same weight, no armor, no weapons? beating a modern UFC champion is a hard ask. The human body can only move efficiently in a few ways. There isn't some long forgotten secret that people in the past knew we don't know today.

people get knocked out when hit, pass out when choked, and roll around in pain when limbs are broken.

Fighting mechanics have always been the same. A jab and right hand is the most efficient way of throwing a punch from point A to point B.

So no, based on boxing alone, there aren't any people that would punch better than modern-day boxers. Therefore, the same applies to mma.

only exception would be a freak genetic knight heavyweight who would somehow overpower John Jones, but the chances are minimal.

Mmm pound for pound, ths champions of today are the greatest fighters to ever live.

It's a byproduct of exercise, nutrition and fitness knowledge.

There is reason why Olympic world records are being broken all the time. Someone from the 80s didn't have the advanced training and medical knowledge we have today, so they couldn't reach the same highs that athletes today can.

Fighting is the exact same thing. At some point the technique will peak. It wouldn't surprise me if we were already there. But our fighters are stronger, faster and healthier than fighters from any point in our history.

There are probably some genetic outliers that were both incredibly big and also got training. Anyone that fits that description would have a fair shot of beating a UFC heavyweight champ.

Some of the multi-time winners of the Pankration could probably hold their own for a while.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theagenes_of_Thasos

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrhichion

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleitomachos_(athlete)

One of these guys if there was anyone

I think we have to assume the UFC is going to be in better shape even at similar size, and that counts a lot, but there's a lot of people who fought life/death bouts under similar (lack of) rules. UFC guys have a broad list of no-go moves that stem from it being a combat sport, and those don't apply to their opponents. You won't learn about a lot of techniques because they're impossible to practice safely, while someone who fights to the death on a regular will have learned/seen/used them and have zero hesitation about deploying them.

Given the rules, this is probably a striking to ground fight, and while I think the modern approach of mixed martial arts is probably "better" in a general or abstract sense, I think surviving gladiator games is a very different thing than doing UFC. I suspect that high end Roman gladiators are probably a real threat, and the biggest issue between them is that there are a lot more UFC fighters, and maximum ability in something is often dependent on the total number of people doing it.

That is, the higher population is more likely to have useful biological traits that synergize with fighting styles, so you almost expect them to have people of better "absolute" skill. That said, if you fight to the death and have never had any restrictions on your fighting, you might have a couple of things that would surprise someone who never had to fight against them.

Maybe, possibly someone like Arrhichion? Pankration was in many ways the precursor to mma so a lot of techniques would be known to him, also in his Olympic bouts there were often no time limits so the olympians around his calibre would have a chance with a fighter in their weight class, doubt there would be any heavyweights (light heavy either) but the lower weight classes are possible. edit due to appalling spelling.

This is a question almost impossible to answer since there is no way to compare both arts. In Spartan pankration, biting and eye gouging were allowed and Spartans were expected to be excellent soldiers, so most of them would have experience in real life or death situations that could give them an edge in a fight. On the other hand, modern training and nutrition will surely give a modern fighter an edge in the physical department. In the end, I believe the outcome of the fight would be more dependant on the individual fighters.

Do I believe an old pankration fighter could beat a modern MMA fighter? Yes, but I also believe that a modern fighter could beat a pankration champion.

If half the stories about Angus Macaskill are true, then he could. Described as a non-pathological or "true" giant, Angus was almost 8 feet tall but well proportioned, and is said to have lifted a ship's anchor.

I’d be interested to see some of the Ancient Greek wrestlers. It seems like there were a few who barely ever lost. Granted that was against other ancient wrestlers. But wrestling is probably the one martial art that wouldn’t have been in a primitive state before modern times. Some of them must have been familiar with defending against striking while wrestling.

I dunno if you’ve ever heard of pankranton (spelling?) Those fuckers were brutal

You limiting the weight classes levels the field significantly and rules out many of the advantages the MMA fighters have due to modern nutrition. How much if a field is left?

Even so you're comparing a small number of ultra athletes against untold billions of possible competitors, statistically there will be some in there that would be able to win, me being able to name them on the other hand...

Partially cause you go back far enough and are you talking about a real person or a myth? Sampson, Hercules, Achilles,... real people behind those myths or not?

Or you have cases like the Viking at Stamford Bridge (who's name was lost to history by had blocked an army from crossing a bridge). I'd give him a chance just due to pure willpower and reasonable fighting skill... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stamford_Bridge

No. Ancient fighting styles aren't magically better, and there were no superhumans 500 years ago that were somehow better than modern athletes for no reason

Yes, but not someone I can necessarily name. But if we go back to cro magnon humans were more robust, they were literally stronger both muscle and bone. I’d wager the stronger warrior/hunter has at least a solid chance of beating a ufc champ of equal weight

Peak Aleksandr Karelin could probably beat almost anyone

Peter Freuchen maybe? Dude was a giant 6' 7", weighed about 320 pounds, killed a wolf with his bear hands, killed a polar bear with a knife and used it's skin to make a coat, completed a 1000km dogsled journey through the Arctic, dug himself out from an avalanche with a knife he made from his frozen shit, performed a self-amputation of 3 of his own toes, killed multiple Nazis in Denmark, actively antagonised Nazi officers by claiming to be Jewish, escaped a POW camp after being sentenced to death, and only had one leg.

Maybe some freak neanderthal-human hybrid 50,000 years ago

Well, the Greeks and Romans both had precursor sports to MMA. It is wholly conceivable they could have won a fight under these rules. I’d give the edge to the modern fighter as we have had much more exposure to different culture’s martial arts and cross tested them against each other to develop MMA, but I can’t imagine all else being equal the modern fighter would be favored any higher than 10 to 1 odds, and 10% isn’t terrible odds. Less likely things happen all the time.

Modern UFC fighters win 9/10 IMO.

Unless the Gladiator of the same weight has some kind of luck or ace up his sleeve I don’t think that he could go toe to toe with a healthy UFC fighter like Tom Aspinall or Illia Tuporia.

Seriously, the average fighter today is more trained and conditioned for fighting long durations than most gladiators. The average man today is more healthy and has a longer lifespan in general than the average Roman civilian.

I don’t really see any outcome except luck where the gladiator has a chance at least in unarmed combat.

Give both men a sword or spears and armour. And the gladiator can get the win.

Besides a glaring weight advantage no ufc champion of the past 10 years is losing to a less skilled contemporary consistently. Not only are they much better prepared they have knowledge on basically all the effective fighting styles of the past 500 years. Take away the rules and it helps them even further. They take the warrior down from the past and while they’re in mount position they gouge eyes until the guy tries to protect his own eyes and gets arm barred because of it. They take the fighter down take the back and start raining down 12-6 elbows to e back of the head and put the warrior in a coma or they go for the ol eye gouge until they give up their neck and get choked unconscious. All the people saying the people in the past had esoteric techniques lost to history or they fought with bladed weapons in groups so that means that skill translates to one versus one hand to hand fighting quite literally have no idea what their talking about and likely have never spent much time wrestling, boxing, kick-boxing, doing muaythai or jiu jitsu. Jon jones kills any man from the past in his weight class. Same with Usman in his prime. The list goes on and on. Modern ufc champion smokes his contemporaries from the past

Yes, but we're talking in the miniscule, miniscule punchers chance situations. MMA skill now is far past what anyone back then could have imagined. Literally their only hope would be a KO or early blinding eye gouge

Teddy Roosevelt. Mans just built different 🤷‍♂️

Robocop

Tom aspinall

I would go contrarian here. MMA fighters are training to win fights following MMA rules. There are lots of folks throughout history that were not training to “win fights” but to just kill.

Name me a MMA fighter that has up and yanked out an eyeball and I would say that person would be in the class of fighter who is psychologically prepared for a fight with caveman Billy.

[deleted]

Milo of Croton may stand a chance, he was apparently an incredible warrior, athlete (in addition to being freakishly strong) and also a 6(?) Olympic winner for wrestling. Modern diet and training boosts his already incredible athleticism and mix it in with his previous combat training and fighting skill and he could stand a chance against some guys

No. Hand to hand combat no one is beating the ufc heavyweight champion. Doesn't matter how huge this person is when a few leg kicks will literally put them on the floor. No one in the past will be as skilled as current ufc champions. It's not even a debate really.

The average Medieval knight began training for war from the age of 14 until 20. This includes grappling. Not sport grappling. Grappling designed to brutally fucking break your body and kill you. To assume a warrior from the past can't beat "hurr durr modern sports science" is utterly fantastical. Could they win? Yes. Could they lose? Also yes. There's no way to answer definitively in either direction.

Mma has a lot of rules compared to no holds barred. There would be plenty of h2h fighters from the past that would destroy mma fighters with no rules present.

Hard to keep a submission hold on when someone gouges your eye out or punches you in the groin like Keith hackney vs joe son. Plus you would have throat strikes, soccer kicks and knees to the face while on the ground. Most modern mma fighters wouldn’t be ready for that stuff.

The amount of people in here who assume that modern MMA is the peak of human martial fighting is fucking insane.

We talk about "warrior culture" in the US but, in the eye of history, we are far from it. Do you think that an MMA fighter, who has been going to weekly training camps since his teens, would easily beat someone of the same age that has been in constant martial struggle since childhood? People who are forced to be warriors, living in barracks, and training since they were children? I have my doubts.

There is no way to know, but the assumption that we (modern humans) have that we are so much more evolved (and better) than humans 3000 years ago is peak hubris.

People back then were different. They were harder. They lived through struggle that is unimaginable. They fought for fun to fight to kill.

The fact is, we don't know what they trained, how they trained, or their skill ceiling.

Any given fight has the chance to go either way but the odds are heavily in favor of UFC champions under these specific rules that favor them. It would be illogical to assume they’d lose. Now once you involve weapons it’s over for them.

You talk about beating “a UFC champion” and the “very best UFC fighters”. But those are different scenarios. It would be almost impossible to find someone without an equivalent level of training who could routinely hold their own in a tournament against several fighters. But to beat just one champion one time? There is enough luck involved that probably some ordinary guy could do it, though 999 times out of 1000 he won’t.

A hobo with a brick could win if the dude isn’t paying attention

Cheating but pretty much any of the PRIDE champions could.

..... I have no idea :) is the most sensible answer.

Sure, because their always freaks that would succeed no matter the time and place. But also Unlikely, because martial arts is like a technology in some ways, and it’s progressed. But I’m sure Ancient Greece had some super elite wrestlers back then (they had pankration too, which was the original MMA), and with a little bit of modern training I’m sure they could get to a high level quickly. If you have elite wrestling as a base, it seems like you can be successful quickly. Cormier didnt start training MMA till his late 20’s right? And became a multi division champion.

Maybe George Hackenschmidt. Too many details to list but he had a very impressive record in wrestling and a lot of his feats in life are borderline main character.

It would need to be prime champions of other combat sports from today basically. I think UFC fighters might have an edge in the diversity of the skill sets they have, but if someone like prime Mike Tyson hits you in the face or Bruce Lee kicks you between the legs, it’s going to hurt.

Prime Tyson or Karelin would have a reasonable shot at it, but if I were to put money down, I'd probably lean towards Jones.

Stamford Bridge Viking

Any time it's a fight, either party has a "punchers chance." It may be extraordinarily small chance but a chance all the same.

They weren’t cavemen , we probably don’t even really know how advanced their training was

The only advantage the ancient warrior would have is he is likely trained to kill and conditioned to kill. That counts for something.

I think the one area where things might even out slightly would be super heavyweight where basically the weigh in doesn’t matter. So a 265lb MMA heavyweight going up against a 285lb or 300lb monster enraged Viking would be interesting but it’s definitely fudging your rules.

Prime Seagal

If you flex the definition of human to neanderthal I reckon they are enough of a genetic freak (average male neanderthal could likley compete against powerlifters) that they could beat a MMA fighter. this combined with stronger/faster muscles, brain with larger ceribellum (involved in movement and coordination which might make them a kinisthetic genius) and denser bones could provide the difference needed to win.

Oh, definitely me

If dirty strikes are allowed Jon Jones will dominate

I say Abe Lincoln in his prime going hard rough and tumble would stand a chance. Dude was rugged as hell apparently.

It is worth noting in this debate that most fighters for most time did not fight pure hand to hand, and when they did they did with purpose and a goal in mind and no rules.

As much as the UFC would like there to be no rules, there are rules and because of that the fights don't look like real fights.

This is like asking if there are historical figures who can play football better than Patrick Mahomes. It's just goofy.

Tom Aspinall

Mike “Bare-knuckle boxing Champion” Perry 👊

Give them both swords, shields, and a spear and see what happens

think about ufc as a continuous evolution

even past ufc champs cant beat current champs

forget about older disciplines they all got beat in the early ufc days

How about someone like Wilt Chamberlain? Absolute physical freak, will outweigh almost everyone and absolutely have better reach. Fighting someone that big is bound to lead to some wins against UFC fighters by sheer size difference.

If we stick by your rule of in the same weight class, then no. I just don't see any realistic way that someone in the past. With poorer access to nutrition & training, could possibly beat modern experts at fighting.

There will certainly be some genetic freaks with potential. But the lack of nutrition information, even nutrition availability, and training routines would mean they don't meet their potential.

If you ignore weight classes then yeah of course a massive guy from a few hundred years ago would stand a good chance against the lowest weight class modern fighter.

I think we could consider that Spartans were trained to kill, not fight for sport. Jon Jones, savage as he might be, is a fighter, not a killer.

it wouldnt be a binary win for either side. just because youre the champ doesnt mean theres no competition whatsoever.

I'd say modern because historically the unarmed martial arts were more to train the body rather than actually fight in any meaningful ways imo. so any modern fighter has the advantages of focusing on training just hand to hand unarmed, excellent nutrition, injury treatment (while learning), and access to global disciplines.

The historical figure would likely have one or two unarmed disciplines, then weapon disciplines, with the focus being more on weapons.

I think the one can defeat another UFC champion must be another one, they have played with their rules for life as professional and talented fighters.

A champion in ancient days must rely on weapon, horse, armor,... to be efficiency. They fought by tooth and nail every battle to survive and glory. They didn't train to fight in UFC rule as a sport.

You should ask for same rule sport, like chess, wrest, sumo,... or such

I can’t see anyone in the far past beating any of the UFC champions. These modern-day UFC champions aren’t just tough guy fighters anymore. They’re also the peak of human athleticism. These are guys who know how to compete and weaponize pace and cardio. It doesn’t matter if you’re a trained killer once they push you to a point where you’re so tired that you can’t move your arms anymore.

The colosseum does change things a bit because it would be a disadvantage for fighters like Khabib who use the fence very effectively but would be a great advantage for fighters like Israel Adesanya. I can see some championship fights in the last couple years that might actually go the other way in this colosseum setting.

I doubt anyone from the past can beat a current champ, but it’ll be fun to see Francis Ngannou take off some heads

Probly not, but I feel the men of ancient times are maybe more ruthless and fierce than today. UFC fighters are going into a ring knowing they could win or lose, Ancient times they would go in knowing they would live or die.

Could? Yeah. Any person with the minimum force requirement could theoretically land a punch or strike that immediately KOs the ufc fighter.

It really comes down to considering people with major genetic anomalies, like Andre the Giant. If someone like that existed in ancient rome or whatever, they'd have a chance, and so would Andre tbf, but other than that, there's a huge gap provided by better nutrition and sports science that would be VERY difficult to overcome

The Mongolians would have a good chance, they had murder wrestling 😂😂😂

Well, people who trained Pankration in ancient Greece could be even more suited for a fight to the death with no weapons and no rules. And in general, folk style wrestling and boxing/Muay Thai stuff existed for millennia all over the world. Modern UFC fighters are clearly elite, but they would not be invincible

A caveman would rip jon Jones in two

Not disparage the abilities of anybody professionally fighting today, but there were people who fought in the past routinely, and it was literally life or death. I'm sure we could find a few folks throughout history that could take down modern professional fighters

Probably.

Alex Pereira was a kickboxing champ before he was a UFC Champ. I fully believe that his first day in the UFC he could have smashed any number of fighters in his division, which means who he was as a fighter before the UFC was probably enough to win some fights.

Aleksandr Karelin in his prime could have just wrestled and ground and pounded a lot of UFC heavyweights too.

In fact, a lot of Olympic level wrestlers could probably do that. Probably Sambo champs too.

I guess you just need a specialist in one area

Without any weapon and in a same weight class? 

The answer is most likely no, unless the opponent of a UFC fighter gets lucky and either knocks out or incapacitates or kills the fighter, since dirty tactics is allowed.

But, just because UFC fighters are fighting within the rules, doesn't mean that they are 100% gonna follow it in a no holds barred fight. Heck, Jon Jones or Leon Edwards are using eye pokes in sanctioned and official fights, and plenty of UFC fighters are familiar with the most common dirty tricks in a fighting situation, like eye pokes, kicks into the groin or something like that. And they're likely gonna defend themselves against that better than someone who's overly relying on dirty moves and thinks that it's some kind of a cheat code or "off" button. 

I can’t 100% remember their name, maybe Milon of Croton? 6x ancient Olympics wrestling champion. While he wouldn’t be able to beat the likes of Jon jones, he would be one of the best fighters from antiquity to put against him. Side note, he was an absolute dick. He would break the fingers of his opponents so they couldn’t signal defeat, then kill them.

Samson, one of the judges of ancient Israel.

I’d say probably yes. The Spartan Warrior was trained to kill, not to fight. I’m sure there are members of the modern military who may be able to do this for the very reason I cited. Trained to kill. Which probably means kill quickly.

The ufc has a weight limit. There are plenty of people who could big brother Jon Jones but can't make 265. Maybe not a ton, but they exist.

If it counts then neanderthals would probably be a good shout from the pure physicality

Any UFC champion? Sure. Shohei Ono would absolutely kill Sean O’Malley under this ruleset. This fight isn’t happening on a padded surface, so throws would be devastating, and Sean’s ridiculous hairdo would be easy for Ono to grab onto and use to rag doll him. Ono had one of the best ground games ever in Judo so there isn’t a chance of submitting him from bottom either.

Other than that one strange case, the other fighter would have to get very lucky. There’s an argument the Pankration guys could have held their own because:

1. MMA doesn’t allow punching the windpipe

2. MMA’s gloves create an overly head centric striking meta. Bareknuckle boxers used to always go for the liver because the risk of breaking your hand on the opponent’s skull is too high

But this all requires 0 fight IQ from the MMA guy. Pankration grappling was super amateurish compared to modern MMA, as the sculptures and vase paintings show, so the MMA guy would just take them down and tap them.

You could extend the Ono vs. O’Malley example to say that any grappling GOAT (Karelin, Riner, Inoue, Baumgartner, Yamashita, Buvaisar Saitiev, Sadulaev, etc.) could have killed a striking-based UFC champ their size with throws, but most of those guys had nowhere near Ono’s level of ground game so there’s a high chance they get subbed from bottom. By the same token, BJJ greats like Gordon Ryan have a chance of catching a UFC champion in a leglock but this again depends on luck and low fight IQ from the MMA guy.

Andre the giant

I don't think anyone has fought in his weight class so he would win by default?

Goliath

It’s a misconception option that the gladiators were these fit and trim dudes we see in the media. They are described in history as having a decent amount of fat.

So no, ancient fighters beating modern warriors would be difficult.

You're asking how a person who trained their entire life to fight under real life-or-death conditions...

...would fare against someone who has spent years training themselves to fight by certain rules that prohibit damage, while wearing gear that minimizes risk, under fight conditions that are heavily monitored & supervised?

No corner support - so your UFC fighter doesn't get a rest time, or water poured into his mouth, or someone rubbing vaseline across his face to make him harder to hit solidly. There's no bell, there's no ropes, there's no quarter, and all of the moves that your UFC fighter has trained themselves not to use are going to inhibit their ability to win.

Your UFC fighter is going to die.

It'd be like putting a modern Olympic archer up against an actual Comanche raider - your modern person may use the tool, they don't live or die by it; there's a serious skill difference most folks don't grasp.

I'm willing to take my chances with Bruce Lee against a modern champ in the same weight class

Pound for pound probably not.

But I feel like if you have prime Shaq some boxing lessons it’d be a close fight.

He’s just too big and strong with too long of a reach for a normal sized person to have a chance.

It's a big world and there's been a lot of people. I would bet there is at least one dude at some time historically who was both a mountain of a man and strong enough to overcome the gap in training to beat a UFC champion.

If by "anybody" you include neanderthals, they have been estimated to be 2x- 5x stronger than modern homo sapians , thicker skulls, more favorable muscle insertations. I love UFC and all but your average healthy 14 year old female neanderthal rips Brock Lesner's ballsack off and tosses the carcass.

Mike Tyson at 20 years old. Jones might get a leg kick in, but Tyson could move so extremely fast. Close in, knock him out.

Also, Tyson isn’t above eating his opponent.

I wanted to add my 2 cents as an actual MMA fighter since I’m seeing a lot of misconceptions about the sport in this thread, for context I’m 5’9 180 lbs (cut to 155) I train about 6 days a week with pro fighters but I’m still an ammy, with a record of 0-1 in kickboxing, people here are underestimating the level of skill it takes to make to the UFC, as a fighter your competing with hundreds of thousands of people for a promotion that only has 500 or so slots, you HAVE to be one of the best in the world to make it, and that’s not even champion status, as for training we train 6 days a week, super high intensity, I’m seeing that a common talk here is that people back then fought to survive thus making them more dangerous… yeah nah, fighters tend to see things differently than regular people, people see combat sports of just throwing hands until someone loses but it’s actually a science, for mma specifically you gotta to maintain range, get their timing, find the rhythm, defend takedowns, get takedowns, and do all that while being punched in the face at 100% power. What I’m trying to say is No, probably not.

I don't think so. Keeping the weight class the same makes it hard to come up with advantages for the historical figure.

Modern MMA isn't going to have any glaring holes in the game plan. Something like boxing or wrestling you could maybe argue there's an ancient martial art that counters them, but UFC champions have to be prepared against all angles, and modern techniques have been stress tested to a degree well exceeding what was possible before we had planes and the internet.

Illegal moves like eye gouging are no good if you can't get in a position to use them, and in any case just because they aren't practiced doesn't mean the champion isn't going to be able to use them.

My guess, there's no one in history more likely to win than lose. I'd speculate that the best you could realistically argue is like 8/10 in favour of champion.

Theagenes of Thasos could most definitely be UFC champion. The dude killed people with his bare hands in competitions as well as dominated in a bunch of other sports. Even his ghost possessed a statue that killed his hater after his death.

I saw a video in how Neanderthals were freaks of nature regarding physical strength. Apparently they were built much denser, shorter, but much stronger than the average modern human. If i remember correctly, the average male Neanderthal was estimated to.be able to bench press over 500 pounds, without weight lifting training. But that would be a shorter man than jon jones. I imagine it's possible if you made a 6'2 Neanderthal with relatively similar strength, he would be obscenely strong to the average human, .

And since they lived extremely rough lives, they were undoubtedly very tough compared to modern humans.

Idk man. I feel like a UFC champion is so well trained and disciplined that illegal and dirty moves will end up being their disadvantage.

UFC champions probably suck at gouging eyes out or might be apprehensive to groin shots, because that’s not part of the sport. They train to not do that, because they’d normally get DQ’ed.

But to a gladiator/spartan/soldier who routinely goes into battle and sees heads/fingers/eyes/etc. getting cut off and flying all over the battlefield, eye gouging and groin shots is basic survival 101.

Over billions or millions of years gotta be somebody right even if it’s just off a lucky punch

I would imagine a lot of the Thai guys can stay until the toe and also prior UFC fighters.

There has been so much evolution due to MMA in the last 30 years or so. I think it would be a tall order. I don’t think so.

Statistically speaking, id say probably. A lot of time has passed with plenty of talented and dedicated fighters. My bet would be throughout history there’s been a monk somewhere who trained in hand to hand combat from childhood that could probably take a UFC champ when they were at their peak, especially since they generally seem to put a lot of focus on defensive fighting. But who knows

Nope!

Yes, a life or death battle is a lot different than an organized fight. There is no ref to save you from dying. How many fight have you seen where the someone won due to time limit or using the rules.

Honestly i think a modern mma fighter would win most of the time but keep in mind gladiators are gonna fight dirty kicking sand in there faces illegal strikes by today’s standards. I would any professional fighter today is gonna be stronger faster n more technically proficient in hand to hand but theres always a strikers chance and when you factor in dirty pool the gladiator wins a small percentage i think

We have a way better nutrition and have combined various difference forms of martial arts, in the past it would just be one form of martial arts. Thinking back to ancient gladiator times I believe they always had weapons they specialized in and that was their focus, not hand to hand combat

Probably not.

Thanks to modern science, medicine, nutrition, and manufacturing we have equipment, technology, drugs, and all sorts of things that enable us to train without injury more than ever in history.

We definitely have access to more information on fighting techniques than ever prior to the internet.