W&J scholar swaps office for fighting cage
Jonathan Gottschall of Washington trained in MMA fighting and wrote a book about his experiences and the history of sports-oriented violence.
Jonathan Gottschall, a former Washington & Jefferson College professor, experienced his first MMA cage fight in Johnstown in 2012 against Justin McCloskey.
Washington & Jefferson College distinguished fellow Jonathan Gottschall has published his seventh book, “The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch.”
Jonathan Gottschall felt sick to his stomach.
He and his friends watched the TV screen as Gerard Gordeau, a skinny Dutchman with a black belt in karate, delivered a swift, tooth-crunching kick to Hawaiian sumo wrestler Teila Tuli’s face. Pieces of Gordeau’s opponent were still embedded in his foot at the conclusion of the first televised UFC fight in 1993.
“What kind of savage would want to watch this?” Gottschall, of Washington, thought to himself at the time. Two decades later, he got some unexpected answers.
Gottschall, a distinguished fellow in the English department at Washington & Jefferson College, swapped his cubicle for a fighting cage when he started training at Mark Shrader’s mixed martial arts studio on East Maiden Street. A book he wrote about his experience, entitled “The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like To Watch,” was published by Penguin Press in April.
He described the book as two parts history and anthropology, with a dash of self-discovery akin to a non-fiction version of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel “Fight Club,” which was adapted into a film starring Brad Pitt.
But at its core, Gottschall’s book is about masculinity and what that means in a world that often endorses – and enjoys – violence.
“As much as we hate to admit it, I think there’s a creature in us that likes violence, that’s attracted to it, at least under certain conditions,” he said. “We all say we hate violence, it makes us sick, and yet, we turn on the TV at night and we just consume it.”
The most surprising part of his experience was discovering just how much he enjoyed MMA. From his office window in the English department, he used to watch the men at Shrader’s studio dodging and delivering blows – an adrenaline-packed dance that looked like torture, he recalled.
Although he had never been in a fight – or perhaps because of it – he also felt drawn to the sport. He was feeling disillusioned with his career as an adjunct professor, even though he had already published six books, one of which dealt with the science and history of violence. He began to recall painful moments from his childhood when he was bullied, and when he failed to fight back.
“I wanted to fight because I’d always admired physical courage, and yet I’d never done a brave thing,” he wrote in the book’s preface. “I wanted to fight, I suppose, for one of the main reasons men have always fought: to discover if I was a coward.”
Shrader said he was initially taken aback by Gottschall, who was approaching 40 when he came to Shrader with an interest in cage fighting. However, Shrader quickly embraced the project.
“He was an older man, and in the fight game, 40 is kind of ancient,” said Shrader, who is about the same age as Gottschall.
Gottschall said he felt that Shrader went easy on him at first. Not unlike the fictional character Tyler Durden in “Fight Club,” Gottschall asked to be hit hard in order to better understand himself, and what he could endure.
His trainer obliged.
“Jonathan was the smartest person I’ve ever punched in the face,” Shrader said.
After about 15 months of training, Gottschall jumped into the cage for his first fight, which he described as “a test of your ability to handle primal fear.” Without revealing the denouement of the book, he said the outcome wasn’t pretty.
While his MMA sessions have become sporadic, he said he learned a great deal about the nature of humanity, which is not as savage as he originally thought.
“What draws us to a fight is that it puts some of the very best elements of human nature on display – the stuff we admire the most about human beings,” he said. “It sets up conditions where people have to be brave, and they have to show their courage, their fortitude, their perseverance, their grace and their skill.
“I think we’re drawn to these fights less by a desire to celebrate or succumb to what’s worst in us, and more by a desire to celebrate and honor what’s best in us, and that sort of heroism we don’t often see in ordinary life.”