Mixed martial arts has been legal in Japan since at least the 1980s,

Pancrase Pancrase Inc. is a mixed martial arts promotion company founded in Japan in 1993 by professional wrestlers Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki. The name was based on pankration, a fighting sport in the Ancient Olympic Games. Suzuki and Funaki pr ...

began to be held.

History

Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki took place in Japan between American boxer Muhammad Ali and Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki in 1976. The classic match-up between professional boxer and professional wrestler turned sour as each fighter refused to engage in the other's style of fighting style, and after 15 round stalemate it was declared a draw. This was the earliest example of mixed martial arts in Japan.

Pride FC PRIDE Fighting Championships (Pride or Pride FC, founded as KRS-Pride) was a Japanese mixed martial arts promotion company. Its inaugural event was held at the Tokyo Dome on October 11, 1997. Pride held more than sixty mixed martial arts even ...

for much of early 21st century in the 2000s was one of the preeminent Mixed martial arts organizations until it was discovered it was being run by the

Yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ...

. Since the 2010's MMA in Japan has seen a sharp decline in popularity in television viewership and popularity.https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mixedmartialarts-one-japan-idUSKBN1HI14F

Domestic organizations

The major MMA organizations in Japan are

Rizin Fighting Federation Rizin Fighting Federation (Rizin FF or Rizin) is a Japanese mixed martial arts organization created in 2015 by the former Pride Fighting Championships and Dream Stage Entertainment president Nobuyuki Sakakibara. Rizin was founded to be the spir ...

Shooto Shooto is a combat sport and mixed martial arts organization that is governed by the ''Shooto Association'' and the ''International Shooto Commission''. Shooto was originally formed in 1985, first as a particular fighting system and then in 198 ...

and

ZST ZST (pronounced ''Zest'') is a Japan-based mixed martial arts promotion and sanctioning organization holding amateur and semi-professional MMA events. ZST adopts unique rules in the MMA industry and also used to hold tag-team MMA matches. Hist ...

References

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