|
Get discount coupons, new product information & other exclusive offers sent to your mailbox. We respect privacy & wont share your email. |
|
 |
|  |
| What is MMA ?What Is MMA?
MMA is the abbreviation for Mixed Martial Arts. It is a style of fighting that is becoming wildly popular. There are a number of popular television shows that are enjoyed by millions of viewers that focus on pitting one mixed martial artist against another. But how did this sport start? Was it always as violent as it is today?
The Beginnings of MMA
Before the 1960’s MMA fighting shows up in a number of places. A style of fighting called pankration was introduced in the Olympic Games in Greece back in 648 B.C. Pankration is thought to have been one of the more popular types of sports that was held in the Olympics, probably due to its violent nature. Pankration combined both boxing and wrestling in order to create a style of fighting that looks very much like our modern MMA. When fighting, a contestant could win either by making their opponent submit or by incapacitating them.
It was a violent sport, where men died and people were disabled for life. The only rule of pankration was that contestants could not bite or gouge someone’s eyes out. If a contestant wanted to submit, he had to raise his hand, but all too often a contestant chose to die rather than to submit. Choke holds and joint locks were extremely popular in the sport, and many men died from strangulation.
Bartitsu
Bartitsu was developed in England around 1898. Edward William Barton-Wright was an engineer who had been to Japan in order to build railways. He claimed that he had combined boxing and Jiu-Jiutsu in order to create “Bartitsu”, which was a combination of his name and the word “Jiu-Jiutsu”. He convinced a boxer, a fencer, and a Jiu-Jiutsu teacher to enter into a teaching school with him and set about to teach those in England how to defend themselves.
Unfortunately for Barton-Wright, things did not go so well. In 1903 he was forced to close the doors on his school. Some believe it was because the fees he charged were too high. This did not stop Barton-Wright, however. He continued to teach Bartitsu until the 1920’s.
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco, but moved to China with his family when he was a baby. He learned Wu style Tai Chi Chuan from his father, and Wing Chun Gung Fu from a friend of his father’s named Sifu Yip Man. Later on in life, Lee came to believe that the techniques he had learned were not good enough in a real fight. He said, “The best fighter is not a Boxer, Karate or Judo man. The best fighter is someone who can adapt to any style.” Lee set about to transform martial arts by mixing together different styles in order to obtain the most effective fighting style he could. The president of UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), Dana White, has called Bruce Lee the father of mixed martial arts.
MMA Today
Today MMA is seen all around the world. MMA is considered to be “shoot” fighting, while wrestling such as that seen on the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) shows are considered to be “show” fighting. In 1993, UFC brought MMA back to mainstream when they held the first televised tournament and Royce Gracie won the first UFC Championship. In 1997, Japan followed suit by creating PRIDE Fighting Championships. In 2005, the United States Army held the All Army Combatives Championship, during which combatants used MMA fighting.
In 2006, Chuck Liddell, the light-heavyweight champion, and Tito Ortiz, the former champion, met to battle it out once again. Their fight brought in millions of pay-per-view dollars and rivaled some of the biggest boxing events that had ever been on pay-per-view.
Those that train in MMA now have to learn a number of different skills, including those found in boxing, karate, kickboxing or Muay Thai, wrestling, Judo, holds, and striking. Most fighters choose to train with a number of different coaches, so that they can take the best from each martial art in order to become more effective.
MMA is not a sport for the faint of heart. It requires a lot of time, training, and determination. But those that do it say that MMA is unlike any other martial art in the world.
|
|
