Sports Then and Now

In recent years we witnessed how new, unique type of sport had been originating. Before it was created, martial arts techniques were divided into striking (box, kickboxing, karate, taekwondo, etc.) and grappling (Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling, sambo, judo).

So called “mixed style”, created at the beginning of the 90s, has literally changed the world of sport martial arts and made many fans view their favorite sports from new perspective.

The idea itself isn’t that new. Ancient Greeks created the combat style, called pankration, which was included in the program of ancient Olympiad. It allows using almost any striking or grappling technique. There was long lasting fights in the parterre (where rules allowed using numerous techniques).

But, nevertheless, these competitions weren’t properly organized and some of them (such as pankration or Japanese Middle Age championships) disappeared. At the beginning of the 90s we became closer to answer the question that for a long time kept people wondering. And that question is who is stronger: whale or tiger, bear or lion. Mixed style tournaments and championships tried to answer this question. They began almost simultaneously in different countries.

Betting and MMA

There is a lot of fans of mixed martial arts, and the most experienced of them have found a way to turn a favorite pastime in the way of earnings. When betting on UFC league, you can easily raise capital and warm up the excitement of confrontation of the favorite boxers. With the ability to bet on mixed martial arts, bookmaking offices got a new portion of the gamblers. Bookmakers give attention to the players with the latest news from the world of MMA, making it easier to their customers to make more accurate predictions. Read the rest of this entry →

Mixed Martial Arts is a type of sport combat. Moves from various martial arts are allowed, including kicking and striking. Fighting takes place in the parterre or not. Minimum protective gear is used, that’s a full contact combat. Some of MMA are elimination tournaments and some of them are group tournaments. Mixed form tournaments are also organized.

Every year more than 100 Mixed Martial Arts competitions take place (within the framework of corresponding organizations) such as UFC (USA), “2 Hot 2 Handle” (Netherlands), “Pride” (Japan), Vale Tudo tournaments (Brazil), M-1 (Russia), etc. Countries mentioned above are the world leaders in this type of sport.

The idea to organize fights between representatives of various martial arts was realized in the end of 19th – beginning of 20th centuries. Cross matches became quite popular, for example, box world champion fighting against the champion of another martial art and so on, that was some sort of casino gambling game in which you made bets on the winning martial art. Mostly this type of events was held in casino by their owners, but those fights weren’t regular.

Mixed Martial Arts was eventually formed in 1990s. Certain format tournaments started to open their branches outside their countries of origin. Which led the MMA to the new heights of popularity. For example, European Vale Tudo is a branch of a Brazilian form of combat. Read the rest of this entry →