We return this week to our brief history of MMA to discuss some modern fighters, how the fighting styles have evolved, general rules, the main strategies and ways to win, and also the safety precautions taken to ensure these athletes are protected. Again, I want to thank Wikipedia for really helping make my research on this topic so much easier. You can find much of this article in the form of various articles on Wikipedia, I just merged them together and added my two cents.
I mentioned at the beginning of my Part 1 post last week that I felt somewhat authorized to speak on this subject because I’ve recently gone back to watch many of the early UFC and Pride events, the two ‘heavyweights’ in the MMA world. But what’s the difference between the two? To understand that, you have to have a little better idea of where they came from, and what philosophy they were based in. We’ll get into that and more after the jump.
The history of modern MMA competition can be traced to mixed style contests throughout Europe, Japan and the Pacific Rim during the early 1900s; the Gracie family‘s vale tudo martial arts tournaments in Brazil starting in the 1920s, with the “Gracie challenge” issued by Carlos Gracie and Hélio Gracie and upheld later on by descendants of the Gracie family; and early mixed martial arts-themed professional wrestling matches (known as Ishu Kakutougi Sen in Japan) hosted by Antonio Inoki in Japan in the 1970s.
MMA officially made it’s way to America via the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in 1993. In the early days of the UFC, these events were tournament style, instead of just a single fight, you continued to advance if you were able to keep fighting until you reached the championship. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) fighter Royce Gracie dominated most of the first 4 tournaments, winning the entire 1st tournament, which totaled 3 matches, in under 5 minutes. Meanwhile Japan had its Shooto, where fighter Rickson Gracie won the tournaments in 1994 and 1995, resulting in the creation of the Pride Fighting Championships in 1997, where again Rickson participated and won. The success of these organizations led to an “MMA” Sanctioning body in 1999, which was aided by certified officials and well developed rules that were built up from kickboxing’s long developed system. This ushered in a new era of Mixed Martial Arts where it is once again recognized as a true sport worldwide.
As a result of an increased number of competitors, organized training camps, information sharing, and modern kinesiology, the understanding of the combat-effectiveness of various strategies has been greatly improved. UFC commentator Joe Rogan claimed that martial arts evolved more in the ten years following 1993 than in the preceding 700 years combined. The early years of the sport saw a wide variety of traditional styles—everything from sumo to kickboxing—but the continual evolution of the sport saw many styles prove ineffective, while others proved successful on their own, namely BJJ, wrestling and submission wrestling.
As time passed, the fighters changed. Strikers focused on wrestling, ground technicians worked on their stand-up game. No longer could you have success utilizing only 1 aspect of fighting, you had to at least be sufficient at a number of different styles. There are a number of categories a fighter can fall into (I’m just going to link to this because it would be another whole article on it’s own.) Because the fighters were changing, the rules had to change. The main motivations for these rule changes were protection of the health of the fighters, the desire to shed the image of “barbaric, no rules, fighting-to-the-death” matches, and being recognized as a sport.
The new rules included the introduction of weight classes. Small, open-fingered gloves were introduced to protect fists in punches, reduce the occurrence of cuts (and stoppages due to cuts) and encourage fighters to use their hands for striking to allow more captivating matches. Time limits were established to avoid long fights with little action where competitors conserved their strength. Similar motivations produced the “stand up” rule, where the referee can stand fighters up if it is perceived that both are resting on the ground or not advancing toward a dominant position.
Victory in a match is normally gained either by the judges’ decision after an allotted amount of time has elapsed, a stoppage by the referee (for example if a competitor can not defend himself intelligently) or the fight doctor (the referee will call for a time out if a fighter’s ability to continue is in question as a result of apparent injuries, such as a large cut. The ring doctor will inspect the fighter and stop the match if the fighter is deemed unable to continue safely, rendering the opponent the winner. However, if the match is stopped as a result of an injury from illegal actions by the opponent, either a disqualification or no contest will be issued instead.), a submission (a fighter may admit defeat during a match by a tap on the opponent’s body or mat/floor or a verbal announcement/verbal tap), by a competitor’s cornerman throwing in the towel, or by knockout.
That gives you the basic rundown of the mixed martial arts world. At this point, you could sit down and watch a match, and have a basic idea of what is actually happening. As I stated at the beginning of this journey, MMA is such a strategic chess match, these guys have to process so much on the fly, or else they might get their head knocked off. Between attacking, countering, clinching, and grappling, there’s always a good and a bad choice, and the ability to make that choice quickly is what separates the great fighters from the wannabes. I hope you’ve enjoyed this 2-part series, I know I learned quite a bit. I hope you’ll join me next week as I’ll run through a brief history of the UFC.
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