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. Even as late as the Early Middle Ages, statues were put up in Rome and other cities to honour remarkable pankratiasts.

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.

Another early example of mixed martial arts combat was the martial art of Bartitsu, founded in London in 1899, which was the first martial art known to have combined Asian and European fighting styles, and which saw MMA-style contests throughout England, pitting European and Japanese champions against representatives of various European wrestling styles.

Mixed style contests such as boxing vs. jujutsu were popular entertainment throughout Europe, Japan and the Pacific Rim during the early 1900s. In Japan these contests were known as Merikan, from the Japanese slang for “American [fighting]”. Merikan contests were fought under a variety of rules including points decision, best of three throws or knockdowns, and victory via knockout or submission.

Professional wrestling died out after World War I and was reborn in two streams: “shoot”, in which the fighters actually competed, and “show,” which evolved into modern sports entertainment professional wrestling.

Modern mixed martial arts tournaments are rooted in two interconnected movements. First were the vale tudo events in Brazil, followed by the Japanese shoot wrestling shows. Vale tudo began in the 1920s with the “Gracie challenge” issued by Carlos Gracie and Hélio Gracie and upheld later on by descendants of the Gracie family. In Japan in the 1970s, a series of mixed martial arts matches were hosted by Antonio Inoki, inspiring the shoot-style movement in Japanese professional wrestling, which eventually led to the formation of the first mixed martial arts organizations, such as Shooto, which was formed in 1985. The concept of combining the elements of multiple martial arts was pioneered and popularized by Bruce Lee in the late 1960’s to early 1970’s. Lee believed that “the best fighter is not a Boxer, Karate or Judo man. The best fighter is someone who can adapt to any style.” His innovative concepts were recognized in 2004 by UFC President Dana White when he called Lee the “father of mixed martial arts.”

Mixed martial arts gained significant international exposure and widespread publicity in the United States in 1993, when Royce Gracie won the first Ultimate Fighting Championship, sparking a revolution in the martial arts. In Japan in 1997, the continued interest in the sport eventually resulted in the creation of the PRIDE Fighting Championships.
Chuck Liddell (right) and Tito Ortiz broke PPV records with their rematch at UFC 66.

The United States Army began to sanction Mixed Martial arts when the US Army Combatives School held the first annual All Army Combatives Championships in Nov 2005.

The sport reached a new peak of popularity in North America in the December 2006 rematch between then light-heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell and former champion Tito Ortiz, rivaling the PPV sales of some of the biggest boxing events of all time, and helping the UFC’s 2006 PPV gross surpass that of any promotion in PPV history. In 2007, Zuffa LLC, the owners of the UFC MMA production, bought Japanese rival MMA brand PRIDE merging the contracted fighters. and drawing comparisons to the consolidation that occurred in other sports, such as the AFL-NFL Merger in American football.

As a result of sporting events, martial arts training, information sharing, and modern kinesiology, the understanding of the combat-effectiveness of various strategies has been greatly improved. UFC commentator Joe Rogan has claimed that martial arts have evolved more in the ten years following 1993 than in the preceding 700 years.

The early years of the sport saw a wide variety of traditional styles—everything from sumo to kickboxing— and the continual evolution of the sport has gradually eliminated less effective techniques and “pure” styles, usually because specialized fighters were lacking in skills to deal with broader techniques.

In the early 1990s, three styles stood out for their effectiveness in competition: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, amateur wrestling and shoot wrestling. This may be attributable in part to the grappling emphasis of the aforementioned styles, which, perhaps due to the scarcity of mixed martial arts competitions prior to the early 90s, had been neglected by most practitioners of striking-based arts.

Fighters who combined amateur wrestling with striking techniques dominated the standing portion of a fight, whilst Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu stylists had a distinct advantage on the ground: those unfamiliar with submission grappling proved to be unprepared to deal with its submission techniques. Shoot wrestling practitioners offered a balance of amateur wrestling ability and catch wrestling based submissions, resulting in a generally well-rounded set of skills. The shoot wrestlers were especially successful in Japan, where this style initially dominated others.

As competitions became more and more common, those with a base in striking became more competitive as they acquainted themselves with takedowns and submission holds, leading to notable upsets against the then dominant grapplers. Subsequently, those from the varying grappling styles learned from each other’s strengths and shortcomings, and added striking techniques to their arsenal. This overall development of increased cross-training resulted in the fighters becoming increasingly multi-dimensional and well-rounded in their skills. One of the first fighters to be considered the prototype for mixed martial arts was UFC middleweight champion, Frank Shamrock. “During his reign atop the sport in the late 1990s he was the prototype — he could strike with the best strikers; he could grapple with the best grapplers; his endurance was second to none.”