The “modern history” of the sport of mixed martial arts begins well within the last few decades. The following is a brief history of how the modern sport of mixed martial arts developed into its current form of fighting:
- The first ultimate fighting championship (UFC) took place November 12, 1993.
- All martial arts styles of combat and martial arts contributed to this modern combat style. Today this mixture of ancient martial arts fighting and modern grappling is named MMA fighting or mixed martial arts.
- The sport of MMA has an ancient history as well. The ancient Greeks had a form of fighting called Greek pankration. This ancient Greek event was a fighting event that eventually became part of the olympic games in 648 B.C. This was the first documented full contact form of combat that had few rules.
- Pankration events were known through out history for their brutality. There were eventual Etruscan and Roman pancratium events that developed from the original fighting events.
- An event in 1887 merged a heavy weight boxing event with John Sullivan with a Greco Roman wrestling champion William Muldoon. This merger began a modern version of mixed martial arts and wrestling techniques.
- England contributed to the development of mixed martial arts when in the late 1800’s several fighting events merged together.
- Bartitsu events were pitted with Asian and European fighting styles.
- The centuries have merged together several of the combat fighting styles to produce a modern mixed martial arts sporting combat style. The first MMA event was named in a UPC championship in 1993.
Modern mixed martial arts fighting has created a group of current stars that are among several weight classes. Bantam weight fighters include Dominick Cruz and Miesha Tate. Women’s mixed martial fighting has several prominent MMA fighters. There are several MMA fighters who are among the stars who have stayed at the top of the competition classes for the past decade. There are new challengers as well. Gambling on these competitions can have its rewards and benefits since the odds for winning may have greater pay offs for the newer fighters.
