Elder Ma swung a devastating right hand at Trampas. It felt like the entire world was being sucked into the punch! As the fist moved closer to Trampas he ducked inside the swing and pushed up close to Elder Ma his right hand grabbed a handful of Elder Ma's pants and his left hand grabbed Elder Ma's upper clothes and then he picked up the Elder and slammed him against the ground.

Trampas then spoke like a teacher, "The problem with all your fancy punches and kicks is that you need distance on an opponent to throw them. Strikers look powerful when they have that distance but the truth is a good wrestler can just push inside that area of space they need and take it away."

The Elders looked at each other and nodded, Elder Zhang spoke first for the group of Elders, "Fascinating! I wonder if you could give me a few pointers on my finger strike?"

Trampas shook his head, "The problem with any strikes is that requirement for owning that space around you. A wrestler has no qualms about pushing into that space and directly laying hands on you. It's not that the strike itself is bad, it's that you need to have space to throw a strike."

Elder Zhang nodded and then asked, "How does a wrestler solve that problem, Junior Brother?"

Trampas looked at Elder Ma and then moved into position, "First you have to stop your opponent from throwing their strike, which I did with a body slam. Elder Ma feels free to defend as normal. A wrestler can throw a strike, but we do it with our full body until our opponent is on the ground and not ready to throw a strike." Trampas flew into Elder Ma with a shoulder block, and then followed that up with a second shoulder block. Elder Ma was able to defend himself from the first by crossing his arms in front of himself but the second hit knocked him off balance and that was when Trampas picked him up and gave him a powerful side slam.

"You see there? I used the double shoulder blocks to get Elder Ma's balance and then a quick side slam to put him on the ground where I need him and then..." Trampas fell to the ground and smashed a fist into Elder Ma's face. "That's when we use a strike. Now that I have the advantage.." He rolled up on top of Elder Ma and threw several fake punches at Elder Ma's face. "You see that? Now I can strike with no resistance."

The Elders all looked excited and started to clap. Trampas gave Elder Ma a hand up and then smiled at him and said, "It's not that your strikes have failed you, it's just that wrestling by design is just better for a one on one battle."

Elder Ma thought for a minute and then asked, "I see, so then a wrestler would have trouble with a group of fighters?"

Trampas nodded and said, "Aw hell, man, anyone is gonna have trouble with a group of fighters if they don't have a weapon, that's why we invented weapons."

The Elders all nodded and laughed in agreement. Elder Zhang asked, "I wonder then, what is the preferred weapon of a wrestler?"

Trampas shook his head, "Any weapon you can reach... A chair, a board, a metal pipe, a table. You just need something between you and them, don't you? With our cultivation, we have extreme strength, power, speed, and agility. Wrestling just lets you use all that with leverage and positioning."

Elder Zhang gasped and said, "It all makes sense! We have all been lulled into avoiding the major weakness of our martial arts to maintain the honor and dignity of our arts. We all had eyes but couldn't see Mount Tai!"

The Elders broke off into groups and tried using slams, grappling, throws, and shoulder blocks against each other. One of the elders asked, "Excuse me Tea Dubuya, could you help with a concern? When Elder Ba and I each come at each other using our wrestling moves, we can't overpower the other man. How do we break a stalemate?"

Trampas smiled and then said, "Try doing something from your normal martial art? A palm strike or a finger attack, maybe a punch... The idea is to distract your opponent enough to get leverage. You can also spin out of his grapple and try a reversal."

The group of Elders felt thoroughly enlightened after just one afternoon of wrestling. It changed their opinion on martial arts. A couple even had breakthroughs in their cultivation once they were able to see a future beyond the Dao they cultivated.

Fairy Bai, Zi Chyou, and Tutor Chen asked for instruction later in a more intimate setting.

The group of Elders called an emergency meeting with the Patriarch of the Red Runner Clan. Patriarch Long and his brother Elder Long looked at the reports from the Elders, "Good Evening Elders, after reading your reports it can be seen that cultivation aside our young fighters will have an unfair advantage in one on one combat, but would the combat skills be useful on a grand battlefield?"

Elder Zhang stood up and said, "When I asked our Junion Brother he gave the perfect response and alleviated my concerns. He said, 'That's why we invented weapons.' I have no doubts about this Amerikan wrestling. It is at the very least a sky-level technique. Possibly higher."

Patriarch Long gasped and covered his face with a shaking hand, "Ok, ok. No one must speak of this openly, this needs to be a Clan secret. That we know such a technique could become the very thing that destroys us if another sect becomes greedy. I will advise the Blood Sword sect! As for this young man we accepted as a core disciple and his wives, they are to be treated as Blood Sword sect members from now on. Get them the red stripe!"

A buzz started to spread around the Clan about a new way of fighting that changed duels and spars for everyone. A one-on-one fighting style that was so dominant that if one side didn't know it the other side was sure to win every single time. Amerikan wrestling fever soon took over the Clan as everyone from the lowest-ranked outer disciples to the highest-ranked Elders were desperate to attend one of Trampas's classes.

It didn't take long until people found ways to improve themselves by incorporating wrestling into their martial arts. Mixed Martial Arts were soon born. The Red Runner Clan's rise was assured in the coming years as long as the secret of Mixed Martial Arts could be contained within the borders of the Clan.