony in Peru that changed his life, to tapping in to his 'reptilian brain' and the psychological warfare of UFC, to his epic title fight with Georges St-Pierre.

David R. “Buff” Honodel was a cocky young man with an inflated self-image when he arrived in 1969 at his base in Udorn, Thailand. His war was not in Vietnam; it was a secret one in the skies of a neighboring country almost unknown in America, attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail that fed soldiers and supplies from North Vietnam into the South. Stateside he learned the art of flying the F-4, but in combat, the bomb-loaded fighter handled differently, targets shot back, and people suffered. Inert training ordnance was replaced by lethal weapons.

In this work of sporting and social history we have a biography of Canadian-born, Boston-raised boxer George Dixon (1870–1908), the first Black world champion of any sport and the first Black world boxing champion in any division. George Dixon: The Short Life of Boxing’s First Black World Champion, 1870–1908 chronicles the life of the most consequential Black athlete of the nineteenth century. Yet despite his triumphs, Dixon has been lost to history, overshadowed by Black athletes whose activism against white supremacy far exceeded his own.

Eugene Bullard lived one of the most fascinating lives of the 20th century. The son of a former slave and an indigenous Creek woman, Bullard fled home at the age of 11 to escape the racial hostility of his Georgia community. When his journey led him to Europe, he garnered worldwide fame as a boxer, and later as the first African-American fighter pilot in history. After the war, Bullard returned to Paris a celebrated hero. But little did he know that the dramatic, globe-spanning arc of his life had just begun.

The Champ: Terry Downes - known as 'The Paddington Express' - was a world champion boxer, US Marine, gangsters' favourite and latter-day film star and businessman. The Chump: James McNicholas' PE teacher once told him he was so unfit he'd be dead by the time he was 23. James has spent his life pursuing a career in acting and comedy. In reality, that has meant spells working as a painter-decorator and river cruise salesperson. After Terry's death, James finds himself in reflective mood, comparing how he's doing in life to how his grandad was at that age.

In Muhammad Ali, Michael Ezra considers the boxer who calls himself “The Greatest” from a new perspective. Ezra’s incisive study examines the relationships between Ali’s cultural appeal and its commercial manifestations. Citing examples of the boxer’s relationship to the Vietnam War and the Nation of Islam - which serve as barometers of his “public moral authority” - Muhammad Ali analyzes the difficulties of creating and maintaining these cultural images, as well as the impact these themes have on Ali’s meaning to the public.

The battle between Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns is remembered as one of the greatest fights of all time. But in the months before the two finally collided on April 15, 1985, there was a feeling in the air that boxing was in trouble.

Dr Dan Pronk served on over 100 combat missions in Afghanistan as a frontline special forces combat doctor, where the casualties he treated were his fellow SAS soldiers and commandos, local civilians and even the enemy. The thrill of adventure and the challenges of battlefield medicine brought out the very best in Dan; he discovered a sense of purpose in pushing his medical skills and courage to the limits. But there was a cost. In this frank memoir, Dan describes the highs and lows of his military-medical career, and the very real toll they took on his mental health and family life.

A larger-than-life working-class hero, Romford born and bred—always ready with the perfect soundbite—Barry Hearn was famously described as 'roguish but never a rogue'. Hearn is credited with turning snooker into one of the biggest sports in Britain. He essentially turned a sport in which competitors wear bowties into a massive globally televised event. Away from the table, his promotions empire casts its net over a dozen sports—from professional boxing to darts, fishing to 10-pin bowling—and his career spans four decades.

Join Eddie 'The Beast' Hall for 10 rounds in this audio original as we follow his incredible journey from the world's strongest man to competing in 'The Heaviest Boxing Match in History' in Florida, September 2021. Featuring raw training diaries, 10 rounds of mental preparation, documentary clips and exclusive podcast style interviews with iconic friends on mental strength including Ross Edgley, James Haskell, Paddy McGuinness, his family and inner circle.

Paris is firing all its ammunition into the August night. Against a vast backdrop of water and stone, on both sides of a river awash with history, freedom’s barricades are once again being erected. Once again justice must be redeemed with men’s blood. Albert Camus (1913-1960) wrote these words in August 1944, as Paris was being liberated from German occupation. Although best known for his novels including The Stranger and The Plague, it was his vivid descriptions of the horrors of the occupation and his passionate defense of freedom that in fact launched his public fame.

With the success of the critically acclaimed, Academy Award-winning film The Fighter, the world stood up and cheered for the inspiring true story of Micky Ward - a heart-and-soul warrior who overcame the odds to make history in the ring. But that was only part of the tale.… Now, in his own words, “Irish” Micky Ward tells his inspirational life story as only he can. From his first bout at the age of seven, Micky Ward was known first and foremost for giving as good as he got, and for leaving absolutely everything he had in the ring.

Muhammad Ali, in the late 1960s, was young, successful, brash, and hugely admired - but with some reservations. He was bombastic and cocky in a way that captured the imagination of America but also drew its detractors. He was a bold young African American in an era when few people were as outspoken. He renounced his name - Cassius Clay - as being his 'slave name' and joined the Nation of Islam, renaming himself Muhammad Ali. And finally, in 1966, after being drafted, he refused to join the military for religious and conscientious reasons.