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UFC: The
Evolution of Mixed Martial Arts
By Eric Meyer
If you have ever watched the UFC ( Ultimate Fighting
Championship) you are watching fighters who are called
Mixed martial Artists. In the beginning of the UFC
Brazilian Jujitsu fighter Royce Gracie dominated
fighters with his ground fighting skills. This was the
first era of Mixed martial arts when anyone with some
knowledge of ground fighting dominated.
The next era of the UFC was the time of the wrestler.
Wrestlers like Severn, Coleman, Kerr, Frye, Henderson
and Couture destroyed oponets with their ground and
pound style of fighting. Ground and Pound fighting is
when they would use wrestling moves to slam their
opponents into the ground and start pounding them in the
face, very simple but effective. Now all the
“Non-wrestlers” began to train to defend these
techniques so the “Wrestlers” had to evolve or get out
of the fight game.
This is the third era of Mixed martial arts when these
wrestlers began to incorporate Brazilian Jujitsu into
their fight game and learn submission holds. Mark
Coleman in the beginning failed to evolve and began to
lose for two reasons: first rule changes and next lack
of submission and striking training. The rule change
that wrestlers the most was the no head butting rule.
When the wrestler could slam his opponent to the ground
and smash short head butts to his opponents face all day
it was bloody devastating. The UFC who was trying to
appease state Athletic Commission Boards did away with
the head buts and kicking a downed opponent. Now pure
ground and pound fighting was now working because a new
breed of fighter was coming was being developed, the
striker turned grappler.
Maurice Smith was a very famous kick boxer came into the
UFC and trained several UFC fighters on the aspects of
kickboxing. We watched how Mo Smith would chop down
fighters with low kicks and sprawl when they shot in to
take him down or pull them into his guard. This also
prompted wrestlers to learn the better aspects of boxing
and kickboxing. Randy Couture took it a step further and
incorporated wrestling holds while striking which he
called dirty boxing.
Today you can’t win with out knowing every range of
fighting. Fighters don’t have to be great in each area
but they do have be familiar. The current champions such
as Fedor, Liddlel, GSP, Hughes, Silva all are all highly
conditioned athletes who are skilled at wrestling,
boxing, kick boxing and submission holds.
Want to improve you fight game skills come to
http://www.illinoismma.com and get to the skills to
stay on top. Read about the UFC, Pride Fighting,
Conditioning, fight tips and your favorite Mixed Martial
Artists like, Liddle, Fedor, Rutten and many many more
go now to http://www.illinoismma.com |
