Singapore - Olympic
champion swimmer Joseph Schooling said he would love to see mixed
martial arts included at the Games after a sparring session with top
Asian fighter Angela Lee.
Schooling, who stunned his idol Michael Phelps to win 100m butterfly
gold in Rio, grappled with the ONE Championship atomweight champion for
the cameras at a gym in Singapore.
"That would be sick," said Schooling, who was accompanied by fellow
University of Texas swimmer Tripp Cooper, when asked if MMA should be an
Olympic sport.
"I love watching MMA, Tripp loves watching MMA too, sometimes we
watch fights together. I know also that the guys in the team also love
watching MMA.
"So you know we're guys, we're into that stuff, we're all for it."
Lee said pankration, a fighting sport similar to MMA with boxing,
wrestling, kicking, holds and chokes, was contested at the ancient
Olympics in Greece.
"Definitely I'm all for it... I want it to be put back into the
Olympics because pankration is actually one of the truest forms of MMA
and that was in the ancient Greek Olympics back in the day," said Lee.
She added: "It's a shame they took it out."