Mixed martial arts

Pankration is the oldest style of fighting without weapons, resembling modern MMA. The ancient Greeks introduced this discipline in the Olympic Games in 648 BC.

Greek pankration then transformed into a more brutal Etruscan and Roman “pankratium”. The fighting in this style were shown in the Colosseum, and the statues of eminent fighters were subsequently established in Rome and other Italian cities.

Some public performances of battles took place in the end of XIX century. They represented different styles of fighting, including jujutsu, wrestling and other styles.

Competitions with mixed styles (e.g. a boxer against a wrestler) were very popular in Europe and in many countries in the Far East at the turn of XIX and XX centuries.

In England the martial art called “bartitsu” appeared, combining European and Asian studies.

Mention of bartitsu, in particular, is found in the books of famous English writer Arthur Conan Doyle, who attributed the possession of “deadly struggle of bartitsu” to his anti-hero – Professor Moriarty.

His expertise in this area Moriarty uses a melee fight against Sherlock Holmes, the representative of the School of English boxing, at the edge of the Reichenbach Falls.

After the First World War, the struggle was revived in the two main streams. First – was a real competition, called “shootwrestling”; second began to depend more on the planned choreographed show, which led to professional wrestling, now popular in the U.S..

In the late 60-ies the concept of combining elements of different martial arts was popularized by Bruce Lee, however, because of the “Iron Curtain”, in the USSR, these skills became widely known only in the late 70’s.

The philosophy developed by Bruce Lee, was called “JKD”, and one of its main principles is the ability to adapt successfully to a fighter of any style.

Exercise by Lee and, especially, movies with his participation influenced the MMA to such an extent that in 2004 UFC president Dana White called Lee “the father of MMA.” It should be noted that in addition to JKD since even more ancient times the mixed-martial arts such as karate and kadzyukembo INSEE Goju Ryu already existed.

In Russia, the predecessor of the MMA was Sambo – a system developed by the synthesis of many types of martial arts in the USSR in 1938, thanks to the order № 633 “On the development of freestyle struggle”.

Of all of existing martial arts, Sambo most closely resembles the MMA according to the arsenal of techniques used.

However, it should be noted that Sambo is divided into two main areas: sports and military, also founded in 1930s, but till 1991 it was available only to law enforcement agencies.

In the first case, the main task is to demonstrate the throwing techniques or techniques of pain sleight, the Combat Sambo is much closer to the MMA in its essence, as its primary ability is that the fighter should deprive the enemy of the resistance.