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In more than 2000 years, you will think that many things have changed already. Although, it seems that when it comes to sports, modern practices actually have resemblance to ancient ones. Well this is particularly evident with Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), United States’ increasingly popular sport today. In either way you might refer to it, Ultimate Fighting or Mixed Martial arts; this is in fact a contemporary form already. Taking a closer look, MMA pound for pound in fact resemble an Ancient Geek competitive sport referred to as pankration. This kind of sport puts together Greco-Roman wrestling together with a series of martial arts fighting techniques.

Pankration can be traced backed to 648 B.C. During that time, it was newly introduced sport in the Olympics. Just like MMA pound for pound today, the rules and regulations in pankration also apply. For instance, biting as well as eye gouging is also prohibited in this sport. Apart from these two foul plays, anything else is allowable in pankration just like in MMA. Pankration is a combination of two Greek words: pan which means “all”; and kratos which means “powers.” Most of the time, pankration matches can last for hours with certain results leading to the death of one or even both of the fighters. Because of brutal nature and the strength of fighters exhibited, it quickly turned out as the most popular sport in the Olympics.

Unfortunately, the popular of pankration decline when the Roman Empire rose to power. During this time, other sports were introduced to the people and to different sporting events that pankration slowly lost hold of its popularity. In the contemporary Western World, it was wrestling and boxing which took the interests of people traditional martial arts steadily gained popularity in the East.

When the 1900s cane, Brazilian Carlos Gracie, who known to have an extensive training background in judo and learned under the care of well-known Japanese champion Mitsuyo Maeda, started training his four brothers the very skill that he learned previously. In the year 1925, Gracie together with his younger brother Helio relocated to Rio de Janeiro. The two brothers decided to put up a jiu-jitsu studio and later on came up with the “Gracie Challenge.” This served as a challenge to those who want to compete or fight against the two siblings. Which started as way attracting attention to their only just opened academy, the Gracie Challenge was able to draw fighters in several different disciplines and that is from boxing, martial arts, karate, capoeira (a form of Afro-Brazilian fighting) and even wrestling.

Soon, a considerable number of fighters joined these matches bring along with them a relatively huge number of spectators. Afterwards, the matches were flocked with so many people it had to be done in larger areas like the Brazilian soccer arenas. Ultimately, the sport steadily became Brazil’s second most well-liked sport after soccer. It was in the year 1993 when MMA pound for pound finally reached new heights. With the establishment of Ultimate Fighting Championship, the sport has finally made its mark worldwide.

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One thing that we cannot tend to forget is the fact that the MMA Pound for Pound that we are enjoying today is the modern ideology and there are several other aspects that connect to it from other martial arts. There were many additions and deletions in the way the game was played. There are hence two distinct types of styles that we observe- One which is passed by the traditional martial arts and the other which are hybrid and discovered in today’s era.
Specialization in any particular martial arts requires complete training to master the art and in case of MMA Pound for Pound where there are many martial arts combined- training in all of them is required to play the game effectively. The following list throws some light on the various styles and their usages.

1. Stand Up:  This is more of knee work, foot movement and punching styles and kicking as used in boxing/ kick boxing, Karate and so on. These are traditional and the modern way of stand up technique would be Sprawl and Brawl. In this technique the person stands up and strikes in order to avoid ground fighting by using sprawls. This is more of a grappling technique or a defending act. This is usually done by a basic boxer and wrestler who is trained in order to escape from takedowns.
2. Clinching Techniques: Clinching, takedowns and throws are mainly used in events like judo and types of wrestling where we would usually see one person throwing the other down and take him down and sit on him to gain advantage over the other.

This in modern day is more known as ground and pound which involves a similar fashion where the opponent is taken down with a throw and then is attacked primarily with fists in order to gain victory or make the other submissive. This is also mainly used technique in wrestling as a strong action against submissions holds. Though not widely practiced in the earlier days- ground and pound is one of the primary techniques used in MMA Pound for pound and has become an essential part of training today.

1. Ground Techniques- Ground control skills are highly required to achieve submissions holds and also defend against the same when your opponent makes use of it. In the modern day MMA Pound for Pound  this is more referred to as Submissions Grappling techniques where in the take down happens as in the clinching technique but then post that the opponent tries to put pressure on the person beneath him forcing him to submit. The counter action to this is most often where the defendant tries to pull the other on to the ground in order to get an advantage over him.

If you observe in the above mentioned techniques- they resemble to the traditional techniques in many ways but then there were certain disadvantages in all traditional forms. For instance in kick boxing we had the disadvantage that there were no effective counteractions to leg kicks and so on and so forth. In MMA Pound for Pound we will find that one martial art’s disadvantage is being overcome by a technique from another martial art which makes the sport complete.