Fighting sports were among the first contests to be included in the ancient Olympic Games. Only footraces predated wrestling, which was introduced in 708 BCE, and boxing made its debut as an event 20 years later. In 648 BCE pankration, an ancient precursor to modern mixed martial arts, became an Olympic event.
When Pierre de Coubertin sought to reinvent the Olympics for the modern era, wrestling was one of the events included in the inaugural Games in Athens. Fencing, which also appeared at the Athens Games, was in the process of transitioning away from a skill set that also had combat and duelling applications to a ritualized and codified sport. While fencing certainly had elements of a martial art in 1896, it has shed most, if not all, of them since that time. Boxing returned to the Olympic lineup at the 1904 St. Louis Games, but for more than a half century additional martial arts would be relegated to demonstration sport status. Glíma, a form of Icelandic wrestling that originated with the Vikings, was a demonstration sport at the 1912 Stockholm Games, and the French martial art savate appeared at the 1924 Paris Games.
Judo was included as an Olympic event for the first time at the 1964 Tokyo Games, and, after disappearing from the program in 1968, it returned in 1972 and has been a fixture at every Summer Games since (women’s judo was added in 1992). The 1980 Moscow Games were held under the shadow of a U.S.-led boycott in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and for that reason many Westerners missed the demonstration of sambo, a Russian wrestling form, during the opening ceremonies (it did not appear as an actual demonstration sport). Demonstration sports were phased out after the 1992 Barcelona Games, but a wushu (Chinese martial arts) tournament was held concurrently with the 2008 Beijing Games. Tae kwon do, the most recent martial art to receive the Olympic nod, made its debut as a medal sport for both men and women at the 2000 Sydney Games, and women’s freestyle wrestling was added in 2004.