No martial arts should ever be banned from a sport that calls itself “Mixed Martial Arts.”
Contrary to what the opening piece to the first episode of “The Ultimate Fighter: Live” says, the sport of Mixed Martial Arts is more than just Boxing, Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu and Wrestling.
When it first started, the sport wasn’t even seen as Mixed Martial Arts at all, because all that was included in the “mix” was a roster full of fighters who were “one-dimensional” by today’s standard, but who also excelled in their primary style of fighting.
Nowadays, the game has changed to where more styles are accompanying a fighter’s primary “base” style of fighting, and while a fighter might get away with adjusting to wherever the fight goes, he won’t get away with only working with one or two styles of fighting, unless he’s worked hard enough in those two areas in order to prevent fights from reaching a certain area of combat.
Aside from the cross-training, fighters are using various styles like Karate, Judo, and even the Cambodian art of Bokator in order to create or expand their skill sets.
Not only that, but also especially in the case of Bokator and Karate, fighters are either taking skills from arts that were presumptuously ineffective for MMA or taking skills from arts that were initially not designed for the Octagon, and they’re finding ways to make those styles work effectively inside the heat of an MMA fight.
The same negative connotations that once surrounded Bokator and Karate, especially Shotokan Karate and Kyokushin Karate, are now applied to other traditional martial arts around the world, and it creates a clear uncertainty as to whether some styles can work effectively in MMA, but why ban them?
Is it because their purest forms are seen as too deadly for the cage, or is it because they really are more ineffective inside the cage than some want us to think they already are in real life, or is it because the skeptics are too afraid to see a style in action, knowing fully well that it will prove somewhat effective in MMA?
There is no certain reason, it seems, but unless I am incorrect, they do call this sport “Mixed Martial Arts”,and although the new school runs the roost, is that any excuse to permanently bury the traditional martial arts, knowing full well that each discipline of the martial arts contains at least one technique that can be used in MMA legally and effectively?
Last time I checked, there’s no valid reason to ban the traditional martial arts, because once you ban one martial arts discipline, how can you have a true “mix” of disciplines in a sport where every unique fighting style yearns to be represented for all to see and enjoy?
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