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Mixed Martial Arts – How it all started
Mixed martial arts (also MMA) - (often incorrectly called “fighting without rules”), represents a combination of many techniques, martial arts schools and trends. MMA is a full contact sport where two fighters face each other using striking, punching, wrestling, and grappling techniques. The term «Mixed Martial Arts» was proposed in 1995 by Rick Blum, president of Battlecade, one of the earliest MMA organizations, and subsequently found a sustainable use in non-English speaking countries.
Since the early events had a minimum amount of rules, the sport was highly criticized, sometimes being called a “bloodbath”. Promoters had to introduce additional constraints to improve the safety of athletes and attract new viewers. Through these efforts, today MMA is one of the fastest growing sports, as evidenced by the sales figures of paid broadcast fights, media coverage, increased the number of trainees and increase sales of products related to MMA.
The origins of MMA go back to the days of the ancient Greeks who created first Olympic Games and competed in the Pankration, but until the 1990s, the MMA was not considered a popular sport in the world. Only with the establishment and development of organizations such as the «Ultimate Fighting Championship», «Pride Fighting Championships» the popularity of MMA has increased dramatically, which also contributed to the decline of professional boxing.
Despite the fact that the early events had a minimum of rules, in connection with criticism of sport as a “bloodbath” promoters have introduced additional constraints to improve the safety of athletes and attract new viewers. Through these efforts, today’s MMA is one of the fastest growing sports, as evidenced by the sales figures of paid broadcast fights, media coverage, increase the number of working and increase sales of products related to MMA.
Pankration is the oldest style of unarmed combat, resembling modern MMA. The ancient Greeks introduced this discipline in the Olympic Games in 648 BC. Greek pankration later transformed into a cruel Roman “pankratium.”, the style of fighting shown in the Coliseum. There were a lot statues of prominent men subsequently made in Rome and other Italian cities.
Some public displays of fighting took place at the end of the XIX century. They represented a variety of fighting styles including jujitsu, wrestling and other styles. Competition with mixed styles (for example, a boxer vs. wrestler) were quite popular in Europe and many countries in the Far East at the turn of XIX and XX centuries. In England, there was even a martial art called “bartitsu” which combined European and Asian fighting scholars. Bartitsu was mentioned, in particular by the famous English writer Arthur Conan Doyle, who attributed possession of “a deadly weapon” to his anti-hero – Professor Moriarty. Moriarty used his fighting knowledge against Sherlock Holmes, who representated the English school of boxing.
After World War I the school split in two main streams. First one – was named “shoot-wrestling”; Second one turned into a dance like staged shows, which eventually led to professional wrestling, now popular in many countries, particularly the U.S., Japan and Mexico .
In the late 1960s the concept of combining elements of various martial arts was popularized by Bruce Lee. Philosophy developed by Bruce Lee, was called Jeet Kune Do, and one of its main principles is the ability to successfully adapt to a fighter of any style. Lee had terrific conditioning and fighting skills. Bruce and especially his films had a huge an impact on the MMA to such an extent that in 2004, UFC president Dana White has called Lee “the father of MMA.” It should also be noted that in addition to Jeet Kune Do there were already mixed martial arts such as karate in Japan.
MMA ancestor has also existed in the USSR: Sambo – a system developed in 1938 as a result of the synthesis of many types of martial arts, thanks to the soviet order “To develop freestyle fighting.” Of all the combat sports today most closely resemble Sambo. It is necessary to clarify that Sambo is divided into two main areas: sports and combat. In the first case the main task is to demonstrate throwing techniques or painful holds, while the Combat Sambo is much closer to the MMA in its essence, as it is the fighter’s objective to neutralize the enemy quickly and efficiently. Until 1991, Sambo training was only available to police and special units forces. The most well known Sambo representative is of course Fedor Emilanenko.
In the later years, MMA has evolved in different countries in different ways. In the U.S., the popularity of mixed martial arts began to rise in 1993, when California businessman Art Davie and head of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu School Rorion Gracie organized the first tournament – Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), held in Denver, Colorado. Tournament included eight participants, competing for the first prize of 50 thousand dollars. The competition included representatives of boxing, savate, sumo, karate and wrestling. To the surprise of 2800 spectators who were present in the hall, and another 86 000, who bought a paid broadcast on cable television, the winner was a Brazilian competitor Royce Gracie, significantly inferior to all his opponents in height and weight, winning by a choke and armlock, little known about back then. Subsequently, Gracie won two tournament UFC, widely popularizing Brazilian jiu-jitsu – a key component in the preparation of many MMA fighters of our time.
In Japan, in 1997, interest in mixed martial arts led to the creation of a large organization, MMA – Pride Fighting Championships. As the sport began to evolve other organizations rapidly appeared: Strikeforce, EliteXC, Bellator, Bodog, Affliction, WEC, Dream, M-1 Global, however, in a competitive environment, some of them have failed while others had to be content with little popularity and relatively low level fighters.
In Russia the development of MMA was more chaotic and mostly manifested in the form of individual tournaments or just fighting tournament without a grid, which was not held until the mid-1990s. Due to the lack of structures, regulations, health care and conditions of the fighting, the level of competition depended exclusively on the willingness of sponsors to invest in fights that often resulted in inadequate conditions for fighters. Significant improvement was noted with the appearance in Russia, the Japanese organization RINGS, where well established fighters such as the Wolf Khan, Andrei Kopylov, Michael and Nicholas Ilyukhin Zuev took part. RINGS also gave a start to Fedor Emelianenko, subsequently, the multiple MMA world champion in various organizations. To date, the development of MMA in the rest of the world, is still, moving slower than in the U.S., where interest in the UFC fights has increased significantly with the purchase of a chain of casino promotions «Station Casinos», by Fertitta brothers, in 2001, and the appointment of Dana White former boxing promote on the role of president, which resulted in a massive passion for sports, even in states where MMA at that time was officially prohibited (for example, New York).
In December 2006, the popularity of UFC has reached its peak when Chuck Liddell fought Tito Ortiz. In 2007, Fertitta brothers bought out its main competitor, the Japanese «Pride», making the UFC the largest organization in the world of MMA and, thanks to the arrival of the best fighters from Pride, raised the popularity of the sport in the U.S. even higher. In other countries (eg England, Australia and Germany) MMA is also a developing sport, while in France – MMA banned.
