Wrestling

Practiced in various forms all over the world, wrestling is the oldest form of martial arts. What started out as a ritualistic competition in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome has grown into a full-fledged international sport made popular by high school and collegiate competitions, the Olympics, and of course faux-wrestling organizations like the WWE.

The oldest known documented evidence of wrestling comes from Egypt sometime around 2300 BC on the tomb of philosopher Ptahhotep. Later on in Egyptian history, more artwork showing Egyptian wrestlers competing has also been unearthed. More than a thousand years later wrestling was an extremely popular pastime for the ancient Greeks and was swallowed up into Roman culture after the Roman conquests into Greece. Wrestling is one of few sports that appeared in the Olympics held by the ancient Greeks, and still appears in the modern Olympics today.

In today’s modern world, wrestling is generally broken down into two different categories. They are International wrestling disciplines, and folk wrestling disciplines. There are currently five recognized international wrestling disciplines. They are Greco-Roman Wrestling, freestyle wrestling, Sambo, Grappling and beach wrestling.

Folk wrestling is a generic term used to classify the rest of the wrestling disciplines from around the world that have not been listed as a modern sport. Some of these disciplines include Backhold Wrestling, Böke, Glima, Shuaijiao and Strumpa, just to name a few.

Wrestling has seen its standing rise in the martial arts community lately due to the increased popularity of Mixed Martial Arts. A number of MMA fighters classify their fighting style as wrestling or submission wrestling. Wrestling has become a popular training ground for MMA fighters because it improves their defense and ground attack.