From Sumerian boxers to the UFC octagon, fighting sports keep reinventing themselves
Wrestling may be the closest thing humanity has to a universal sport, arising independently in cultures across the globe. Boxing contests go back to ancient Sumer in the third millennium BCE. Yet many of today's best-known fighting sports, from Brazilian jiu-jitsu to mixed martial arts, took their modern form only within the last century.
The ancient Olympics already featured boxing, wrestling, races run in armour, and pankration, a brutal blend added in 648 BCE. Ancient China had lei tai, a largely rule-free contest mixing striking and grappling. In medieval and Renaissance Europe, aristocrats flocked to tournaments built around jousting, while German fighting masters separated sporting combat, schimpf, from the serious kind, ernst. Tudor England's prize playing grew into 18th-century prizefighting, which became modern boxing once the Marquess of Queensberry rules arrived in 1867.
The 20th century was a period of rapid invention. The Gracie family is credited with creating Brazilian jiu-jitsu in 1925, modern Muay Thai took shape in the 1920s and 1930s, and sanshou was developed in China in the 1950s. Kickboxing and full-contact karate appeared in the 1960s. Professional wrestling began as genuine catch wrestling around the turn of the century before turning into athletic theatre. Mixed martial arts grew from vale tudo and shoot wrestling, surfacing in Japan as Shooto in 1985 and in America as the UFC in 1993, with unified rules following in 2000.
Olympic history is patchy. Boxing has appeared at every Summer Games since 1904 except Stockholm in 1912, where Swedish law ruled it out. Judo skipped Mexico City in 1968, and women's judo arrived in Barcelona in 1992. Taekwondo became a medal sport in Sydney in 2000, karate debuted at Tokyo 2020, and singlestick appeared only once, in 1904. Fencing is one of just five sports present at every modern Games.
The sports have long been dominated by men, both in the ring and in the stands; USA Boxing did not lift its ban on women's boxing until 1993. Rules and referees aim to limit serious harm, and protective gear varies widely, with Olympic taekwondo athletes wearing far more padding than professional boxers or MMA fighters, who are especially exposed to head injuries.
Source: Combat sport
