Wrestling's origins go way back in time. In fact when the ancient Games of the Olympiad were born, wrestling was already an ancient game.
Widely recognized as the world's oldest competitive sport, wrestling appeared in a series of Egyptian wall paintings as many as 5000 years ago. When the Games began in 776 BC, more than two millenniums later, it included wrestling, and, in the years that followed, wrestling featured as the main event.

The sport would return in a similar role when the Olympic Games returned after a 1500-year absence in 1896. Organizers, seeking direct links to ancient times, found a natural in the sport that had enjoyed popularity across much of the ancient world, from Greece, Assyria and Babylon to India, China and Japan. They resurrected Greco-Roman wrestling, a style they believed to be an exact carryover from the Greek and Roman wrestlers of old.
In Greco-Roman wrestling, the wrestlers use only their arms and upper bodies to attack. They can hold only those same parts of their opponents.

Over the years, Europeans have dominated Greco-Roman wrestling. The latest and most impressive example is Russian heavyweight Alexander Karelin. He was looking to become the first man to win four straight gold medals in the sport at the Sydney 2000 Games. Alexander lost to his American opponent Rulon Gardner in the final by a score of 1-0. Considered one of the strongest men ever to compete in the Olympic Games, he specializes in picking up opponents — heavyweight opponents — and tossing them over his head.

Greco-roman wrestling is used in Ultimate fighting. --Booming last five years.