"Student of many, master of none." This is the famous line told to students to promote a "stick to one school" type of martial arts discipline. Yet innovation has found its way to the Mix Martial Arts Competitions and athletes are learning a wide variety of styles from Jujitsu, Muay Thai Kickboxing, Wrestling, Karate, etc.
Jujitsu have become a popular discipline to learn since many of the MMA fights end up on the floor in a wrestling/submission challenge. Yet, kickboxing techniques popular in Taekwondo, Karate, and Muay Thai have become notorious in knocking-out opponents. These few disciplines alone, when practiced constantly, can be very effective in self defense situations.
But what if you were faced with multiple attackers or an opponent with weapons? Would the uFC / Televised MEdia style fighting still be effective? Keep in mind that many MMA competitions are strict when it comes to methods such as eye gouges, kicking in between the legs, hair grabs, etc. How would wrestling/submission techniques work against multiple attackers? Against a weapons attack?
How about fighting against zombies? Or Terminator type robots? Maybe a "gun martial-arts" (as in the movie Equilibrium) would be the best choice?
Perhaps a good advice is to learn as much of the various martial arts disciplines and then use the style(s) for the appropriate scenario. In the meantime, it will be exciting to see what kind of innovations will evolve in the world of Mix Martial Arts in the next few years or decades to come. Stay tuned.