Technopunk said:
Uh... ok? So MMA as an art existed before UFC? I don't mean like BJJ, or Muai Thai, or a Muai Thai guy who did a little BJJ... Im talking MMA.
Can you enlighten me to the history?
OKay......from wikipedia ( incase you didnt beleive me)
History of MMA
One of the earliest forms of widespread unarmed
combat sports with minimal rules was
Greek pankration, which was introduced into the
Olympic games in 648 B.C.
[1] Some no-holds-barred events reportedly took place in the late
1800s when wrestlers representing a huge range of fighting styles including various
catch wrestling styles,
Greco-Roman wrestling and many others met in tournaments and music-hall challenge matches throughout
Europe[
citation needed]. The first major encounter between a boxer and a wrestler in modern times took place in 1887 when
John L. Sullivan, then heavyweight boxing champion of the world, entered the ring with his trainer, the Greco-Roman wrestling champion,
William Muldoon and was slammed to the mat in two minutes. The next publicized encounter occurred in the late 1890s when future heavyweight boxing champion,
Bob Fitzsimmons took on European Greco-Roman wrestling champion,
Ernest Roeber. Reportedly, Roeber suffered a fractured cheekbone in this bout, but was able to get Fitzsimmons down on the mat, where he applied an arm lock and made the boxer submit. In 1936, heavyweight boxing contender,
Kingfish Levinsky and the veteran professional wrestler,
Ray Steele competed in a mixed match; which Steele won in 35 seconds. In all three of these 'mixed-matches', the wrestler won.
[2]
Pankration was an ancient form of unarmed
hand to hand combat resembling the mixed martial arts of today.
The vogue for professional wrestling died out after the
First World War, only to be reborn in two major streams: "
shoot", in which the fighters actually competed, and "
show" which became increasingly dependent on
staged combat and evolved into modern
professional wrestling. Some authorities credit an ex-football player turned wrestler,
Gus Sonnenberg, by using flying tackles and billy-goat butting, with ushering in the new style of sports entertainment wrestling.
[3]
Modern mixed martial arts are rooted in two interconnected movements. First were the
vale tudo events in
Brazil, followed by the
Japanese shoot wrestling shows.
Vale tudo (meaning 'anything goes') began in the
1920s with the famous "
Gracie challenge" issued by
Carlos Gracie and
HĆ©lio Gracie and upheld later on by descendents of the gracie family.
[1] In
Japan in the
1970s, a series of mixed martial arts matches were hosted by
Antonio Inoki, inspiring the
shoot-style movement in
Japanese professional wrestling, which eventually led to the formation of the first mixed martial arts organizations such as
Shooto, formed in 1985.
[4]
Moreover, the emergence of
Bruce Lee in the late 1960's and early 1970's paved the way for further studies of hybrid fighting through his theories on
Jeet Kune Do. Lee believed that traditional martial arts were limited to fixed positions from which to strike; a "fancy mess" that strongly inhibited many fighters/practitioners. Lee borrowed facets of wing chun, western
boxing,
fencing,
muay thai,
Filipino Martial Arts, and even
wrestling in order to come up with a fighting style that allowed relaxed movement and effective blows.
Mixed martial arts gained real international exposure and widespread publicity in the
U.S in 1993, when
Royce Gracie won the first
Ultimate Fighting Championship, sparking a revolution in the martial arts.
[5] In 1994,
Frederico Lapenda became the first non-Japanese to promote a mixed martial arts event in Japan, the Vale Tudo Championship.
[1] In
Japan in 1997, the continued interest in the sport eventually resulted in the creation of the
PRIDE Fighting Championships.
[6]
