“People often ask me what art I would select for a physical confrontation if I could only take up one discipline, and I tell them it would be Boxing. If I could choose two arts, then I would say Boxing and grappling, but I would never choose just one discipline.”
Geoff Thompson
648 BCE and more than two hundred years before the birth if Socrates, Greek Olympic athletes fought bare-knuckle and no-holds-barred in a contest they called Pankration.
Since the coming of Christianity, Pankration has been persecuted, banned and driven underground countless times, only to re-emerge each time as the ultimate test of one on one, hand-to-hand fighting ability.
Today Pankration, by a dozen other names, is again reclaiming legitimacy. Fighters require a minimum foundation in the basics of Boxing, Wrestling, Muay Thai and Jiu-Jitsu to have any hope of success in competition. Ironically, while western fighters have flocked to learn the Judo/Wrestling hybrid known as “Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu”, the Japanese have been quietly refining Catch-As-Catch-Can Wrestling into an extremely well rounded style they call Pancrase or Shootfighting.
Clint.
The Historical Pankration Project
Boxing, Wrestling and Shootfighting in the Sydney city CBD.
My “fifteen minutes of fame” as a cage fighter
