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WRESTLING
Wrestling has been popular throughout recorded history. Origins of the sport can be traced back 15,000 years to cave drawings in France. Early Egyptian and Babylonian reliefs depict wrestlers using most of the holds known to the present-day sport. In ancient Greece, wrestling occupied a prominent place in legend and literature; wrestling competition, brutal in many aspects, was the supreme contest of the Olympic Games. The ancient Romans borrowed heavily from Greek wrestling, but eliminated much of its brutality. During the Middle Ages wrestling remained popular and enjoyed the patronage of many royal houses, including those of France, Japan, and England.
Early American settlers brought a strong wrestling tradition with them from England. The colonists also found wrestling quite popular among the Native Americans. Amateur wrestling flourished throughout the early years of the nation, and served as a popular activity at country fairs, holiday celebrations, and in military exercises. Of the early American styles, only the catch-as-catch-can style survives, and it has evolved into the modern form of collegiate wrestling.
The first organized national wrestling tournament was held in New York City in 1888, while the first wrestling competition in the modern Olympic Games was held in 1904 in Saint Louis, Missouri. FILA was founded in 1912 in Antwerp, Belgium. The first NCAA Wrestling Championships were also held in 1912 in Ames, Iowa. USA Wrestling became the national governing body of amateur wrestling in 1983, and conducts competitions for all age levels.
MIXED MARTIAL ARTS
A combination of combat skills, including Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Thai boxing, wrestling, kickboxing, karate, judo, and boxing. MMA is quickly evolving into one of the most popular sports in the world. Pro MMA Fights are 3 x 5 minute rounds and title fights being 5 x 5 minute rounds. Amateur Fights are 3 x 3 minute rounds.
The largest MMA promotions are the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), Bellator Fighting Championships, and The World Series of Fighting. UFC 1: The Beginning was the first mixed martial arts event by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), held at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado, on November 12, 1993. The event was broadcast live on pay-per-view. Since then this evolving art/ sports has formed into the most watched combat sport worldwide.
BRAZILIAN JIU JITSU
The Martial Art known as Jiu-Jitsu (The Gentle Art) has existed in Japan for many centuries. Its exact origins are not entirely clear and some would argue that India is its rightful birthplace although there is not enough evidence to support this.
Mitsuyo Maeda traveled in the Early 1920's to Brazil to start a colony in the North. It is here where Maeda would meet Gastao Gracie who was involved with politics. Gracie would use his political contacts to aid Maeda and in return, Maeda would teach Jiu-Jitsu to Gastao Gracie's sons.
Carlos Gracie (1902-1994), the oldest Gracie brother learned from Maeda for approximately 2-4 years. This left the Gracie family to learn among themselves refining their technique to the highest degree. They eliminated the useless and added or refined effective techniques. Today, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has proven to be the one of the most effective forms of unarmed combat available. The current generations of the Jiu-Jitsu family have proven this in today's Mixed Martial Art events and Grappling Tournaments around the world.
"IT'S NOT WHETHER YOU
GET KNOCKED DOWN, IT'S WHETHER YOU GET UP"
Vince Lombardi
MUAY THAI
Muay Thai is a combat sport from the martial arts of Thailand that uses stand-up striking along with various clinching techniques. Muay Thai is known as "the art of eight limbs" because it is characterized by the combined use of fists, elbows, knees, shins and feet, being associated with a good physical preparation that makes a fighter very dangerous. Other forms include Muay Lao, Muay Boran and Pradal Serey.
The match consists of three rounds of two minutes for class C matches, three rounds of three minutes for class B contests, three or five rounds of three minutes for class A matches, two or three rounds of two or three minutes for tournament matches. Class A matches may be extended by one or two extra rounds. One-minute intervals take place between the rounds. Additional rules may be applied to tournaments. As of Right now the art is growing in the United States with Glory Kickboxing being the largest marketed promotion.
MUAY Lao
Muay Lao is a traditional unarmed martial art from Laos. It is similar to Muay Thai in Thailand and Pradal Serey in Cambodia. It incorporates punches, kicks, elbows and knee strikes. Muay Lao was an event at the 2009 Southeast Asian Games in Vientiane. Muay Lao is a much smaller sport in Lao than is Muay Thai in Thailand. Professional fights are only held in the National Stadium twice per month. There are only a handful of registered professional fighters in the whole country.
BOXING
Boxing is one of the oldest known sports, with 2,000-year-old depictions on the walls of tombs in Egypt and stone carvings indicating that Sumerians, who lived in what is now Iraq, boxed at least 5,000 years ago. Amateur boxing is an Olympic and Commonwealth sport and is a common fixture in most of the major international games.
A Pro boxing match typically consists of a determined number of three-minute rounds, a total of up to 12 rounds (formerly 15). A minute is typically spent between each round with the fighters in their assigned corners receiving advice and attention from their coach and staff.
The fight is controlled by a referee who works within the ring to judge and control the conduct of the fighters, rule on their ability to fight safely, count knocked-down fighters, and rule on fouls. Up to three judges are typically present at ringside to score the bout and assign points to the boxers, based on punches that connect, defense, knockdowns, and other, more subjective, measures.
Pradal Serey
Pradal Serey or Kun Khmer is an unarmed martial art from Cambodia. In Khmer the word pradal means fighting or boxing and serey means free. Kun Khmer is considered one of Cambodia's national sports. Kun Khmer is a kickboxing form descended directly from early forms of khmer fighting techniques that went by the name Yuthakun Khom. Its moves have been slightly altered to comply with the modern rules. While most well-known for its kicking technique, which generates power from hip rotation rather than snapping the leg, Kun Khmer consists of four types of strikes: punches, kicks, elbows and knee strikes. The clinch is used to wear down the opponent. In the clinch, opponents battle for dominant position for short range strikes by way of elbows and knees.
Kickboxing
Since kickboxing is a general term that can be used both in a wide and narrow sense, this can make understanding the history somewhat difficult. Some of the earliest forms of kickboxing included the various Indochinese martial arts. During the 1970’s kickboxing as we know it today became popular in the US, due largely to the success of Bill “Superfoot” Wallace. Kickboxing is a Japanese term, Japanese kickboxing developed into K-1 in 1993. There is no single international governing body in which many forms exist: World Association of Kickboxing Organizations, World Kickboxing Association, International Sport Karate Association, International Kickboxing Federation, World Sport Kickboxing Federation are the most notable.