I was only 12 years old when the UFC was broadcast for the first time. The sport of 'mixed-martial-arts' had yet to be invented, so the UFC was advertised more or less as a freak-show. Who would win in a fight, a sumo-wrestler or kick-boxer? A judoka or kung-fu practitioner? While promoted as a 'Street Fighter-esque' style versus style tournament, in reality, the UFC was little more than an advertisement for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu (aka Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu). Invented in the 1920s when Mitsuyo Maeda, a prominent Japanese Judoka, taught the Gracie family from Brazil his personal, ground-based style of Judo, BJJ was somewhat of a revelation. The Gracies, most notably 16 year-old Helio Gracie adapted Gracie Jiujitsu until it became the modern Brazilian Jiujitsu style practised today.
Previous to the UFC, people were unsure of what 'fighting' was supposed to look like. Weened on Bruce Lee movies, people expected fighting to have flying spin kicks, kung-fu hand trapping, and karate splits. But instead, the Gracies employed a methodical, ground-based style of submission fighting. Instead of going for strikes, the Gracies fought for dominant positions on the ground before employing chokes, arm-bars, and leg-locks. Elegant, but not particularly esthetically pleasing, the Gracie style dominated mixed-martial-arts during its first few years. After the 180 pound Royce Gracie defeated an array of muscle bound kick-boxers and karate fighters, commentator Jim Brown summed up the evening with a simple, but completely apt comment; “fighting is not what we thought it was.”
An obscure art until the 90s, BJJ is now a multimillion dollar business, as ubiquitous as karate, with nearly as much name recognition as taekwondo. While the Gracies themselves are no longer the forerunners of the sport, nearly 20 years later their style of fighting remains a standard in the toolbox of all mixed-martial-artists.
But the Gracie era ended a few years later with Mark Coleman, a hulking Olympic wrestler whose style encapsulated nothing more than taking his opponent down, holding them down, and headbutting them into submission. To an outside observer, fighting was even less than what we thought. To say this was discouraging was an understatement. For years, we all thought a person of any size or athleticism could fight with a few years of karate lessons and Bruce Lee moves. And while Gracie Jiujitsu may not have brought the girls to the floor, it gave hope to those of us with less than intimidating physiques. But with the wins of Mark Coleman we were all brought back down to earth. Technique mattered less than size; intelligence less than strength.
But that in itself ended a few UFCs later with the wins of Vitor Belfort and Maurice Smith, kick-boxers that brought the striking back into fighting. When Pete Williams knocked out Mark Coleman with a high kick, the commentator was near shock, bellowing that was the first time a head kick had worked in the sport of mixed-martial-arts. A head kick! What a revelation!
Well last Saturday, at the final World Extreme Cagefighting event before being shutdown by its parent company the UFC, new 155 pound champion pulled off an Ong Bak inspired, jump off the cage high kick:
So if you're keeping track of the evolution of fighting, it looks something like that:
Movie-inspired
dull ground-based
super dull-ground based.
Limited striking
mix of everything
movie-inspired
Maybe it's just a matter of time before we start seeing stuff like this in the cage.
