Mixed martial arts
full-contact combat sport
Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full-contact combat sport based on striking and grappling, incorporating techniques from various combat sports from around the world.
The precursors of modern MMA existed in various parts of the world since the ancient period to the 20th century in different forms. Prior to 1970s, various inter-stylistic contests and/or no-holds-barred bouts took place throughout different countries in East Asia. One example is from mid-20th-century Hong Kong, where rooftop street fighting contests between different martial arts styles occurred. As a result, this naturally contributed to the rise of Bruce Lee's hybrid martial arts style, Jeet Kune Do in United States.
The modern MMA started to emerge in different forms during the 20th century as well. In Brazil there was a phenomenon called vale tudo, an early form of modern MMA, which became known for unrestricted fights between various styles such as judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, catch wrestling, Luta Livre, Muay Thai and capoeira. An early high-profile mixed bout was Kimura vs Gracie in 1951. Another early form of modern MMA was the 1976 Ali vs. Inoki exhibition bout, fought between boxer Muhammad Ali and wrestler Antonio Inoki in Japan, where it later inspired the foundation of Shooto in 1985, Pancrase in 1993, and the Pride Fighting Championships in 1997.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Mixed martial arts” as full-contact combat sport. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as full-contact combat sport. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q114466. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1951, 1976, 1985 and 1993.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mixed martial arts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.