According to historians, mixed martial arts dates back to the Olympic games played in ancient Greece. The sports are believed to have originated as hand-to-hand combat performed by athletes in that era.
The sport was called ‘pankration’ from the Greek words ‘Pan’ and ‘Kratos’, meaning “all powers”.
In the game of ‘pankration’, competitors were expected to respect only two ground rules namely; no biting and no eye-gouging. Outside those two ground rules, anything goes.
The game was said to be fiercely popular among the people so much so that competitors who won matches were considered heroes by the people and often immortalized.
All thanks to the global conquest ambitions of Alexander the Great, and his tendency to recruit athletes as soldiers, historians believe a Buddhist monk traveling through India picked up elements of ‘pankration’ and took that knowledge with him to China.
The action of the Buddhist monk is considered the genesis of Asian martial arts such as kung fu, judo, and karate.
Migration allowed for the growth and evolution of Martial arts; for example, a judo expert traveled the globe, ended up in Brazil, spread his teachings and those teachings informed the birth of Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
As Martial Arts spread across the globe and took on native colorations, the idea of a competition that makes use of different styles of martial arts began to gain a foothold.
It is not unusual for a practitioner of one type of Martial Arts to challenge a practitioner of a different type of martial arts to a fight. In a sense, it was all a contest for superiority; clashes of martial arts, if you like.
These clashes took place in different parts of the world for a long while and several decades later these types of clashes became quite the rage in the USA.
Athletes who participated in these clashes learned from each other’s style of fighting and in no time, it dawned on them that to perform better, they had to study any combative art form capable of giving them a competitive advantage in a clash.
Take, for instance, if a jiu-jitsu fighter was matched with a kickboxer, the jiu-jitsu fighter will quickly realize that he needs to learn how to defend himself or herself from a deadly combination of kicks and punches to succeed in such a match.
The only way to learn how to do that or develop such competency is by training with a kickboxer and vice versa.
As such, competitions between athletes who focused on different types of Martial arts and aggregated competencies from each became popular and quite the staple.
And this was how mixed martial arts evolved as a coherent type of competition.
Mixed Martial Arts competitions were introduced in the USA with the first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in 1993.
The sport gained global notoriety when Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter, Royce Gracie, won the first UFC championship by overpowering three challengers in a total of 5 minutes.
It was a sight to behold; a sight that arguably sparked a mixed martial art revolution on the global scene in general and the USA in particular.
The International Sport Combat Federation (ISCF) was founded in May 1999, becoming the first sanctioning body of MMA. The founding of the ISCF ushered in an era of recognition for mixed martial arts.
This was further aided by certified officials and well-developed rules that were built up from the ISCF’s sister organization for kickboxing, the International Kickboxing Federation’s (IKF) long developed system.
Asides from the fact that MMA has evolved into an incredibly exciting spectator sport, it has also proved to be a source of great thrill and financial gain for sports bettors.
For people who haven’t tried MMA betting yet, there’s nothing to worry about. It is a fun experience capable of making one smile to the bank.
The steps for starting MMA betting are pretty straight forward but before you consider staking your money, the first thing in the MMA betting process is deciding where you want to place your wager.
The “where” is one of the most important questions you will have to answer; in fact, it is as important as the actual wager you place.
To be successful at MMA betting, you need to find a reputable honest and reliable online sportsbook. After which your bet, your bankroll, and your personal information are all going to be delivered to the selected online sportsbook.
If you don’t take the ‘where’ seriously, you can win all your bets but end up getting no money because the site you placed your bet with is unreliable.
NetBet is one of the most reliable and trusted online sportsbooks where you can place your sports and casino games bets.
After you might have selected a reputable online sportsbook, create your account and make your initial deposit. Most reliable online betting sites have lots of safe and trusted ways through which you can fund your account instantly.
If you’re someone who already knows quite a lot about MMA, you still need to get a sense of MMA betting strategies.
First, understand betting odds and how they affect your bets. There will be instances where you think a particular athlete will win but betting on such an athlete will prove not to be a profitable move, thanks to the odds.
Also, to place winning bets on MMA fights, endeavor to follow the news on scheduled fights but you need to learn to differentiate between media hype and actual news.
Similarly, embrace the practice of checking multiple sportsbooks to get the best odds on a bet you are about to place. All in all, study the fighters, their coaches, the location of a fight, past records, and the sport in its entirety to gain some mastery of how to predict and how not to predict an MMA fight.
Ultimately, be awake to the risks that come with betting as a whole. Exercise sound financial judgment and understand that the reason why it’s a game is that you win some while you lose some.
