PRE-MODERN
One of the earliest forms of widespread unarmed combat sports with minimal rules was Greek pankration, which was introduced into the Olympic Games in 648 B.C. No-holds-barred events reportedly took place in the late 1800s when wrestlers representing a huge range of fighting styles including various catch wrestling styles, Greco-Roman wrestling and many others met in tournaments and music-hall challenge matches throughout Europe. The first major encounter between a boxer and a wrestler in modern times took place in 1887 when John L. Sullivan, then heavyweight world boxing champion, entered the ring with his trainer, Greco-Roman wrestling champion William Muldoon, and was slammed to the mat in two minutes. The next publicized encounter occurred in the late 1890s when future heavyweight boxing champion Bob Fitzsimmons took on European Greco-Roman wrestling champion Ernest Roeber. Reportedly, Roeber suffered a fractured cheekbone in this bout, but was able to get Fitzsimmons down on the mat, where he applied an armlock and made the boxer submit. In 1936, heavyweight boxing contender Kingfish Levinsky and veteran professional wrestler Ray Steele competed in a mixed match, which Steele won in 35 seconds.
The history of the modern MMA tournament can be traced to the Gracie family's vale tudo martial arts tournaments in Brazil starting in the 1920s, and early mixed martial arts matches hosted by Antonio Inoki in Japan in the 1970s. The fighting concept of combining various combat disciplines gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the emergence of Bruce Lee and his theories of mixing various martial art styles. The sport gained international exposure and widespread publicity in the United States in 1993, when Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter Royce Gracie dominated the Ultimate Fighting Championship, sparking a revolution in the martial arts, while in Japan the continued interest in the sport resulted in 1997's creation of the PRIDE Fighting Championships. (From encyclopedia.com)
