MMA Origin and History? - Fred Mergen

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Hi my name is Fred Mergen from Mergen from Mergen Mixed Martial Arts and we're going to talk about MMA origin and history.

MMA started back in the 90's...92-93 when the first UFC came out. And it was actually called "No Holds Barred" fighting back then, so it was "No Holds Barred". Then later on it became mixed martial arts and MMA.

Basically what it is, is guys would come in...the first UFC the Gracies dominated because they had the Jiu Jitsu, the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu so they would take these guys who were great stand up fighters but as soon as you took them to the ground they did not know what to do. For the first couple of years the Gracies kinda held the whole fighting world hostage because everybody didn't know what to do. Then everybody started training around that.

I forget the exact date but Royce Gracie fought in Japan and fought this guy with blonde hair and all he kept doing was leg kicks, leg kicks, leg kicks and after the first round when Gracie went back to his corner they actually threw the towel in because he couldn't continue. So that's when everyone started seeing, "wow" there were some flaws to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. If you keep them standing, they really can't do anything. But when they take you to the ground they're super deadly they're like a boa constrictor.

So MMA kinda originated from the first UFC. Everybody started thinking "If I don't just train in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or Karate or Kickboxing or Boxing or Muay Thai or Sambo, and kinda mixed everything together you get a better fighter.

Personally I used to always tell my friends if you could take a Tae Kwon Do guy and have him train in kickboxing and Kenpo that was one of the best fighters. Until Jiu Jitsu came around and then you add Jiu Jitsu to that and that's the mixed martial arts because you mixed them all together and you get the ultimate fighter.

What I say that MMA was more brutal in the beginning? Yes! Because the rounds, actually the first UFC I actually saw the fight was 31 minutes long. There were no rounds yet and it wasn't sanctioned by the athletic commission so they kinda had their own rules.

Now you have, in the first UFC they weren't even wearing gloves, they actually came in with shoes and kicked with shoes on. So then they started regulating that you have to have the gloves, you have to have wraps, mouth piece, cup, which they had in the first UFC but they did a lot of regulations. No eye pokes, no craziness.

I think that MMA is just going to grow bigger and bigger. A lot of people think it's a fad but it's not going anywhere. You know it used to be just pay per view and then it was on Spike and now it's on Fox Sports its becoming bigger and bigger.

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