MMA history: A CliffsNotes version

It would require possibly 10 separate blog posts to fully explain the long and complex history of Mixed Martial Arts. But consider this a crash course for the curious interested in learning about the sport’s past in a quick, convenient summary.

For those not in the know, MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) is an acronym for a rapidly growing combat sport that found its beginnings in 1993 when a family of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu specialists, known as the Gracies, hosted North America’s inaugural Mixed Martial Arts pay-per-view television event. Coined “The Ultimate Fighting Championship,” it was more or less an open challenge to martial artists of all styles from around the globe to attempt to defeat a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu specialist for a $50,000 grand prize.

Brawlers of all walks — from Sumo wrestlers to Karate experts — heeded the call, but in the end, the Gracie family dominated the event by way of one of its youngest family members at the time, Royce Gracie. Many longtime MMA fans and analysts often refer to the debut UFC event as an infomercial for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And the event and the success of the BJJ style of fighting set the mark for future competition and laid the foundation for what we know today as professional Mixed Martial Arts.

The phenomenon America witnessed by way of Royce Gracie in Denver at the McNichols Sports Arena on Nov. 12, 1993, was a complex and historically twisted form of physical combat born from an even more confusing and international genesis. Ancient Greece, Japan, Thailand and Russia are but four of the many cultures that contributed to what MMA has evolved to in 2008. And it was originally a friendship between Scottish and Japanese immigrants in Brazil during the late 1800s that bridged the ancient Japanese fighting style of Jiu-Jitsu with the Western world, and laid the foundation for what the Gracie family unleashed on the international martial arts community in the early ’90s.