Rating: 
Summary: Streetfighting for Grown-Ups
Review: Hostile reviews of "Championship Streetfighting" tend to be written by "martial artists" who resent Beaumont's casual dismissal of their superhuman status. One of the recent ones even tells us that, because "martial artists" are "totally self-aware," boxing doesn't stand a chance against martial arts. Any rational reader will recognize this as utter and complete mystical nonsense, on a par with depending on one's rabbit foot for protection in the street. What happens if two "martial artists" duke it out - as so often happens in the movies that these people base their view of life on? Does the one who is more "totally self-aware" win? And if one guy is "totally self-aware," how can another be more self-aware than he is? 100 percent is 100 percent.
Face it, little boys: fighting is a physical skill. Yoga masters aren't necessarily good at it. Zen poets may be self-aware, but that doesn't make them expert fighters. The samurai were expert fighters because they worked at it - not because they were "totally self-aware."
One of the hostile reviews seems to acknowledge the utility of boxing but doesn't think "Championship Streetfighting" is a good book on boxing. In my opinion, this reviewer is being dishonest: he is just another mystical martial artist who should stick to origami, but he wants to pretend to be a boxing expert in order to discredit Ned Beaumont. He gives himself away when he gives us more hopeful nonsense, in the form of a statement that all boxers are nice guys because they don't have to prove themselves. I'd like to see him tell that to Robin Givens. Jack Dempsey learned how to fight by going around to bars and taking money to beat up the most unpopular person in the room. Harry Greb was a notorious whoremonger and lowlife. Let's not impose mystical qualities on boxing, either, folks. Discipline may make you a better person, but boxers have all the same faults that other people have.
The charge that Beaumont's book is essentially stolen from Jack Dempsey's is downright goofy, since Beaumont credits Dempsey extensively in his book. What's he supposed to do? Make up a new form of boxing so that his book will be more original? That impulse is what makes American "martial arts" so ineffective.
Bottom line: "Championship Streetfighting" is the most practical beginner's guide to self-defense fisticuffs currently available. The chapter on physical conditioning is worth the price of the book. Moreover, Ned Beaumont is a literate man - which most of his hostile reviewers are not.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book
Review: A good overview of the subject.Some of the minor critisisms are warranted,such as win chung using a three knuckle landing also,and the fact that he contradicts himself on the value of eastern martial arts.Although boxings value is as much in what it leaves out as what it includes.The author recomends reading 'Championship Fighting,explosive punching and aggresive defense'by Jack Dempsey, and I couldn't agree more.If you do you will see where many of the authors ideas originated and appreciate why Dempsey was if nothing else a phenomenal puncher.The explanation of punching technique is more detailed and clearer,but doesn't cover the 'dirty' aspects of boxing for the street like Mr Beaumonts book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good boxing advice, but the author has issues
Review: About half of the pages deal with throwing punches; those are pretty good. The author constantly belittles other boxing approches (eg the idea of 'snapping' jabs by twisting the wrist)...
But that's nothign compared to what he has to say about eastern martial arts. He displays what can only be described as a profound inferiority complex towards them, that requires him to show his disrespect in *literally every paragraph*.
Along with that inferiority complex, he also displays some pretty serious ignorance about those arts, and some genuinely funny lines (eg he shows how boxers can punch further than karetkas can kick- but his illustration shows the boxer taking a lunging step to land his blow, while the kareteka is forced to keep a foot planted! He add that "[the jab] hits harder too, because it has the full weight of mass in motion behind it"- again, he has no idea what he is talking about).
Here are a few more gems:
"Hooks and uppercuts are pretty much unknown to most martial artists (so is infighting)." Apparently he's never heard of any of the grappling arts like jujitsu, which specialize in infighting.
"The horse stance.. may work well for training, but in a real fight, forget it!" Good advice, since the horse stance *is* a training stance, not a combat stance.
He belittles the idea of breaking boards for practice because "boards don't fight back". Well, neither do punching bags- its a training technique. But he goes on to say that boxing is superior because only boxing teaching true power punching.
He reports that boxing is superior to wrestling because of a few matches that occurred back in the late 1800s (and he claims that one of these was 'misreported' as a victory for the wrestler); he ignores contemporary evidence, such as the dominance of Gracie jujitsu in modern fighting championships. And he doesn't bother to tell the aspiring boxer *how* to beat a wrester or a jujitsuka, either...The boxing advice, as I said, is interesting. It's a shame that one has to wade through a bunch of hyperbole, BS, self-promotion, and ignorance to get to it, though.
Rating:
Summary: Boxing as THE martial art?
Review: As a student of kickboxing, tai chi, muay tai, and various other martial arts, I was surprised by this author's lack of respect for forms of self defense other than his chosen boxing. While I found his discussion of boxing techniques thorough and helpful, I was put off by the tone of this book and some of his derogatory terms (he actually uses the word "pansy" at one point). One of the first things a student of any martial art learns (or should learn) is not to underestimate his or her opponent -- by negating the effectiveness of kicks, etc. in fighting, as well as by generalizing about the qualifications of martial arts instructors, I think this author does a disservice to his readers.
Rating: 
Summary: Good instruction, bad attitude?
Review: As an avid martial artist, I bought this book when my sparring group decided that we wanted to start training in boxing. It was an excellent purchase. Ned's writing style is relatively easy to read, and the instruction is excellent. My only reservation is this: after reading the book twice, I believe that Ned is **undecided** if he should be critical of the classic arts or not. He contradicts himself, in one section telling the (true) weaknesses of "shopping mall karatekas", and in the next section demonstrating the strengths of well excecuted kicks. Overall, a valuable resource.
Rating:
Summary: Most practical book on self-defense I've ever read
Review: Beaumont advocated boxing as the most (but not only) effective form of self-defense (though he preferred the term controlled aggression instead) and rightly so. Though he mounted heavy criticisms on the self-defense value of other martial arts, he did not dismiss them all as useless. Instead, he proposed to supplement them with practical boxing skills to make them more effective. The book covers both the physical and technical aspects of boxing pretty well in a very personal and informal way. It also draws inspiring lessons from the greastest boxers of all times. Insufficient comprehensive illustrations maybe the only possible flaw of this fine piece of work.
Rating:
Summary: Right on boxing, wrong on martial arts
Review: Beaumont has written a very good book on boxing, though photographs would have help illustrate some of the techniques. Where Beaumont gets himself in trouble is by lumpimg all (Eastern) martial arts together. All martial arts are not the same, just like all governmental systems are not the same. I enjoy living in a democracy but would not feel the same about living in a communist/totaliterian country. Hence, there are some exellent systems for self defense,i.e. kali/escrima, JKD, muay thai, and some systems that are better for sport and health as in Tae Kwon Doe & Tai Chi. Further, he is a little contradictary in the book for while he puts down martial arts in favor of boxing, he admires Bruce Lee who is probably the most recognizable martial arts figure in the world. But all in all, a reader will get a lot out of this title, and I look foward to reading his latest work on wresting.
Rating:
Summary: Finally! A practical guide to boxing!
Review: Buy this book! If you at all want to improve your hand fighting techniques, this is the book for you, regardless of your martial arts tradition. I am sure that Mr. Beaumont turned off a lot of people with his criticism of Asian martial arts, but if you really read what he wrote, his problem is not with the traditional forms of these fighting styles; his problem is with the watered-down "mall" versions of these arts that are so commonly seen in the United States today. He acknowledged the value of kicks (low kicks anyway) and the value of grappling skills as well. But this is not a book about kicking, it's a book about boxing and learning to punch with power and speed. His discussion of combinations, infighting, and techniques are all quite informative and easy to understand. The illustrations could have been better, but this is still a very good book. He also does a nice job of interfacing "sport" boxing with "streetfighting" boxing techniques, even going so far as to criticize the technique of contemporary "sport" boxers in much the same way that he criticized contemporary "mall" karate practitioners. I think that if you really want to improve your punching skills, you would be a fool not to purchase this book. I cannot recommend it more highly.
Rating:
Summary: A fountain of knowledge on the subject
Review: Championship Streetfighting is a masterpiece. It's got everything that people should and need to know about how to fight and even how to train to fight. An excellent read!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book!
Review: Championship Streetfighting is the greatest book on unarmed combat I have ever read! Any practitioners of Asian martial arts who were offended by this book have either not read it thoroughly or have never been in a real fight. I've done both. I've also studied Karate, but I've never used a technique as effective as the ones taught here. These are the techniques of the old time fighters, when boxing was a bloodsport, and they work! Furthermore, Beaumont does not negate the use of martial arts. Instead, he suggests the reader combine boxing with any fighting arts he/she may already have learned. I cannot recommend this book too highly.
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