On November 12th 1993 an American no holds barred “NHB” martial arts tournament entered by the world’s top martial artists revolutionized martial arts forever, allowing the development of a new and superior fighting style, known as “Mixed Martial Arts” (MMA). MMA was not encumbered by the traditions and ineffective techniques of traditional arts, finely honed and evolved using on those techniques that were proven to be effective in the ring.
At least that’s what the UFC publicity machine would like us to believe. Under closer scrutiny however, the reality is somewhat different. The first glaring falsehood is that the competitors were far from being the recognized leading exponents of their styles, the eight competitors were largely unknown in the martial arts world and their statuses were grossly exaggerated as part of the promotion (e.g. Kimo Leopoldo was erroneously touted in UFC III as a “third degree Black belt taekwondo). In fact the only leading exponent of his style was Royce Gracie a practitioner of a modified style of Japanese Jujitsu (which later became known as Brazilian Jujitsu) and one of the organisers, who went on to win three of the first four UFCs
The “no rules” claim was also untrue as biting, ‘fish-hooking’ an opponent’s face, eye gouging and throat strikes were illegal, eliminating the favored techniques of many of the more popular traditional martial arts. Competitors who broke the rules were fined £1,000 and would loose bouts by default. As time went on more rules were introduced to protect the fighters, appease the legislators and make the fights (which rapidly turned into very dull wrestling matches) more entertaining. Today these rules consist of
- Commission approved gloves
- Weight classes
- Time limits and rounds
- Mandatory drug testing
- No head butting or kicking to the downed opponent
- No knees to the head of a downed opponent
- No downward point of the elbow strikes
- No strikes to the spine or the back of the head
- No groin or throat strikes
- No small joint manipulation
Serving to further eliminate the possibility of practitioners of traditional Asian martial arts ever winning the competitions, by disallowing practically all of their favoured techniques. The fights were held in an octagonal cage unimaginatively christened “The Octagon”, which was touted by organisers as having been specially designed by doctors and martial artists to create an enclosure that would act as a neutral arena to showcase skills of many martial arts disciplines.
In a relatively short space of time and largely as a result of the revenues generated from pay-per-view television, UFC rapidly became a multi million dollar industry in the United States resulting in many martial arts schools in the US redefining parts of their training programs as MMA to cash in on the growing demand from fans to be able to say that they trained in the same styles as the UFC fighters.