“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