Act grand right away in fear of violent battle (8)
I believe the answer is:
dogfight
'violent battle' is the definition.
'dogfight' can be an answer for 'battle' (thesaurus). I am not certain of the 'violent' bit.
'act grand right away in fear' is the wordplay.
'act' becomes 'do' (I've seen this in other clues).
'grand' becomes 'g' (synonyms).
'right away in fear' becomes 'fight' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'do'+'g'+'fight'='DOGFIGHT'
'of' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dogfight that I've seen before include "Mle" , "Canine struggle?" , "Rough-and-tumble" , "Close aerial combat" , "Tussle" .)