Why Pankration is the most deadly martial art ever

These days, Pankration is a pretty obsucre martial art that stays outside of the limelight and gets little mainstream attention. Whilst it’s still practiced and trained today, it now has a lot more rules in place which make it far less brutal. In terms of brutality, Pankration was used in ancient Greece and could literally lead to a fight to the death. In other words, compared to the martial arts of today, Pankration was insane in terms of injuries and sometimes even saw people get killed.

The reason for this is that Pankration has little to no rules. As a result, it’s often referred to as ancient MMA as it involved strikes and submissions as well as grappling. Of course, MMA has lots of rules and a referee which means fights get stopped when a fighter is in physical danger. Sadly, this wasn’t the case during Pankration where people would sometimes die.

How did Pankration differ from MMA?

In its earlier days, MMA was fairly lawless compared to the MMA of today. Having said this, it still had some rules and safety was a feature. For instance, in the first UFC event you could soccer kick opponents on the floor, headbutt and hit the groin. This means that earlier MMA was closer to Pankration in terms of rules – but still didn’t allow for stuff like eye gouges, or strangulation until death.

In terms of Pankration rules, everything was allowed beside eye gouges, groin strikes and biting. Even back thousands of years ago – it seems that organized fighting had at least some rules and a degree of sportsmanship.

With this said, although Pankration was similar to MMA – they weren’t exactly the same. It wasn’t just a lack of rules either – Pankration didn’t have a cage or rounds. As you can imagine, this only added to the brutal nature of Pankration. By today’s standards, it wouldn’t be allowed for obvious reasons. In other words, you could say that MMA is a more gentle version of Pankration, whilst still offering a combative element.

Arrhichion and the death of a champion

If you didn’t think ancient Pankration was that brutal – then here’s a story for you. In the 54th Olympic games, a wrestler named Arrhichion won a gold medal in Pankration. The catch is that he was awarded this honor after his death. During the final fight, Arrhichion managed to submit his opponent by damaging his toe.

Whilst applying this injury, Arrhichion passed out whilst being suffocated. As this happened, his opponent gave in which is why Arrhichion was awarded the victory. Although this was a phyrric victory – it is also a reason why Arrhichion is still remembered thousands of years later.

Applying this to the modern day, could you imagine if someone like Georges St Pierre or Kamaru Usman won an MMA fight whilst also getting choked out? This would be an epic moment in history but would never happen. If anything, this is a good example of how civilization has become less brutalized over the years.

Is modern Pankration as deadly?

Interestingly, these days modern Pankration has more rules than ever and is vastly different compared to the original Pankration. In fact, you could argue that MMA is now more violent and dangerous compared to modern Pankration. For example, these days Pankration uses protective headgear and shin pads. The idea behind this is that Pankration has moved on from its earlier days when it was more brutal. In other words, safety is now paramount which can be seen by protective items of clothing.

In some forms of modern Pankration, strikes to the head won’t be allowed. This depends on the age of the fighter as well as the rule set – but once again this is done in the name of safety. It also nods towards Pankration’s tradition of wrestling which is sometimes prioritized over striking. Because of this, many professional MMA fighters will compete in Pankration before turning pro.

The reason for this is that Pankration can get fighters valuable experience before entering MMA. As the rules are very similar whilst it’s also safe, this makes sense. International Pankration champions over the years include the likes of Khabib Nurmagomedov and Angela Lee. These are champions of UFC and ONE FC respectively, which shows that Pankration still has its place in the modern era.

Why Pankration is the most deadly martial art ever

These days, some martial arts will teach you the ability to kill. Examples of this include Krav Maga and even BJJ with chokes. However, there’s a key difference. In Pankration, people literally died which is where its brutal nature comes from. In Krav Maga, whilst deadly moves are taught, they’re not put into practice. Of course, this is unrealistic in the modern age, but still shows why Pankration is so deadly – because it literally was.

A similar argument can be seen in its comparison to BJJ. Whilst chokeholds are used in BJJ and sometimes people pass out, they’re still let go of to avoid death or injury after the tap. This is different from Pankration where sometimes they’d be held until death. With this said, nothing really comes close to ancient Pankration in terms of its deadly nature.

Conclusion

These days, Pankration is not half as deadly as it once was. However, this is a good thing that shows the human race has evolved since then. At the same time, its bloody past does show what MMA is capable of when rules are removed. It also shows just how far some fighters would go to achieve victory, even if it meant death.

Because of this, it’s only fair to award Pankration with the award for being the most deadly, brutal form of martial arts going. At the same time, as a human race we should respectfully keep some of these rules in the past where they belong.

if you’d like to learn more about the link between MMA and Pankration then check out this great historical book.