Situated next to Pancho Villa Mexican Restaurant, in the quaint Long Island city of Huntington, N.Y., stands the family-owned independent book store, Book Revue. The book store is notorious for hosting celebrity authors…and last night was no exception.
The man of the hour was Forrest Griffin, who is launching a 12-day, five-city tour in support of the release of his new book “Got Fight? The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat.”
Forrest had the crowd of nearly 100 slightly starstruck fans in stitches from the opening comment on. As the crowd applauded the former light heavyweight champion quipped, “Calm down, it’s not going to be that good. Take some of those claps back.”
Forrest enjoyed himself, and the microphone, too much as he answered audience questions with his normal blend of biting sarcasm, self deprecating humor and down-to-earth personality.
The political science major delivered lines like:
“I have had many prostitutes tell me that, if you don’t know what were talking about you really don’t want to, If I start singing some Guns ‘N Roses don’t be alarmed, they make me fight good people unfortunately…I’d rather fight you guys out there, I am an Olympic-level mall walker…it took the place of wresting in high school, any sport where putting your finger on another man’s anus is legal is not a sport I want to engage in, my p*n*s isn’t that small…I’m not that insecure about things, I’ve made hundreds of dollars doing this, literally, hundreds of dollars and obviously your boyfriend doesn’t beat you and if he doesn’t hit you hard enough.”
(For Forest’s sake and mine, all quotes will not be taken out of context).
In addition to displaying real stand up comic talent, Griffin showed why he is not only a great fighter, but a real person.
“There are two things I want to be able to know when I walk into a fight, or with anything in life. And I’m not Superman, I’m not even that great at fighting. Those two things are: I have done everything in my power to prepare for this and I will not quit, no matter what.”
After that, Forrest got back to business by calling out such MMA stalwarts as Bob Costas, Bill O’ Reilly, and Bill Maher, along with the kid that repeatedly beat him up in high school. For the record, Forrest said he looks forward to another fight with “Rampage.”
When asked what he thought about Shogun getting the next title shot, Forrest joked, “Good for him. I would rather fight him than Machida. Maybe the 2005 version of Shogun shows up, does some crazy spin kicks, and wins. We’ll see.”
When asked about what Dana White said to him in regard to his upcoming fight with Anderson Silva, and Silva’s last two tepid performances, Forrest delivered.
“Dana proposed the fight to me and I said, ‘I am not just going to rush in there, I saw what happened to Chris Leben when he did that. I am going to fight a smart fight.' Dana said, 'even when you fight a smart fight, its a fight. That’s what was said on the topic.'"
Other than that, they wanted a big slow guy to follow Anderson Silva around and make him look good. They’re like Forrest is a big slow guy and he takes a beating well. Seriously though, for 100 G’s, what are you going to say, no? Of course I will fight the guy, it’s only 15 minutes. What’s the worst that could happen?
I asked myself that same question when, prior to the audience Q&A, this “journalist” got to go backstage where the true debauchery happens, and talk with the man himself for a brief five minutes.
I asked Forrest about “the devil in the pocket protector,” Machida: the theory squasher, and what the post-MMA version of Forrest will do.
Check it out.
Brian Oswald: Forrest, how are you doing today?
Forrest Griffin: Was that question part of the interview? Let me get back to you on that one.
Brian Oswald: You excited about this book review and talking to all your fans out there?
Forrest Griffin: Yeah, I am relatively excited, should be good. Most of these people haven’t read or seen the book yet so it might not be what some of them think it is.
Brian Oswald
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