The game is billed less as a grind-and-level game and more of a celebration of art and music and, yeah, intricate martial arts combat.

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The training system, often called combat or battling rope, was first developed for combat sports such as mixed martial arts, as a means to work out at a higher level of intensity.

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Either way, the device could give boxing a second wind at a time when fight fans increasingly are turning to mixed martial arts, or MMA, a form of combat that more often ends with decisive knockouts.

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He competed in mixed martial arts which draws on a range of combat disciplines, including jujitsu, wrestling, boxing and kickboxing , sometimes fighting under the alias Ibrahim Tody, said Chris Palmquist, chief operating officer of Mixed Martial Arts LLC, which maintains the official registry of MMA fighters for the Association of Boxing Commissions.

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Coming after a long, slow narrative slog, it's the first of a few stunningly staged combat interludes that borrow freely, and successfully, from Asia's martial-arts extravaganzas.

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