Perhaps not but I think it could be bestowed upon him or many others. Im not a philo major or anything but I believe they deserve some credit anyway, perhaps not all, but some.

Here let me try again...

By the way, any MMA practioner that doesn't understand what debt he owes to Rorian Gracie and Maurice Smith is missing out.

There that pretty much covers it.

Im not disregarding either of the two, Gracie or Smith, But I dont think they are solely responsible either.

I just said more responsible than a philosopher. Rorion got the UFC going which got everyone paying attention, and Mo Smith was the first guy to get people clued in that crosstraining was necessary. Before him it was still single style grapplers who were dominating. If it hadn't been for them, the philosophes would have been saying the same thing but much less people would be doing it.

Probably so.

I'd say both where inevitable.

Cross training was a concept that existed long before Mo Smith, and MMA was around long before Rorion Gracie. They where just in the right place at the right time.

Martial arts had, as a whole, been building up such a level of mystique, nonsense, and complete crap being passed as "real" that it was only a matter of time before someone threw down the gloves.


Grappling alone worked because no one knew a damn thing about it at the time. Everyone just ignored it "Fighting is done standing" was the mentallity, and rules where always in place to deal with it. If those grapplers had the level of striking knowledge that the strikers had grappling knowledge it would have been even messier in there.

But it was only a matter of time before people learnt both. And to be honest, Ken Shamrock was at the the time, corss trained right from UFC 1. He was a submission specialist that could stand and trade quite well, was even nick named "One punch Shamrock" for his ability to drop people with one punch.

Rorion and Mo where influential, but not to the level you are elevating them too.

Who were more influential then, in your opinion?