Where's Greg Walker and Fighting Knives?

R

Ronald Reagan

Joined
Dec 18, 1998
Messages
417
I always wondered what happenned to Fighting Knives Magazine. At the time, it was my favorite mag and seemed to be the premiere source of info in the tactical/cutlery world. The articles could have been written with a bit more eloquence, but nonetheless, I loved it and thought it superior to Tactical knives and co.

Greg, why not start another knife fighting mag?
 
Not enough subscribers(about 4000). The magazine was bought by "Blade" magazine. If you had magazines left on your "Fighting Knives" subscription then you got "Blade" magazine for whatever was left.


Blades
 
I found too many errors in F/K, but i did like it enough to buy it.

That was until my knife making mentor(Paul Lebetard) sent Greg Walker a knife for evaluation with the understanding that my freind get the knife back. Greg never tested the knife, didnt even mention it in the his "mag", AND he didnt return it either.

At this point i decided never to buy F/K again. F/K went belly up not too long after that mishap with Mr. Lebatard.

So if Greg Walkers actions in this deal were typical, then no wonder he went out of commision!!!

[This message has been edited by RMLamey (edited 21 June 1999).]
 
That mag had some cool pics and articles sometimes, and I would buy the interesting ones. But it seemed more about Mr. Walker being a "knife expert" on everything. Kind of discouraging.
 
You guys are right...now that I think about it the magazine had many flaws that slipped my mind. For instance, Mr. Walker basically wrote all of the articles! Regardless, I enjoyed reading it.
 
As I remember it Fighting Knives started out strong. The articles seemed meaningful and the pix were pretty good. Greg Walker answered the phone and his mail. Then it seemed things slowly started sliding until they came to a dead stop.

Uncle Bill
 
The facts are as follows not heresay nor rumor.
Fighting Knives was owned and published by LFP (Larry Flint Publishing)LFP droped all their "non adult titles". According to Greg, they were very lets say artful in distrubition practices also. Greg bailed and is now a full time sworn police officer in the west (sorry best I can tell you without permission). Blade only bought the subscriber list and the title along with the copyright is still owned by LFP. I know of two people that were intrested in buying the title. It appears nothing became of it.
I have heard a lot of Greg stories some good some bad. All of my dealings with Greg he never lied to me and always kept his word and still consider him a friend.

Bob Taylor



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Some days it's not worth chewing through the restraints and escaping.
 
Bob, back in 1989 I think, Greg Walker ran an article on HI khukuris when we were so new we didn't know what we were doing or even trying to do. It kicked off the HI khukuris and I will always be thankful to Greg and Fighting Knives magazine for that feature.

Greg bought several HI khukuris and we stayed in touch until things started sliding. I went to Nepal for six months in 1991, Fighting Knives was in the painful process of getting shut down, Greg was looking for work, and we lost touch. He wrote some novels around various knives and did a pretty decent job of it. I'd like to see him back in the business.

Uncle Bill
 
I always thought Walker was a big ego tripper and maybe he had a right to be. I enjoyed his mag though. He was a refreshing change from Blade and KI. As far as I know, he was the first to give Alan Elishewitz, RD Miller, Ted Frizzel and many other makers national coverage.
 
I remember things more or less as Bill did. The magazine started out really strong. I remember being uncomfortable with the editorial style, but the magazine's content made up for it. I'd seen articles with good critical reviews, pointing out subtle things that worked or that didn't work. One article showed how to take the Gerber Applegate-Fairbairn completely apart, remove all the gunk, and reset the weights so that it felt better in the hand. Good information well-layed out, with Walker's shrill and bullying editorial style being only a moderate distraction. Early Fighting Knives was the best knife magazine I had ever seen, and nothing to this day matches it.

As the magazine went on, however, I think some of the other contributors started taking on Walker's style a bit, and Walker himself just got completely out-of-hand. Then came the silliness, such as his series on which knife "goes" with which gun. Walker got full of himself, the writing got worse, and Fighting Knives faded away.
 
Joe called it like I saw it but much nicer!
In the early going that mag was unequaled, near the end of it's run they were a little too focused on what the competition was doing.
Ten
 
Greg Walker was the pioneer that published a mag that told what combat blade people wanted to know. No one else printed anything dealing with the blade as a legitamit self defense tool on a regular basis.

As for Greg doing most of the work, go ask anyone that has started up their own business, and you will find that the owner is the hardest worker, puts in the most time, does repairs, accounting, organizing, sales, and what ever must be done. Besides, there were not too many knife people submitting articles to fill out a regular publishing schedule. Today, I'll bet Tacticle Knives has lots of stuff floating in the door weekly.

My short stack of FK is a prized possession, best wishes to Greg, wherever he is. - Brian
 
Yeah, i agree somewhat with most of the posts. But as i stated in my original post in case yall missed it, Mr. Walker has yet to return a knife he was supposed to evaluate and return.

Knowing this happened keeps me from joining the hoorah Walker crowd!!

Not trying to be a smarta--, but this kinda thing gets my metal.

 
Agree with him or not, at least Greg Walker expressed opinions. That's more than I can say for the fluff pieces typical of Blade and TK. I was sad to see FK go. I received good, useful info from FK.

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Ciao

Mike Melone
memelone@yahoo.com
"One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them." --Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796

 
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