The world's fastest growing sport is not football, boxing, tennis or even basketball, rather it is the riveting sport of MMA. Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full-contact combat sport that has evolved from various combat sports and martial arts. The roots of MMA can be traced back to ancient times with the ancient Greek olympic sport of Pankration, where any strikes were allowed and contestants were allowed to incorporate grappling (wrestling) and striking at the same time. In the early 20th century, interstylistic contests took place in Japan, and in Brazil, where the Gracie family developed Brazilian jiu-jitsu (a grappling sport), which they brought to the United States in the 1990s. This led to the founding of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in 1993, which initially had few rules to find the most effective martial arts for real unarmed combat. The term "mixed martial arts'' was first documented in a review of UFC 1 by TV critic Howard Rosenberg in 1993. Over time, fighters began incorporating multiple martial arts into their style, and the sport adopted additional rules to increase safety and mainstream acceptance, especially with more government regulation.
In Egypt, MMA has been growing over the past decade but remains largely uncharted, with small-scale tournaments played to audiences in the hundreds. The sport has grown underground and in niche circles, with no media sponsorship and one small championship called Qadya with few corporate sponsors backing it. MMA first made an appearance in Egypt around 2005, coaches Mohamad AbdelHamid and Karam Shaker Salah are among the first coaches to bring MMA to Egypt; it gained more attention in 2011 with a pivotal tournament at Cairo University organised by Evolution Fighting Championship (EFC), according to Lycans Fight Club Founder Marawan Mwafy. The EFC and AUFC (Arab Ultimate Fighting Championship) are the two largest organisations in Egypt and host the most tournaments.
Even though the first tournament in 2011 had a lot of local TV interest, it was completely sidelined by the news of the revolution at the time and no one has capitalised since then on TV rights. Martial arts in Egypt are very popular, with many parents taking their children to Karate or Kung fu classes as young as 5 years old, and it shows: with 5 out of 6 of Egypt’s gold medals in the 2020 Tokyo olympics coming from martial arts; however, the martial arts that are popular are not ones that are necessarily useful for MMA. MMA’s four main styles that every fighter needs to master are Boxing, Muay Thai (kickboxing), Wrestling and Jiu-jitsu; none of which are especially popular in Egypt (with the possible exception of boxing). Kung-fu and Karate have specialised legitimate federations in Egypt to organise and promote tournaments, but MMA has no legitimate federation in Egypt, with the kickboxing federation having to organise most tournaments, according to Lycans Coach Marawan Mwafy. This lack of federation also means bad PR in Egypt, as many perceive it as a wild west of sports and a sport of “fetewat” (Arabic for strongman bandits) according to Coach Mohamad Abdelhamid of Top Team.
Despite having to face all these massive downsides, MMA is still growing at a breakneck pace in Egypt. More people than ever sign up in MMA gyms thanks to the sport’s international growth on social media and the internet. There have even been a few international fighters to come out of Egypt like Mahmoud Serbie. This all culminated with Dalia Abodeff’s historic gold medal in the African games, which was MMA’s debut in an olympic setting.
I can attest to this personally too. Every day in my MMA gym more and more people sign up having heard of the sport and its icons, and perhaps showing the world that Egypt actually winning something will galvanise the country to establish a proper federation and organise more professional tournaments.