MMA is Not a Martial Art

This is one of the age old internet questions about martial arts: is MMA a martial art? The answer, I have finally decided, is "no." I have argued that virtually any combat sport is automatically a martial art, and MMA (mixed martial arts) is a combat sport, so what makes MMA special? From the very beginning of the introduction of MMA in the United States in the early and mid 90's, MMA was for at least a few years billed as a competition to "see which martial art works the best." Now 25 years later, it is still a competition to see "which combinations of strategies and techniques work the best."

After the 2019 Pacific North West Warrior Tipon Tipon a bunch of us went to eat at a location next door to the event, a nice Italian/Greek restaurant. There I had some constructive disagreements with one of the more prominent fighters at that event (here's our fight from a few hours before):

He had a surprisingly negative view of MMA, while still having a generally positive view of combat sports and TMA (traditional martial arts.) When I pressed him on this issue, an important detail emerged: MMA uses other combat sports and martial arts as a resource to see what works best in reasonable-rules cage fighting. When you throw weapons like sticks and knives into the mix, you need to go back to the drawing board, using those same combat sports and TMA that MMA draws from. For example, spinning hook kicks and stepping side kicks would not be a staple technique for most MMA fighters, but in a Tipon, with all that range with a weapon in your hand, it makes a lot more sense:

Another way to look at this is that in some ways an MMA fight is more like a Tipon than it is like a boxing match. In a boxing match, your know what moves people are going to use. In an MMA fight you don't.

As a martial arts consumer I have found that most of the skills developed at MMA gyms are in specialized classes focused on more specific combat sports than MMA. When MMA classes are taught, it is typically focusing on the MMA techniques not specifically covered in those other combat sport classes. In this sense, from a martial arts consumer perspective, MMA is not something you can simply go take a class in. For example here's the class schedule from the most famous MMA gym in my area:

I don't doubt AMC produces great MMA fighters. I doubt that those MMA fighters develop most of their fighting skill in by training in one 75 minute class once per week.

But I have heard of some cases where that's exactly what they do, where supposedly they have an MMA specific program where most of the MMA skills are developed in those MMA classes. So I would guess there are probably a few dozen schools throughout the USA that teach legit MMA in straight up MMA classes, focusing on sparring and only moves known to be very consistently successful in MMA. So since they exist that must mean they are a martial art, right?

Wrong. They are going to be focusing on different strategies for success in the cage. What this means is each individual school is developing a unique martial art specifically for MMA completion. Mixing of other martial arts happens to be exactly how all individual martial arts get started. Therefore, MMA is the only combat sport that can not be considered a martial art unto itself.