Who is credited for inventing UFC-style mixed martial arts fighting?

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Royce Gracie? I think it was him, or at least his family who started the idea of taking multiple styles/arts and putting them up against each other.

Art Davie.
Art Davie was the advertising executive who conceptualized the 8-man single elimination tournament after meeting with Rorion Gracie.

Art Davie and Rorion Gracie started UFC but mixed martial arts fighting has been around for over 2500 years. Ancient greek pankration was the first known MMA.

it would be rorion gracie, hes the one that brought it up over here, and they have lots of good books and instructionals with him and his family teaching bjj, awesome vids, your friend would really like them or some thing similar or newer,…

Mixed Martial Arts fighting has been around forever. Rorion Gracie has been perfecting his style of jujitsu for years and years. He taught it to his entire family, as well as others at California gym. He also held “vale-tudo”, or “anything goes” fights in Brazil, which is kind of the start of the MMA industry as we know it now.

He wanted a way to showcase his style of fighting and specifically Royce Gracie, so he and Art Darian decided to create something called “The Ultimate Fighting Championship”.

In reality, it was a farce. All the fighters that were in the first pay per view over-rated at what they did. The whole thing was a set up to showcase Gracie jujitsu. Ken Shamrock was the only one in the 8 man tournament who even know how to fight on the ground, since he had experience in Japanese Pancrace fighting.

Gracie ended up winning the tournament as expected. He beat Shamrock in the simi-finals with a choke and a guy named Gerard Gordeau, who fought only 1 time after UFC 1 and lost.

You can see the final fight of UFC 1 at

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