This is easily the worst put together book I have ever seen (and I've seen a fair amount of self-published books).
Not only did they clearly not hire an editor, it doesn't even seem possible that three people could be billed as author since the book stinks of not having a second pair of eyes review things. I suppose maybe they each wrote a chunk and pieced it all together.
Overall, the book is poorly written. There are innumerable poorly structured sentences and unclear points being made. There are dozens of spelling errors. On one page, with three paragraphs, the second paragraph's font is randomly different than the rest of the book. The standard for footnotes changes at random (sometimes billed with numbers, sometimes given immediately, etc.) At no point is the standard use of a footnote (a superscript number) used. In things I know about, such as the UFC, there are a few instances of straight factual mistakes (such as billing Stephan Bonnar as the winner of the first TuF) which worry me considering it's a book on history. A section on Josh Barnett reads as follows:
Josh went on to defeat Pride Fighting Championship veteran fighter Gilbert Yvel at Afflicion : Day of Reckoning[yup, they misspelled affliction]. Josh was expected to have an upcoming fight against Fedor Emelianenko. This fight was cancelled however Josh went on to win in his weight class (superheavyweight) at the World Jiu Jitsu No Gi Championships in November of 2009.[yup, there are no commas in this sentence in the book either]
Very classy, "the fight was cancelled", not, "Josh Barnett wasn't allowed to fight because he was caught doing steroids for the second time". Very comforting to see them leave out a pertinent piece of information about someone who is affiliated with the authors -- especially considering the subject matter is absolutely full of hyperbole and false information (kayfabe and whatnot).
The tone of the book is like one big CACC IS BETTER THAN BJJ thread on Sherdog. The common complaint that so and so hold (such as the kimura) existed in CACC before judo is sprinkled in the book from time to time. Yet, when describing the matches, wrestling terminology is used and incomprehensible to me -- never is it even explained in detail let alone a picture provided. I have been training BJJ for 4.5 years and consumed more than my fare share of forum posts and wikipedia articles and videos in wrestling, sambo, judo, and even a little bit of catch wrestling, but there was plenty of shit I didn't understand. The authors could have taken the opportunity to take some original pictures to demo the holds used in famous matches, but they didn't. There is a picture section but other than what could easily be a cell phone camera pic with one of the authors and Gene LeBell, none of the pictures seem original but instead something grabbed off Google Images -- I'm baffled they couldn't bother to ask the people they've interviewed (or even Erik Paulson couldn't shown some of his own pictures) for some original pictures to publish.
I love -- believe me, love -- reading about the history of grappling whether in the US, Japan, Russia, Brazil, etc. This book was mildly amusing in the section discussing carnival wrestlers I hadn't heard of before, such as John Pesek. The rest is easily found elsewhere if you put a little time to search around Wikipedia or other places and despite the premonitions you might have about getting your "history" from a "published book" rather than a random Internet site, I would expect better writing in any random website (yes, the bar is that low -- somewhere slightly above intelligent forum post).
To the authors: I applaud your interest in using your resources to spread information about forgotten times, but shame on you for putting this out and charging people money for it. You are simply fleecing people who are denizens of catch wrestling and would consume any content put out, and not at all being respectful of their interest or acclaim.
Edit:
I forgot one thing I wanted to mention. At one point in the book an athlete is applauded for not tapping to a submission hold in a match and going out. Of course, if the authors feel that way it's their book and there's no reason they can't include it, but I personally think this point of view has no place in modern grappling and perpetuating the respect and tribute paid towards athletes who do not tap does a disservice to the sport and is just generally despicable behavior. Obviously this sort of thing is too common now and was far more common the further we go back, but these things can be relayed without voicing an opinion on it.
Oh, and for no reason whatsoever Jon Jones and Clay Guida are "claimed" as catch wrestlers at the end of the book with no explanation in the section as to why, other than the fact that they wrestle. If they have some catch wrestling in their background that I don't know of, awesome, but it certainly isn't in the book -- and simply having an amateur wrestling background doesn't really seem sufficient since MMA is full of a huge number of amateur wrestlers who come from more esteem than those two.
I could go on and on with problems for this book. Really, they should just stop selling it and hire a fucking editor and fact checker and re-release it when it's a book and not an amateur blog.
