As the name goes, is a mixture of several martial arts designed to encompass and utilize effective techniques from various martial arts. The idea behind development of such an art was to negate the disadvantages that a lone martial art carried and bridge the gaps between striking arts such as Muay Thai, boxing, kickboxing, taekwondo, karate etc and grappling arts such as wrestling, judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

MMA is a full contact combat sport that allows the use of both striking and grappling techniques, both standing and on the ground. Most predominantly one can see the usage of Muay Thai Kick Boxing and Brazilian Jutsu in MMA.
The annals of contemporary mixed martial arts can be traced back to the ancient Olympics where an earliest form of well documented and organized martial art called Pankration was in existence. Various mixed style championships also took place throughout Europe, Japan and the Pacific Rim during the early 19th Century. The combat sport of Vale Tudo that had developed in Brazil from the 1920s was brought to the United States by the Gracie family in 1993 with the founding of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which is currently the largest promoter of MMA. Prior to the this, professional MMA events were also held across Japan.

In due course, the ever dangerous crude form of early MMA bouts were made safer with the implementation of additional rules, leading to the popularly structured form of MMA seen today. Originally promoted as a competition with the intention of finding the most effective martial arts for real unarmed altercations, competitors were pitted against each other with minimal rules. In due course, fighters employed multiple styles into their repertoire while promoters adopted additional rules aimed at increasing safety for competitors for mainstream acceptance of MMA.