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Brief History of Mixed Martial Arts
In 648 B.C.E., the Greeks introduced the sport of pankration
into the Olympic Games. The word pankration
is a combination of two Greek words, pan, meaning all, and kratos, meaning powers. This is an accurate
depiction of the sport itself, as it was a potent mixture of
Hellenic boxing and wrestling. The sport only truly had two rules:
no biting and no eye gouging, though even these techniques were
allowed by the Spartans. The bouts could end only when one
competitor was knocked unconscious, or submitted to his opponent by
raising his hand. Often times, these matches would last for hours,
and sometimes ended with the death of one,
or even both competitors. The sport became the most popular event
in the Olympic Games, and across the Hellenic world.
The matches
took place in an arena, or ring which was a square approximately 12
to 14 feet across, which the Greeks hoped would encourage
close-quarter combat. The matches also featured a referee armed
with a rod or switch he used to enforce the rules, which were often
broken by opponents that were overmatched. Common techniques
included punches, joint locks, choke holds, elbow and knee strikes,
and kicks. Kicks to the legs, groin and stomach were quite commonly
used. Standing strikes such as these were common, though the
overwhelming majority of pankration
bouts were settled on the ground, where submission holds and
strikes were both accepted practices. Pankratiasts
were renowned for their grappling skills, and would employ a
variety of grappling techniques, such as takedowns, chokes and
joint locks, often to great effect. Strangulation was the most
common cause of death in pankration
matches.
Ancient Greek
pankratiasts became heroes, and the subject
of numerous myths and legends. These include the legends of Arrichion, Dioxxipus,
Polydamos and even Hercules was believed
to be a pankratiast. Alexander the Great
sought out pankratiasts as soldiers
because of their legendary skills at unarmed combat. When he
invaded India in 326 B.C.E., he had a great number of pankratiasts serving with him. This is believed
to be the beginning of Asian martial arts, as most Asian martial
arts trace their history to India at around this time. Pankration is the first recorded form of what
would later come to be known as mixed martial arts, and is the
closest any society has come to allowing a truly no-holds-barred
unarmed combat sport.
Following the
decline of pankration in Greece, which
coincided with the rise of the Roman Empire, mixed martial arts
fell by the wayside in favor of other combat sports. Sports such as
wrestling and boxing became the dominant forms of combat sport in
the West, while traditional martial arts swelled in popularity in
Asia. This remained the case for centuries until 1925 in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, when the sport of mixed martial arts experienced a
revival from a peculiar source.
In order to
fully understand the reemergence of mixed martial arts, it is
necessary to take a brief look at the history of the Gracie family
of Brazil. In 1801, George Gracie immigrated to Brazil from
Scotland, and settled in the Para province of northeastern Brazil.
His family grew and flourished, and in the early 1900s, a Japanese
man named Mitsuyo Maeda immigrated to the same area. The Japanese
government had plans to establish a colony in the area, and Maeda
was a representative of the Japanese government. He quickly became
close friends with Gasto Gracie, a
political figure in the area, and grandson of George Gracie. Gasto used his power and influence to assist
Maeda and his agenda of establishing a Japanese colony.
In addition
to Maeda's political prowess and skills, he was also famous in
Japan for another reason: Maeda had been a renowned champion of the
Japanese martial art of judo. Maeda, or Count Koma,
as he was known in Japan, offered to teach Gast's
son the art of Judo. Maeda trained Gusts son, Carlos, in judo from
the time Carlos was 15 until he was 21, when Maeda returned to
Japan. With Maeda gone, Carlos began to teach his brothers, Helio, Jorge, Osvaldo
and Gast, Jr. the art as Maeda taught it
to him. The Gracie brothers were not bound by the tradition that
Japanese practitioners of the art so rigidly upheld, rather the
brothers began to adapt the art to suit themselves,
and to make it more practical. It was in 1925 that Carlos took his
brother Helio, who was 11 years younger
than Carlos, to Rio de Janeiro, where they opened a jiu-jitsu
academy.
As Carlos and
brother Helio continued to advance and perfect
their art in their new academy, Carlos concocted a brilliant
marketing scheme to draw attention to the fledgling academy. He
issued what is now famously known as the Gracie Challenge. As he
explained, I had to do something to shock the people. He began the
"Gracie Challenge" by taking out an advertisement in
several Rio newspapers. The advertisement, which included a picture
of the slight Carlos Gracie, information on the academy, and stated
If you want a broken arm, or rib, contact Carlos Gracie at this
number. This effectively began the revival of professional mixed
martial arts in the Western world, as Carlos, and later his younger
brother Helio, followed by the sons of
both men, would take on all comers in vale-tudo
matches. These matches closely resembled the pankration
matches of Ancient Greece, and were participated
in by representatives of area karate schools, professional boxers, capoeira champions, and various others that
sought to prove that they were better than the Gracies.
As word of
these matches spread through Rio de Janeiro, the public craved
these matches. As a result, these matches began to be held in
Brazil's large soccer stadiums, and attracted record crowds. The
first of these professional fights was between Brazilian
Lightweight Boxing Champion, Antonio Portugal and Carlos' younger,
smaller, and much frailer brother Helio. Helio won the match in less than 30 seconds,
effectively elevating himself to the status of Brazilian hero. At
the time, Brazil had no international sports heroes, and Helio filled that void for the Brazilians.
As word of
these matches spread to Japan, the great martial arts champions of
Japan sought to participate in this new form of competition against
the Gracies, who the Japanese thought
were defiling their traditional arts. Japanese champions flocked to
Rio de Janeiro to do battle with Helio
Gracie, who was always out weighed by his
opponents, often by more than 100 pounds. He defeated many great
Japanese fighters, and in a trip to the United States, Helio defeated the World Freestyle Wrestling
Champion, American super heavyweight Fred Ebert.
One-hundred-thirty-five pound Helio
continued to defend the Gracie name and their martial art, often
against opponents weighing as much as 300 pounds, from 1935 until
1951, fighting over 1000 fights, until Carlos' son, Carlson, and
later Helio's sons Rolls, Rickson and Rorion
took over the roll of family champion in
upholding the "Gracie Challenge."
The new
combat sport of vale-tudo fighting became
immensely popular, quickly rising to become the second most popular
sport, in terms of ticket sales, in Brazil behind soccer. This is a
status that the sport still enjoys today. Leagues and organizations
were soon formed and events began to be held regularly all over
Brazil. The fights featured practitioners of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, muay Thai
kickboxing, luta livre
wrestling, boxing and various other styles. As these events, and as
a result, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, grew in popularity in Brazil, the Gracies branched out to the United States.
In the early 1980s, Helio's oldest son Rorion, came to the United States to teach Brazilian,
or Gracie jiu-jitsu as he preferred to call it, in California. Like
his father and uncle before him, he issued the infamous Gracie
Challenge in his new home, but added a new twist. Rorion offered $100,000 to anyone who could
defeat him, or one of his brothers, in a vale-tudo
match. These matches again brought Brazilian jiu-jitsu much
popularity. As Rorion realized the
potential this style of fighting offered to spread his family's
art, he sought to create an organization that would promote this
sort of fighting in the United States.
After years
of hard work, and promoting his family's art and his idea for an
American vale-tudo league, Rorion Gracie met Art Davie, a salesmen who had
first become interested in this style of fighting during a trip he
took to Thailand where he witnessed an underground mixed martial
arts event. Davie utilized his connections in the television
industry to set up a meeting for himself and Rorion
Gracie with Bob Meyrowitz, who was
president of Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG), a corporation
that specialized in putting on live pay-per-view sporting events.
Together, the three men established the Ultimate Fighting
Championship, which held its first event in 1993. The first
Ultimate Fighting Championship (or UFC as it is more commonly
known) event sold 86,000 pay-per-view buys, and by the third event,
the buy rate was up to 300,000 pay-per-view buys per show. This
secured a place for the sport of mixed martial arts in the United
States, but this place was not a reputable one.
The Ultimate
Fighting Championship had introduced a form of fighting which it
dubbed
no-holds-barred, or NHB fighting. The first six Ultimate Fighting
Championships had very few rules. In fact, there were no weight
classes, no time limits or rounds, and no mandatory safety
equipment. The only rules were that fighters could not eye gouge,
bite, or fish hook, and fights could only end with a referee™s stoppage, knock out, or submission,
which could be signified verbally, or by a tap out, where the
fighter must tap the mat, or his opponent three times with his hand
or foot to signify that he submits. The event took place in an
octagonal cage, dubbed The Octagon.
The format of
the event was that of a one night tournament, where competitors
would fight several bouts in one night, in a single elimination
style tournament until a champion was named. The lack of weight
classes became an obvious problem from the outset, when 415 pound
Hawaiian sumo wrestler was allowed to fight 216 pound Dutch kick
boxer Gerard Gordeau. This scene was
later repeated in the third UFC event, when 6-foot-8inch tall, 600
pound sumo wrestler from New Jersey, Emmanuel Yarborough, was
allowed to fight 5-foot-11-inch tall, 200 pound karate fighter from
Illinois, Keith Hackney.
Another
problem that quickly became obvious was the lack of time limits,
and judges. By UFC IV, most of the competitors had caught on to
Royce Gracie's success, and had begun to learn grappling
techniques. As a result, the fights became longer and longer. It
reached a point where the fights were running over the allotted
pay-per-view time slot, and the UFC was losing fans, as they viewed
the long periods of ground fighting as boring. SEG realized that it
had to do something, so in 1995, at UFC V in Charlotte, North
Carolina, the UFC instituted a 30 minute time limit, but did not
have judges. Thus, when the much anticipated Royce Gracie-Ken
Shamrock rematch ran over the 30 minute time limit, it was ruled a
draw. The fans were outraged. This resulted in the use of judges
beginning with UFC VI to decide the outcome of fights that
outlasted the time limit.
As the UFC gained popularity, it became a pertinent political
topic, as Arizona Senator John McCain launched a campaign against
the UFC. As a result, in 1997, pay-per-view carriers dropped the
Ultimate Fighting Championship events from their line-ups. This was
partially SEG's fault, as they had marketed the UFC as a blood
sport, by drawing attention to the negatives that surrounded the
event. SEG's marketing of the event boasted that it was a "no
rules," or "no-holds-barred" fighting event, where
anything could happen, even death. This was a successful marketing
scheme in the beginning, as it drew attention to the sport from
curiosity seekers, but it later backfired politically. As the
political uproar began, and Sen. McCain became an outspoken
champion of the abolition of the sport, states began to outlaw
mixed martial arts competition. This forced the UFC to move its
events from state to state, until the pay-per-view providers
dropped the events from their services. In the words of UFC ring
announcer, Bruce Buffer, this caused the UFC to "basically go
underground."
The Ultimate
Fighting Championship remained a fringe oddity, without
pay-per-view coverage, and banned from all but a handful of states
for several years, until the franchise was purchased by Zuffa, LLC. Zuffa, a
Las Vegas based media and casino management company owned by Lorenzo
and Frank Fertitta, took over the UFC
franchise with the intention of returning it to its former
popularity, and eventually gaining the sport mainstream acceptance.
The Fertittas and Zuffa
president Dana White sought to turn the UFC into a "good,
clean sport with actual rules," which would allow the sport to
eventually become sanctioned. This would be a huge step for the
UFC, as "sanctioning provides a legitimization for the
sport," according to Bruce Buffer.
Dana White
and the Fertitt's work came to fruition
in 2001, when the UFC returned to pay-per-view, with record buy
rates, and record ticket sales at their live events. The new and
improved UFC returned with a stricter set of rules, which included
rounds, time limits, five weight classes, a list of 31 fouls, and 8
possible ways to win. Also, the UFC fighters were drastically
different from those that entered the Octagon in 1993. Current UFC
fighters are among the best conditioned athletes in the world.
Often, fighters train for more than six hours a day, which is
comparable to, and often more than the amount of time boxers and
other professional athletes spend in training on a daily basis.
Also, fighters work on strength and conditioning, in addition to
their striking and grappling skills.
The difficulty
of mixed martial arts training can best be summed up in the words
of two of the sport's stars, as former UFC heavyweight champion Tim
Sylvia says "Mixed martial arts training is the hardest thing
I have ever done in my life," and UFC light-heavyweight contender
Chuck Liddell stated that mixed martial arts training is "more
rigorous training than almost any other sport." The new breed are well-rounded fighters, versed in
numerous styles of combat, and equally at home on the mat, as
standing and trading punches and kicks. Among the new breed of
fighters are former Olympic medallists,
NCAA champions, Pan American games medallists,
and even a long list of former NFL football players, and boxing
champions. Many of these fighters are college graduates, and several
are graduate school students.
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