Greek Olympics Original MMA?

Reviews, Videos, and Everything Else Bullshido.ORG Martial Arts Encyclopedia Discussion
1

I just got done watching a PBS show (bite me) called “The Real Olympics” Pt 1. It was showing some of the original olympics “boxing”. It came in two variants, one was with cow skin (or some thing like that) wraped around the hands to prevent fracturing of the bones. The other was with heavy leather wraped around the nuckle. The leather looked about 2" thick and hard. It did more dammage than bare nuckle. Their are storys of familys not being able to reconise one of their own after a match. They also alowed “wrestling” (as PBS called it), and hits to any where on the body. The only thing that was not alowed was eye gouging and biting, they did it any way. There were no stops or breaks just got until KO or some one got killed. The “ring” was out doors on dirt ground, with alot of people standing around it.

Their was a story of one guy who was on the ground and was being chocked, he grabed the guys ankle and broke it. The guy who’s ankle got baroke singled the surrender sign ( first figner up), then the guy who broke the ankle droped dead after the choke was released. First postimuosuly awarded 1st place.

Sounds like what Pride, UFC, etc were supost to be.

2

They had boxing, wrestling (= not everything goes) and they also had pankration (= everything goes, i.e. limited actions that where prohibited).

And to win they didn’t had to KO or kill the opponent. A fighter would also win if his opponent surrendered.

3

I did some more research and this is what I found.

  1. Wrestling: no hitting, no choking, no twisting of the joints. The winner was the one who could throw his opponent on the ground and hold him down on his back 3 times.

  2. Boxing: they used leather to wrap around there hands that sometimes was strenghtend with metal. but the fighters wore leather or bronzen helmets.
    It was forbidden to kill the opponent (but accidents did happen).

  3. Pankration: combination of boxing and wrestling. The only things that were forbidden was biting and eye gouging. But when the spartans joined the games this rule disappeared. So Eye gouging became legal. Winning: kill the opponent , ko him, or make him surrender.

4

SEARCH FUNCTION. Gawd.

5

More Olympic stories on Boxing, Wrestling, and Pankration…

http://www.sikyon.com/Olympia/athletestories_eg.html#arrachion