Irish Press Slams Bare Knuckle DVDs

Irishman Peddles Ultra Violent DVD

By Sean O' Driscoll

The owner of one of Ireland's largest martial arts centres has defended selling horrific illegal Irish bare knuckle fighting DVDs in the U.S. that teach how to kill or maim an opponent. {Good opening. That should keep people reading.}

Dermot McGrath, who runs the Pankration Fitness Centre in Limerick city centre, promises the viewer will learn how a "quick and dirty head butt can shatter someone's face" and how to "smash someone's teeth in with a slight variation of a jab on his website www.IrishBareKnuckleBoxing.com.

In an ad for the $100 DVDs, run through a get-rich-quick entrepreneur in Florida, McGrath also promises to teach boxers how to illegally maim an opponent without being caught.

He also promises to teach "how to beat through a rope-a-dope defence ¡ª even breaking your foe's arms with this sneaky tactic," as well as how "to crack someone with a liver shot that'll have him doubled over in agony and unable to defend himself!"

Speaking to the Irish Voice on Tuesday night, McGrath claimed that the DVDs would help fighters defend themselves from dirty tricks in the ring and that he had sold over 700 copies.

However, when it was put to him that the DVDs are written in language that was far from defensive and was encouraging illegal and dangerous moves, McGrath said that the advertising was not meant to be believed.

"Nobody really believes you're going to knock someone's head off. I think people reading it would know that," he said. {No kidding. Good point, Dermot. Dermot's headline is called puffery and is perfectly legal and expected by readers.}

However, some of the illegal moves advertised include, "secrets of 'invisible' low blows" and "how to hit someone on the ground to finish him off quick." {That is hardly ultra-violent. A stabbing, yes. I gunshot to the head, yes. Pistol-whipping, yes. Low blows have been around for ages and are still used in the ring by top pros. Not a bad idea to know how to defend them.}

McGrath said that nobody can stop a dirty fighter from doing illegal moves. "A dirty fighter is a dirty fighter, there's nothing I can do about it. I'd rather have the information out there for everyone," he said. {Even Evander Holyfield is a master of headbutts and other dirty tactics.)

The DVDs, marketed through Florida-based Internet salesman Matt Furey, also promise to teach the viewer how to use elbows during a fight that are is "guaranteed to split someone's face right open!" as well as "foot stomping secrets that incapacitate your opponent!"

{Anyone who knows how to throw and elbow knows they deliver about 7 times the force of a punch. And yes, they can split someone's skin wide open. Good to know, especially if you're being violently assaulted.)

In an introduction to the website, Furey boasts, "These Irish fighting techniques are beyond brutal. I don't know if you're the type of person who can stomach them. Maybe, maybe not.

"But one thing is for certain, there is no faster way I know of to make heads fly with a single punch than these ruthless punches."

The DVD, entitled Take His Head Right Off: Introducing the Secrets of Irish Bare-Knuckle Boxing, is based on the banned bare knuckles fights that are still run by some Irish traveller families and can attract an audience of hundreds. {Oh, so there is a legitimate amount of this still going on. Thank you.}

While the fights can go on for hours, most end before the fighter suffers serious injury, unlike the type of fighting technique taught by McGrath. {Some real boxing matches end in death. Remember Duk Ko Kim of Korea. And there was also an Irish fighter killed in the ring not long ago. These were not bare knuckle fights but fights with gloves.}

"I've been seriously involved in martial arts, boxing and bare-knuckle boxing for over 18 years," he says. "Not only that but I was one of the pioneers who brought hard-core submission fighting to Ireland. So believe me, I've seen fighting, I've taught fighting and I've done it myself."

Furey's main occupation these days is selling a series of get-ritch-quick DVDs and seminars, including how make millyuns teaching personal training, selling on the internet or self-publishing. {No, my main occupation is selling information products, most of which are about fitness, conditioning, health and martial arts. I happen to now teach others how they can take their hard-won knowledge, in any field, and do likewise. My Internet seminars represent less than 10% of my total business.)

On-line adverts for his get-ritch-quick personal training scheme includes an endorsement from McGrath, without explaining that the two are selling the bare knuckle DVDs together. "Just a few of your suggestions have given us so many info calls in January I couldn't put them all in my notebook," McGrath says in his endorsement. "We've made the most monee ever this month. Thank you Matt. Really, your advice has made a huge difference."

{Nice one, but the testimonial Dermot gave me was in the early winter of 2003 - when we were NOT putting out this product. This product was release 2 and a half years after Dermot sent the testimonial.)

McGrath defended Furey's record and said that that he had always found him honest. "I hear things but it's all hearsay and behind his back," he said.

{The same goes for Dermot. He is a first-rate human being, honest to the core who would never lie, cheat or deceive anyone. That's why I like him.}

He said that he first met Furey when the marketer visited Limerick on a holiday. "He gave a seminar in my gym on martial arts and fitness and gave the monee to the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. That's just the kind of guy he is," he said.

In the online introduction to his DVD, McGrath, an accomplished martial arts expert, boasts, "In days gone by REAL men fought bare-handed. And they were unafraid to do so because they knew exactly how to pulverize an opponent (or a street thug) with thunderous sledge-hammer blows without breaking their own hands."

"They knew how to throw all the legal blows ... but make no mistake about it, they also knew all the brutal, vicious, fight-termination shots. Moreover, they knew how to throw the nastiest, dirtiest shots in the ring (as well as outside of it) and how to disguise the techniques so well that they were virtually invisible to judges, referees or onlookers," he says.

Despite the sickening details about splitting faces, stomping on an opponent and beating him when he is down, McGrath boasts that the DVD watcher's first reaction will be to laugh at the ease of the techniques.

{And that is a fact. The techniques, although brutal, are presented in a light manner that literally makes Americans laugh their butts off. It is grand entertainment. The tactics are all valid and real - but they are not presented in a way that would encourage anyone to go out and look for people on the street to whoop on. They are presented merely as information the viewer should never use unless forced to. Period.)