Mixed Martial Arts or MMA

Mixed Martial Arts or MMA

Mixed Martial Arts or MMA is a combat sport that incorporates full contact punches, kicks, holds and techniques from a variety of other fighting disciplines like boxing, taekwondo, muay thai, judo, wrestling, jujitsu and others. The roots of modern mixed martial arts coming to the ancient Olympics where one of the oldest documented systems of combat was the pankration. Its origin as such is diffuse, based on various competitions held in Europe, Japan and the United States during the early twentieth century. The concept of mixed martial arts is often erroneously considered synonymous with the Brazilian Vale Tudo and other combat sports like full contact and kickboxing, which preceded it; these disciplines, although possessing different tactics and standards, helped shape the modern image of mixed martial arts.

The forerunner of the current regulation of MMA can be found in his first event, where struggles of minimum standards originally were promoted with the intention of finding the most effective martial arts for close combat body.1 Later, fighters began to adopt multiple martial arts into their style, which led to the adoption of additional rules aimed at increasing the safety of the competitors and to promote its acceptance as deporte.2 Since then, the sport has become increasingly popular, rivaling other disciplines such as boxing and wrestling profesional.3

At present, the business of mixed martial arts has been led by companies such as Ultimate Fighting Championship and the former PRIDE Fighting Championships, as well as smaller companies. Shooto is considered the first company organized MMA still active, although at the beginning it had a slightly different rules.