Competing

Rex has walked fighters from a first class to The Ultimate Fighter and the UFC. Six of them, Tony Ferguson among them. He also turned pro himself at forty-two, so he has done the walk from both sides of the cage. This shelf is the road in: how you tell when you are ready, what a camp actually is, what amateur means next to pro, and what he does in your corner while it is happening.

If the idea is still new, start with the answer on getting ready for a first amateur or point match, then the one on knowing when you are ready. Nobody feels ready. That is not the test. A grappling tournament is the lower rung and a good place to find out whether you like pressure before anybody is allowed to punch you in the face.

What Rex says most often is that almost nobody should start by aiming at pro. Compete because you want to learn something about yourself, not because of a record. He is straight about weight cutting, about how much hard sparring belongs in a camp and how much does not, and about losing your first one, which happens to plenty of good fighters and is survivable. You find out who you are, then you go back to work on Monday. This shelf is for everyone thinking about it, including the ones who read it and decide not to.