Are Olympic honchos gearing up to embrace MMA by mid century? It’s not nearly as far-fetched as it sounds.
Few know it, but MMA was on the Olympic program one and a half thousand years before the recent move to drop wrestling. So it’s not as if this martial arts ‘baby’ has to pass any pedigree test.
Ancient MMA, aka ‘Pankration’, permitted both wrestling and boxing in an all-in spectacle which barred only biting and eye gouging.
There was no Dana White, no UFC or Pride, but there was Pankration on the 648 BCE Olympic program and thereafter.
These days, only sporting Luddites, martial arts purists and outraged civic leaders resent MMA’s march up the pay per view rankings.
Though its early local billing as ‘cage fighting’ probably mitigated against it in Australia, MMA now reaches far beyond the slick UFC format into suburban promotions in almost every nation with even a sniff of martial arts culture.
Even the UFC is broadening its recruitment beyond the traditional sources of America, Brazil, Japan and Russia to include exciting new prospects from places as far flung as Scandinavia, Korea, Serbia and China.
At least three Australians have featured on its cards.
It would not surprise me at all if Olympic chiefs were currently scrutinising the sport’s progress. It ticks all the boxes of the IOC’s new forward-looking ‘popularity test’.
If a so-called ‘core sport’ like wrestling can be given the flick, you know the Olympics are deadly serious about their new agenda.
The UFC has demonstrated its growing maturity, coming from what were almost martial arts freak shows in the ‘nineties (such as 70kg boxer versus 150kg sumo or 60kg capoeira versus 100kg wrestler) to competitors with complete skill set in both ground and stand-up combat.
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