| 05 January 2010
On that November night in 1993, the UFC was born. It was an eight-man tournament format, with no weight classes. No gloves were worn, and everything was legal except biting and attacking the eyes and groin. I even saw some vicious head butting in there!
The matches had unlimited 5 minute rounds with no judges and the winner of the tournament would take home $50,000. The match only ended by knockout, submission or throwing in the towel or as quoted on the VHS cover: "You can win by knockout, submission or death."
Mmmmm... interesting marketing tactic.
Prior to the introduction of the MMA bouts, most people in the world thought they knew about fighting and what it was all about.
Well, why wouldn’t they? Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris were the ultimate ninja warriors! Their flashy kicks and charismatic performances led people to believe that karate & kickboxing practitioners were invincible! After all, could a boxer take on a Ninja?
Most people hadn't even heard of the different types of ground fighting, such as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). If you mentioned wrestling to the majority of people, their minds would immediately go to Hulk Hogan smashing a chair off Andre the Giant's head. If you mentioned cage/street fighting, most would often recoil in horror at the brutality.
To put it simply - almost everyone was clueless.
Cock Fighting
By 1997, MMA fights were banned throughout most of the United States as they were seen as ‘too brutal’ and people did not want them to be seen as a sport - comparisons were even made to cock fighting. Many people turned up their noses at the mere mention of the "sport".
A combination of rule changes and successful public relations campaigns seemed to bring the combat sport back from its self-imposed death. Time limits were introduced, gloves were required and more rules to protect the fighters have been put in place. Instead of relying on a knockout or submission, points are now awarded by judges for various strikes and grapples.
A lot has changed! MMA is now sanctioned in 42 out of 50 states and with ever rising popularity – the sky is the limit!
Not only have the rules and promotions evolved, so have the fighters – they are now known as athletes. In the early UFCs the fights were billed as one skill against the other, ‘Karate vs. Jiu-jitsu, Russian Sambo vs. Kung Fu and Pencak Silat vs. Muay Thai Kickboxing. At that time, there was no such thing as a mixed martial artist! The term that we are all so familiar with now was not developed until many years later.
MMA is a hybrid of martial arts techniques and traditions such as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, kickboxing, wrestling, traditional boxing and many more. Nowadays, mixed martial artists have to be well versed in all styles, otherwise they cannot effectively compete.
But which of these is the KEY element?
If someone came to me and said ‘Hayley, I want to be an MMA fighter, what should I start off with?’, what would be my answer?
My mind immediately goes to BJJ. After all, who was the original poster boy for the UFC? Royce Gracie, the lanky underdog in UFC 1, went on to win the championship - beating 3 opponents in one night – all with just his BJJ skills.
In the quarterfinals he beat, Art Jimmerson, a boxer, via submission (or frustrated tap as most see it) after only 2 minutes 18 seconds. He then went on to submit Ken Shamrock, a former pro-wrestler/shoot fighter with a Gi choke, 57 seconds into the fight.
In the final he faced off against Gerard Gordeau, listed as a Savate fighter, and won by rear naked choke (RNC) after 1 minute 45 seconds. What he proved that night was that technique was more important than size and that his skills could be employed to overcome a much larger opponent.
But then, I considered wrestling... for me these are the two key skill areas for an effective mixed martial artist. But which one is THE most important base?
I read in a few articles that according to the data from the UFC, there is an inverse relationship between grappling styles and weight. As the weight class increases in weight, wrestling becomes the more dominant style, with wrestling being the clear-cut winner in the heavyweight class. As the weight classes decrease in weight, BJJ becomes the more dominant style and is the clear-cut winner in the lightweight class.
Both BJJ and wrestling require a huge amount of physical ability
Arguably wrestling is more strength focused, where BJJ is mostly about technique and leverage. As Royce Gracie showed, physical power can be overcome by using these skills. However my personal opinion is that wrestling is the key base and the most essential skill for these simple reasons:
- It gives you the skill to control your opponent and to avoid being controlled by them. Control within a fight is key - wrestling provides this.
- While the early UFCs proved that a good Jiu-Jitsu fighter can submit a wrestler when he doesn’t see the submission coming, defensive jiu-jitsu is a skill which is much easier to learn with a solid grappling base like wrestling. With the wealth of training available today, a wrestler is usually able to pick up these skills fairly quickly.
- A highly skilled BJJ practitioner may be fantastic at submissions but if they cannot take the wrestler down to the ground then their submission skill set will be rendered useless!
- Striking is a very important aspect of MMA, however, it has been proved time and time again - without solid grappling fundamentals, no matter how high a level of striker you are, you can be neutralised with effective grappling.
- Wrestlers have the ability to decide where a fight takes place. If their opponent is primarily a striker, they can take them down and work for submissions or ground and pound. If they feel their striking is better than their opponents or that their opponent has superior submission skills, they can use their defensive wrestling to keep the fight on the feet.
Obviously, modern day martial artists need to have both striking and grappling skills in abundance in order to be competitive. I'm not underplaying the importance or need for striking. However, as we're still at a point where martial artists tend to develop a primary skill set before entering the world of MMA, I believe that wrestling is the strongest of these skills and a key base.
No matter where our opinions lie, I’m sure we all agree that the future of MMA is bright! Most people are starting to train in the sport of ‘MMA’ instead of the individual components. New athletes, new approaches to the sport equals innovation and more interesting, competitive match-ups.
I can’t wait to see this new breed of mixed martial artists make their way through the ranks. How exciting!
I’m sure this subject will have a lot of different views so please share them with us! Look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Hayley Forster, a long-time female fight fan, lives in the North of England with her husband, Pete. Both have deep love for the sport of MMA. If you would like to submit a guest post on the subject of mixed martial arts, please forward it to Cheryl Ragsdale at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
No, you don't have to be female to submit a guest post.
But since we're on the subject of female fight fans, check out this story about
Dana White's prediction for the growth of the UFC female fan base
written by Hayley, January 07, 2010
Thanks for the nice words. Yes i agree with you - if you have a BJJ guy versus a wrestling guy such as Gracie/Shamrock in UFC 1 you will preety much get the same result as we saw - the wrestler being submitted. When we are looking at MMA atheletes, who are well versed in all skills, the wrestling really comes into its own allowing you to have much more control. Looking into different types of wrestling, I really think submission wrestling is sooooo important. Having good wrestling skills with great submissions/submission defence is a hard skill to get past.
Glad you enjoyed reading the article Andrew! Plenty more to come so keep checking back
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Nice article Hayley!