A Pankration Tale

The history of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) goes back a long, long time.

In the 1990s, the UFC seemed like a brand new idea: an actual way to test out which styles of martial arts would be most effective in a “real fight.” Of course, the testing ground itself was limited and arbitrary: there was only one opponent, you knew exactly when the fighting would begin, and the surrounding cage (“the Octagon”) was made of predictable, known materials.

Nevertheless, I had never seen anything like this, outside of martial arts movies like Bloodsport or The Last Dragon. Nobody was calling this “mixed martial arts” back then, either—it was NHB, or “No Holds Barred.” It was brutal, but intriguing.

Naturally, I became curious about the how this new sport had come to be. I found that Mohammad Ali had fought Antonio Inoki in a mixed-rules contest in Japan in the 1970s, and then I found out that the idea of style-vs-style went even further back in the US, to when US when judo champion Gene Lebell took on pro boxer Milo Savage in 1963. You can watch some of that match (with commentary) here:

The truth is that this idea goes way, way back. How far back?

A form of hand-to-hand combat, very much resembling today’s MMA (but with fewer rules) was once an Olympic sport more than 2500 years ago.

That’s right: the original Olympic games featured a brutal fighting contest between two combatants (usually naked). Not only were punches and kicks allowed, but joint locks (like those we practice in BJJ today), throws and takedowns, tackles and trips. In fact, the only two things that weren’t allowed were biting and eye-gouging, and the very early UFC ruleset mimicked this approach exactly.

Lots of artwork memorializes this practice. Here I am, being particularly judgy of the mediocre technique this obvious white belt is using on this poor centaur:

There must have been a lot of nail-biting contests over the course of pankration, but there’s one legendary fight in particular I want to call your attention to today.

Meet Arrhichion, a champion pankratiast. Arrhichion was incredibly dominant in the sport, winning two consecutive Olympic victories (572 and 568 BCE).

Arrichion was the Aleksander Karelin of his day: he seemed completely unbeatable.

He seemed destined for a third Olympic crown in 564.

However, an upset began brewing during the finals of the contest. Arrhichion was “caught by the legs of his opponent”, while his unnamed opponent applied a choke of some kind to our hero.

This sounds an awful lot like “taking the back” in jiu jitsu and applying a choke. Here’s

Rudy Fischmann

and me from more than 10 years ago (we haven’t aged a day since) to show some examples of how a rear naked choke (RNC) works:

When all seemed lost for Arrhichion, he managed to dislocate his opponent’s ankle (most likely—one account mentions a toe, but I think I can guess what happened).

Arrhichion’s opponent gave up and tapped out! The last-ditch gambit had worked.

However, the choke must have been in pretty deep, because Arrhichion died soon thereafter. “Three time Olympic champion” never rung so hollow.

This story seems pretty crazy, but I’m here to tell you: I’ve seen some crazy things, both in grappling and in MMA.

This was one of them: back in 2001, Carlos Newton had Matt Hughes in a triangle choke when Hughes picked Newton up and slammed him. Both fighters were unconscious for a moment, but it was Hughes who got up first and claimed victory.

These moments are rare, but they do happen in combat sports from time to time. Of course, historical embellishments happen too.

Today’s MMA doesn’t really appeal to me in the same way that it did during those early days. In the 90s, the Octagon (or ring) was a lab, where one style could be tested against another, and nobody really knew what would happen.

Today, much of this magic is gone. Everyone knows everyone else’s style, and long gone are the days of a practitioner of one art testing their techniques against someone who was only good at their one thing. There’s plenty of innovation today, but it’s all designed to win a particular sport with a particular set of rules—gamesmanship, not a lab experiment.

What are the takeaways from this sort of Pyrrhic victory? Is this a cautionary tale against going after victory at any cost, as it seems on the surface, or are there other lessons we can learn from Arrhichion’s tale?

Do we need to bring back No-Holds-Barred MMA (spoiler: no, we do not)? Do you enjoy today’s MMA, or do you practice jiu jitsu? Let me know in the comments!