From order of most to least experience, for unarmed martial arts:
Brazilian jiu-jitsu / Submission grappling
Judo
Boxing
Muay Thai
Kickboxing
Wrestling

By this, I mean I'm a lazy sub grappler, a shitty striker, and an even worse standup grappler. Hahah, but I still love doing it.

I have also trained krav maga, wing chun, hung gar kung fu, and aikido for varying amounts of time, but I don't consider them "arts I know" for various reasons. I remember you sifted that old-school GJJ vid, do you train BJJ or something?

In reply to this comment by lavoll:
upvote for rembars comments. but now i have to ask, what art(s) do you do know, rembar?

As an MMAer myself, I don't quite understand what's so mindblowing about MMA making it onto the cover of SI. It's a terrific sport, albeit somewhat misunderstood, and is quickly becoming one of the leading sport draws. I men, it's fighting for pete's sake, how can that NOT appeal to young adults?

As you may know, mixed martial arts, in the form of pankration, was one of the most popular sports in the original Greek Olympic games, back in the 600s B.C., and is currently under review for admittance as a demonstration sport in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.

Contrary to popular belief, mixed martial art fighters are not mindless brawlers: in fact, to reach a high level in the sport requires excellence in not just one martial art, but many arts, in order to adequately cover the three ranges of combat (standing, clinch, and ground) as well as both striking and grappling. For example, Fedor, almost universally considered the best fighter in the world, draws his base as an international champion in judo and sambo, and usually trains in submission grappling, boxing, and Muay Thai. He has, among many other feats, thrown and submitted an Olympic gold-medal judoka, hip tossed an Olympic silver-medal Greco-Roman wrestler, submitted some of the world's best Brazilian jiu-jitieros, and knocked out high-level Muay Thai fighters and kickboxers.

MMA has become a proving ground for martial arts, in what I believe is the spirit of Bruce Lee's philosophy of Jeet Kune Do: take what works, discard what doesn't. Arts that are effective are proven in the ring, and ones that aren't are dropped quickly - people can't make excuses when they get hit in the face. And the arts that work have coalesced into an overarching view of fighting, making for basically the most effective method of training and preparation for unarmed combat.

As for homoerotic overtones....well, I guess one can see what one wants to see.

Sifters interested in learning more about specific aspects of MMA can check out my Fighting Arts playlist, which includes sifts covering an expanding selection of martial arts practiced and used in mixed martial arts competitions.

Those were some great KOs, but I really dislike labels that say "the best". It's just so difficult to get all the best in one list, it's so subjective and most lists just aren't comprehensive anyways.

Also, Eric, you may want to change your description. There were no kickboxing or mixfight KOs in the video whatsoever, as far as I could see they consisted entirely of KOs from MMA and boxing matches, and I didn't even see any UFC, Cage Rage, KOTC, or any other major MMA fight organizations, it looked like only Pride stuff for the MMA side.

Oh, and for future reference, mixfights/mixed fights tend to refer to matches between a man and a woman, and tend to connote a highly sexual, personal environment in privte, rather than a professional event that would be televised to the public.

Dag, the Pride Fighting Championships is a pro mixed martial arts organization in Japan, and is generally considered to have the best fighters in the world. (Well, past tense now, Pride was just bought by the owners of the UFC and combined the two.)

The general consensus among MMA fighters and fans is that most of the top MMA fighters, even the sprawl-and-brawl specialists, would get wiped in boxing matches against the best pro boxers, because MMA fighters can't afford to perfect their boxing to the same point boxers do. There has been movement, however, to improve striking in MMA, and the latest round of champs has been mostly strikers.

There is also some truth in that boxing striking, although it is often considered the best base standup art for MMA, needs to be adapted for MMA. For example, the more sideways stance has to be squared up to protect against single and double leg takedowns. Also, the use of the smaller 4 oz. MMA gloves means many types of boxing guards, like the peekaboo guard and crab guard, don't work so well because it's easier for punches to slip past.

Since MMA is such a new sport, there is much debate as to how much of the difference in striking styles between MMA and pure boxing/kickboxing/Thai boxing is due to poor technique on the fighters' part, and differences in the games caused by the wider range of attacks available in MMA.

For example, take head movement. Boxers are well known to have great head movement for defense, in bobbing and weaving and slipping. MMA fighters tend to keep their heads relatively still and high up. Some people say this is due to the fact that boxers train more head movement, and point to Couture v. Sylvia as an example of good head movement in MMA giving an advantage to the better slipper (Couture). Other people say boxing-style head movement is dangerous in MMA because a bad bob, weave, or slip could easily bring a fighter into the path of a round kick or knee or open them up for a takedown, and point to Anderson Silva v. pretty much anyone else, as well as the lowered amount of head movement in Muay Thai matches.

There are examples and counter examples of both sides, but I don't think a consensus will be reached until the next generation of MMA fighters arrive, a generation that no longer consists of specialized fighters with a strong base in a single art, but fighters that have been training since Day 1 for MMA with strong bases in striking and grappling arts. It's pretty exciting to watch the sport evolve in small ways like this.

Personally, I don't give all the discussion much thought, and am content to just block punches with my forehead.

I'd hafta say these are GREAT moments in sports. I wanna see kickboxing while driving formula one tho.

I love watching this sport, but I would never take part in it. Much like hockey, cause I cant skate.

The one thing that i do not like about the gracie dynasty is the lengths that they go to, to show how good their martial art is agianst other arts. Kenpo, and some other thing on GoogleVideo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naWEbPDz80w

Fistly bringing one art form and dueling another to prove that one is better than the other is foolish. "There are many styles of Wushu. One style is not better than the other, there is only difference in skill." -Jet Li's Character in Fearless.

There is a terrible stereotype that follows KickBoxing, MMA, and even my style of Martial Art is that we do the art in order to show our egos. In somecases we do just that, but in most cases its because we have no choice. Training to fight is one thing but training as a warrior in all your aspects of life is the way, only doing it halfway is foolish. The only certain thing in martial arts is that there is uncertainty.

This was a great vid! I think that submissions work from any angle, but I perfer to do my fighting from a distance behind Tachi!

DigitalDragon, you misunderstood Empire's argument about contact. Boxers, Muay Thai fighters, kickboxers, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, judo all have their students start whacking, throwing, or submitting each other from Day 1. They continue to train this way at all times. So who do you think's going to be a better fighter, somebody who gets punched and punches people all the time and learns to put power in it, or somebody who whirls their feet and hands around and maybe touches their "opponents" when dancing? Practice makes perfect, right? How come capoeira players don't practice hitting each other, then? You said you've seen masters fight each other in person. Any of them ever get KO'ed, or even get knocked silly? I doubt it, and if it was, it was probably an accident.

*sigh* This is why arguing on teh internets is dumb. It's so much easier when the people I'm arguing with can put on some 4 oz. gloves with me to put their claims to the test and then get themselves punched silly. So much easier that way.

They deserved it - crazy freaks!

Reminds me of this time I was walking with g/f and old friend (who is the closest person I know to a kickboxer). Well two guys were yelling at each other about who knows what. We turned to look at the commotion and one of them came at us, trying to start a fight with us!

Words were exchanged, and that idiot was incredibly lucky to run away when he did. Oddly enough, when we whipped out cell phones and started dialling 911, he decided he didn't want to stand around any longer.

Ah, big city life...

I'm pretty sure that some of you guys take your gaming a bit too seriously....

Actually, this looks to me like an ideal way to encourage pudgy kids (of all ages) to put down their handhelds, get up off of their pudgy butts and get active...bring up the energy level...bring down the obesity factor...

Heck, maybe some too-serious-gamers might even discover that they prefer real live physical activity....who knows? perhaps the next generation of semi-pro kickboxers, competitive ballroom dancers or long distance frog-kick swimmers are just an "ACTIVATOR" away.

this was really cool!

you should try to make one with "actors" from a local karate/kickboxing club, their fast and strong movements really make a clip like this stand out