The intersection of combat sports
Welcome to Hybrid Shoot, a newsletter for and by hardcore fans.
This year marks a pretty big change in my life as a writer. After almost a decade with Bleacher Report, where I had the opportunity to talk to many of my idols (including men like Dusty Rhodes, Kazushi Sakuraba and Greg Jackson), I’m moving on to new challenges.
This will be mostly in the form of book projects—as you may have seen last week, Jason Langendorf and I will be writing a book about heavyweight boxing in the 1980’s and 90’s. It was an exciting time in the sport that should be a lot of fun to document in great detail.
More books are in the works and I won’t be shy about sharing those with you when the time comes.
But, as much as I love concentrating on these long form explorations of a person or time period, I’ve gotten used to sharing my thoughts and experiences on a more regular basis.
I get asked a lot about what will come next for me in the online space. The truth is, as much as it hurt at the time, being part of the amazing team downsized at Bleacher Report ended up being liberating. It was an exciting time, full of amazing experiences. I rode on the fighter bus to weigh ins with Rashad Evans for a story, went to a converted storage space in the middle of nowhere Alabama to meet Deontay Wilder, dropped the first MMA story to ever hit the lead spot on CNN.com and went hunting for ghost towns in the New Mexico desert with Greg Jackson.
As lovely as it all was, I had grown exhausted by the daily grind of the beat and forgotten what it was like to just be a fan and a regular person, someone who could sit down after work and just exist instead of immediately worrying about the next deadline or story pitch.
And, let’s face it, I suffer from an overwhelming desire to tell people what I think and to share some of the things I’ve learned over the years with interested readers.
That’s where this newsletter comes in.
Every week (at a minimum), I plan to write about the things in the wild and wooly world of combat sports that excite, interest and infuriate me. Along the way, I’ll talk to the athletes and decision makers who shape our experience as fans.
And I’ll make a bunch of lists.
So many lists.
I’m not sure what final form this experiment will take. There may be podcasts, e-books and more coming soon. Or maybe not! Either way, it’s absolutely free to sign up and I encourage you to do so.