The word pankration is a combination of the words pan, which translates in English to all, and Kratos, which means strength, might, power. In ancient Greece, Pankration was a sporting event introduced into their Olympic games in 648 BCE. Pankration, not to be confused with the Japanese mixed martial arts promotion company Pancrase, Inc., was a weapons-free submission sport with few rules. The athletes employed techniques from boxing and wrestling as well as utilized holds, locks, chokes, and kicks. The modern-day sport of mixed martial arts is still evolving from this ancient sport and is doing so at an incredible rate.
For over 2,500 years now athletes have been honing their skills and evolving in a concerted effort to become the most efficient, lethal, and practical martial artists. The only way in which one can test this evolution of skill is in a direct physical confrontation against another practitioner. Therefore, as long as the sport has existed practitioners have been competing against one another to prove which style is best.
To say that we have come a long way in the evolution of mixed martial arts in the span of over 25 centuries or 2 ½ millennia is laughable! One would think that having this much time to learn what is most efficient or effective the days of a martial artist thinking a single style is superior to all others would be long past us as we come to the realization that a blend of the most effective techniques from ALL styles would, in fact, be the most effective but alas…we have not.
In the video below we see one such contest; watch as one of the best jiu-jitsu fighters in the world who represents the famed Gracie Jiu-Jitsu academy as he tests his skills in a limited-rules match against a Kung Fu master and world champion named Geraldo Pedra. It took place in 1994, before the UFC even began.
The card included
Renzo Gracie vs. Luiz Augusto Alvarenga
Ralph Gracie vs. Geraldo Silva Pedra
Marcelo Behring vs. José Carlos de Jesus
Jacob C. Stevens is a lifelong athlete and cerebral martial arts enthusiast who is also skilled in the art of linguistic manipulation, his published work, Afterthoughts and Handgrenades, can be found here…
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