PANKRATION

All Powers
Mixed martial arts owes a lot to pankration
BY KELLY CRIGGER
It would be very pretentious of us to think that ghting is a modern development. Throwing sticuffs dates back to earliest man, and even the oldest known civilizations, like ancient Babylon, knew the meaning of a good schoolyard scrap. As soon as we learned how awesome women are, we started brawling. But putting all that angst into a systematic style of engaging and defeating an enemy didnt happen until the eighth century BC, when the Greeks developed pankration. Yet despite its accomplishments, almost no mixed martial arts ghter claims pankration as his style today. Brazilian jiu-jitsu, judo, muay thai and wrestling are the predominant disciplines du jour. Yet everyone in todays MMA really owes a debt of gratitude to this ancient combat sport, which, in some ways, was surprisingly similar to todays martial arts.

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A Tale of Two Eras

Pankration comes from the words pan and katos, meaning all powers. It was a ghting style that, according to myth, was invented by legendary Greek heroes Hercules and Theseus, who developed it from boxing and wrestling and used it to defeat the Nemean Lion and the Minotaur. Modern MMA can only claim Fedor Emelianenko and Anderson Silva as its monsters waiting to be slain. There is no documented history tracing pankrations true lineage. In all likelihood, it was born from angry and bored youths who vied for the attention of a local hottie named Helen. What we do know is that it existed in the seventh century BC to slake the Greeks thirst for a total combat sport, a thirst that boxing and wrestling could not satisfy. These sports were widespread, but even back then there were fans who felt that a boxing match wasnt a true ght. As in our time, pankration enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity when it was rst introduced at the 33rd Olympiad in 648 BC. At that time, local tournaments ourished throughout Greece, and pankration was part of the Nemean and Panhellenic games. But not until it became an Olympic sport did it take hold of Greek society and become the focus of everyones attention. Boxing and wrestling remained popular, but pankration was all the rage for centuries. Early pankration had no time limits or weight classes. A ght lasted until sundown or until someone quit, which rarely happened because tapping out back then was considered the lowest form of disgrace. With no liberal media to deplore youth combat sports, the only divisions were between men and boys, which is where that old line time to separate the men from the boys comes from. Referees were armed with rods and switches to enforce the only two rules that existed: no biting and no eye gouging. The militant Spartans, however, didnt roll that way and completely discarded rules in their local contests. As in modern MMA, most pankration bouts were won on the ground because the athletes were skilled grapplers who knew the ways of takedowns, chokes and joint locks. And, really, who wouldnt

become skilled at ground ghting when rolling around naked with another dude in hot sand? Thats right, naked. The ancient Greeks wanted to ensure that no one had an unfair advantage in a ght, so they competed in the buff. It suddenly doesnt seem so appealing anymore, does it? Like MMA, pankration had its share of legends, such as Dioxippus and Polydamos. But it was a man named Arrichion who captured hearts and inspired legends. He could be called the Scott Smith of ancient times. During a pankration bout, Arrichion was caught in a rear naked choke and, like Smith, who was wounded by a brutal Pete Sell body shot, Arrichion knew that he had only one chance left to win. He refused to submit. Instead, he leaned forward, grabbed his opponents ankle and somehow broke it. His opponent was forced to hold up his index ngerthe ancient form of tapping out. And when the bout was over, Arrichion was declared the winner. But there was a problem he was dead. The rear naked choke had worked its magic and terminated Arrichion, but the respect he earned made him an instant James Dean. His body was carted off to be burned in a lavish funeral pyre reserved for only the greatest of heroes. In the days of the Greek city-state, pankration was more than just a sport. Like sambo and muay thai, pankration had combat applications, though it was derided by many Greek eld commanders as ineffective. Called pammachon when it was applied to the battleeld, it was an integral part of several ancient wars

and was practiced by the Greek hoplites (foot soldiers) so they could defend themselves when they lost their swords. The immortal stand of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae degenerated into hand-to-hand combat, and the Battle of Marathon also descended into pugilism. During his march into India, around 325 BC, Alexander the Great reportedly hired a brigade of pammachon mercenaries. Alexanders conquests even have fueled an ongoing debate about whether or not his exploits across the Middle East and lower Asia actually planted the seeds for all martial arts, from kung fu in China to jiu-jitsu in Japan. While that theory likely will be fought over by diehard martial arts fans for decades, the migration of pankration across the Adriatic Sea from Greece to Rome is certain. The debauchery-ridden Romans saw a potential for pankration as a blood sport and offered money to pankratiasts to cross the sea and ght. Their lust for gore was insatiable, and coliseums across the ancient empire stripped pankration of all skill by arming their ghters with spiked gloves called caestuses. The death knell of ancient pankration was sounded by the Christian Byzantine Emperor, Theodosius I, in 393 AD, when he abolished all pagan festivals, including the Olympics. Thats when pankration did what all oppressed arts have done throughout the ages: it went underground. But try as its devotees might have to preserve their sport, after 404 AD theres no veried documentation of pankration being practiced.

Rising from the Ashes

It wasnt the rst time a martial art was banned by an oppressive regime or conquering foe. Muay thai, capoeira and some forms of kung fu have all had dark periods when they had to be handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, or hidden in indigenous dances, in order to survive. For nearly 1,500 years, pankration was largely forgotten. Thats not to say the Greeks abandoned ghting during that time, but as a comprehensive system of self-defense or hand-to-hand combat, it was basically nished. One could hypothesize that ghts over land or familial disputes actually preserved the

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art and may have even evolved it, but we will never know for sure. Finally, in 1894, a man had a plan. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a French teacher, petitioned the world to reinstate the Olympic Games and succeeded with the rst modern Olympiad in Athens in 1896. Pankration was originally slated to be included, but the Cardinal of Lyon, a stoic man of considerable inuence, protested and had it removed. For 75 years, pankration continued to languish. The rst documented resurrection of pankration occurred in 1971, when Jim Arvanitis opened his Spartan Academy in Boston, which used the ancient Greek art as a blueprint for his core curriculum. Although Arvanitis is Greek, his effort to reinstate pankration was only partly due to his heritage. It owed more to his sincere desire to forge a new path in the martial arts by bringing together things that worked and cutting away things that didnt. No one was cross-training, says Arvanitis. I was only interested in functionality. And for me, karate, kung fu and tae kwon do were not it. So I took elements from what I trained inboxing, wrestling, muay thai and combat judo and combined them all into a cohesive ghting art. To be accurate, Bruce Lees jeet kune doa mix of kung fu, boxing and fencingwas already well known at this time. Arvanitis endeavors were unique, nevertheless, because he included many aspects that neither Lee nor anyone else did. His style was a grab bag of strikes, joint locks, takedowns and anything else that he deemed worthy. It didnt introduce anything new, but it did sew together a quilt of realistic and effective moveslike the ying knee from muay thai and the kimura armlock from ne waza judoto form a combat system similar to modern MMA.

I was only interested in functionality. And for me, karate, kung fu, and tae kwon do were not it.

THIS PAGE: Two ghters grapple for position. OPPOSITE: Modern Pankration ghters wear MMA -style gloves but are not allowed to strike to the head.

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Pancrazy
When Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki started a hybrid wrestling promotion in 1993, their goal in naming it Pancrase was to pay homage to ancient Pankration instead of replicate it. Though Pancrase is pretty much MMA now, their early events had crazy rules that the sport wouldnt dream of using today. For example, an opponent caught in a submission hold could drag himself to the ropes and get the ght restarted.

Pancrase was harder than MMA, says former Pancrase and UFC champion Bas Rutten. You had to think more in Pancrase because of the rope escapes and different rules. In one match, you could ght four different ghts so it was more technical.

Pancrase was sporty, says former UFC middleweight champion and Pancrase legend Frank Shamrock. It was more of a game that I liked. In my very rst interview, I said I would never do MMA which was called No Holds Barred back then. I thought it looked crazy because there were no gloves and it wasnt much of a sport. Go gure. Besides Rutten and Shamrock, several notable MMA ghters cut their teeth in Pancrase, like Josh Barnett and Nate Marquardt, who was the middleweight King of Pancrase seven times (Pancrase shunned the title of champion). I think Pancrase made you more adaptable, says Rutten. It really prepared you for the MMA rules. A lot of us were successful in the UFC after Pancrase. The Shamrocks, [Nate] Marquardt, Guy Mezger and me. We all went over to the U.S. and had success because of what we learned in Pancrase.

By 1973, Arvanitis style had become more than a curiosity, and he was featured on the cover of prestigious Black Belt magazine (with his trademark 70s Afro) as the Father of Modern Pankration. In 1984, Vasilios Katsaitis established the World Panhellenic United Martial Arts Foundation, but it wasnt until after the debut of the UFC that pankration organizations started popping up like weeds. Both the Hellenic Pankration Federation and the American Pankration Federation were established in 1996. Two years later, the USA Federation of Pankration Athlima was established, as was the Amateur Pankration League. It seemed that pankration was catching on but something was different. Arvanitis original pankration was a combat ghting system that focused on defeating an opponent, and it looked a lot like modern MMA, whereas the new organizations version most resembled a hybrid of karate and jiu-jitsu. Their tour-

naments, which Arvanitis wanted no part of, were focused on scoring points instead of submitting or knocking out the opposing ghter. Light head slaps replaced full contact face punches. Knees and elbows were not permitted. Hard takedowns were also outlawed (called the Catchers Mask rule), and anything that made your opponent bleed caused an instant disqualication. It wasnt much like the legendary Greek sport. The Catchers Mask thing is a USA Federation rule regarding facial contact, says Arvanitis. The goal was to make the competition more balanced, favoring neither the striker nor the grappler. The participants wear this protective gear, but contact to it is not permitted from any strike or kick. [It] is supposed to discourage head attacks and place more emphasis on body shots. The No Bleed rule applies to what is considered by the judges to be an uncontrolled technique.

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Right now, youre saying, No wonder no one claims pankration as his style. Its not realistic with current MMA. You would be correct, but these softer rules also made pankration more appealing to the men who held sway over the biggest sporting event in the world: the Olympic Games. with the International Olympic Committee, and eventually permanent sport status. But the IOC wasnt buying their snake oil. According to Arvanitis, the effort to get pankration into the Olympics was really a faade. For them, it was a means of getting karate into the Olympics under a name that had a connection from antiquity. Since they were karate stylists, they knew little of ground ghting, he says. The result? Not so good. Pankration did not make it into the Games. Moreover, no international pankration organization is recognized by the IOC today. Even with its soft stance on striking, pankration is still a long way from being an Olympic sport, meaning that MMAs chances of being included in the Games is even more remote. The M-1 Challenge may be the closest thing well ever see to an international MMA competition. ghter wearing a uniform resembling a gi but called an endyma. Its a pointoriented competition thats sanctioned by the sports main organization, the International Federation of Pankration Athlima (IFPA). Like competitions here in the U.S., Greek pankration tournaments dont allow many of the things MMA is known forpunches to the head, big takedowns, and realistic combat. Its this complete departure from the original version thats limited its spread, especially in the era of mixed martial arts, when practitioners demand realism. It seems that, in the 21st century, results in the Octagon have become the measure of success worldwide. Naturally, there has been a backlash in Hellas against the current state of the sport. Groups within the country practice modern MMA, with full-contact sparring, ground-and-pound and even knife work. But the Greek government does not allow them to use the term pankration, which is reserved specically for the sport variant run by the IFPA and its contemporaries. So these groups have instead settled for the moniker submission ghting. Their ghts are held in venues similar to the dark, low-budget dives of the early 90s in the U.S. when only a handful of early UFC fans practiced MMA.

Pandering to the Masses

Ancient pankration was bloody and brutal. Modern pankration is not. The lack of head strikes and a conned cage may turn away action-seeking MMA fans, but the softer rules also make the sport more attractive to the family-oriented atmosphere of the Olympic Games. If MMA never makes it into the Olympics, pankration might. While MMA fans dream of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, BJ Penn, and Yushin Okami representing their countries at the Games, pankration organizations are actually trying to make it happen for their own stars. In 2004, they mounted an all-out blitzkrieg to get pankration included in the Athens Olympics. As the host country, Greece was allowed to choose a sport for demonstration only, which is normally a step toward recognized sport status

Old Name, New Look

Pankration was originally Greek, and its in Greece that it has achieved a modicum of popularity, but it has lagged behind other combat sports since the rise of MMA. Modern bouts are contested in an arena called a palaestra, with each

Pankration or Karate ?
With its lack of rules or time limits, ancient pankration was probably the closest thing to a real unarmed ght in the history of martial arts. It was brutal, and tapping out was considered disgraceful, so the competitors of ancient Greece would most likely be confused by todays pankration competitions. Pankration is karate stand-up with some rudimentary grappling. It uses a point system, has uniforms and doesnt allow elbow; face punching; knees; certain blood chokes; or groundand-pound. Competitions are held on a mat instead of in a ring or a cage.
Karate Contact (head) Contact (body) Contact (legs) Chokes Joint Locks Gloves Headgear Striking Base Arts Grappling Base Arts Ground-and-Pound Elbows and Knees Throws/Takedowns Uniform Duration Contest Area Emphasis Victory Criteria None Full None No No No Optional Karate N/A No No No Gi 35 Minutes Nonstop Open Circle with Marked Boundaries for Both Control and Focus Point System Modern Pankration None to Facemask Area; Light Slaps to Head Full Light to Moderate Limited Yes No Yes (face mask) Karate Jiu-Jitsu/Judo No No Yes Endyma 5 Minutes Nonstop Open Circle with Marked Boundaries for Both Control and Focus (no bleed rule observed) Point System

Perfection Achieved?
Pankration has now come full circle. Its uninhibitedness as a combat sport made it wildly popular in the time before Jesus walked the earth, and has undoubtedly inuenced modern MMA philosophically and symbolically. But its moment in the sun has passed, like that of its ancient benefactor, the Greek city-state. In an ironic turn of events, its MMA that is now inuencing pankration. The immense popularity of MMA has pressured all martial arts to put up or shut up, and pankration is no different. Pankration tournaments have begun using the ve-ounce MMA gloves in competition, though strikes to the face are still not permitted. With the exception of Jim Arvanitis, pankration is quite simply a completely different art from what was envisioned and practiced so long ago. Mixed martial arts is actually a closer cousin to the ancient version. In fact, it looks more like ancient pankration than any other combat discipline. Its pretentious to think of our generation as masters of ghting, but only once before were we ever so close.

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