Martial Arts
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146 free Martial Arts trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
20 free martial arts trivia questions with answers. Think you're a martial arts expert? Put your knowledge to the test with our comprehensive 146-question trivia quiz covering everything from ancient kung fu traditions to modern MMA competitions. Whether you're a seasoned fighter, casual fan, or curious beginner, this quiz will challenge what you know about martial arts history, techniques, and famous practitioners from around the world.
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Q 01What is the long, curved sword carried by Japan's samurai called?
Katana
The katana was worn edge-up through the belt, paired with a shorter sword as the mark of a samurai, until an 1876 edict barred almost everyone from carrying swords in public and ended the privilege.
Q 02Which future UFC champion became the first American woman to win an Olympic judo medal, with bronze in 2008?
Ronda Rousey
Ronda Rousey began judo at 11 under her mother, the first American to win a world judo title; she then carried judo's armbar into MMA, ending fight after fight with it inside a minute.
Q 03In Taekwondo, what does the term 'Tae' refer to?
Foot or Kick
'Tae' means foot or kick, 'kwon' fist and 'do' the way; Choi Hong-hi pushed the name in 1955, swapping 'su' (hand) for 'kwon' in the rival label Tae Soo Do, and other school heads were slow to adopt it.
Q 04Krav Maga was originally developed for the armed forces of which country?
Israel
Imi Lichtenfeld, who defended Jewish neighbourhoods in Bratislava in the 1930s, emigrated to Palestine and developed Krav Maga for the Israel Defense Forces after Israel's founding in 1948.
Q 05What is the loose jacket-and-trousers uniform worn for karate and judo called?
Gi
The gi, short for keikogi, began as judo's uniform; Okinawans practised karate in everyday clothes until the 1920s, when its teachers copied the judo outfit to help sell the art on the Japanese mainland.
Q 06Which term for Chinese martial arts originally meant any skill earned through long, hard practice?
Kung Fu
Kung Fu, or gongfu, covers any skill built through hard work in Chinese, even brewing tea, as in the gongfu tea ceremony; the word came to mean fighting arts only in the late 20th century.
Q 07What is the samurai code of honour called, a name meaning 'the way of the warrior'?
Bushido
Bushido reached the wider world through a book written in English for Western readers: Nitobe Inazō's Bushido: The Soul of Japan, published in the United States at the turn of the 20th century.
Q 08Morihei Ueshiba founded which Japanese martial art focused on harmonious energy and fluid movement?
Aikido
Aikido took shape in the 1920s and 1930s as Morihei Ueshiba fused the older arts he had studied; he wanted a defence that blends with an attack and redirects it while also protecting the attacker from injury.
Q 09In English, what are the communal houses where sumo wrestlers live and train called?
Stables
Stables rule every part of a wrestler's day, from meals to dress; in the 1900s one stable flooded with recruits swapped individual meals for a shared hotpot, chankonabe, and the dish became standard fare across the sport.
Q 10In feudal Japan, what was a samurai with no lord or master called?
Rōnin
A rōnin had lost his lord to death or disgrace; the most famous, a band of 47, avenged their dead master in 1703, after which the authorities ordered all but one of them to take their own lives.
Q 11Capoeira, part fight, part dance, part music, originated in which country?
Brazil
Brazil's enslaved Africans developed capoeira, which scholars link to Angolan combat games; the 1890 penal code made it a crime, but in 1937 the state licensed Mestre Bimba's school and began promoting it as national culture.
Q 12Which Chinese martial art of slow, flowing movements is often practised for health?
Tai Chi Chuan
Tai Chi Chuan began as a fighting art, and its slow forms can still be drilled at combat speed; in 1956 China's sports committee had a panel of masters boil it down to a 24-movement routine for public health.
Q 13What did Bruce Lee call the hybrid martial arts philosophy he founded?
Jeet Kune Do
Q 21Which substance do sumo wrestlers toss into the ring before a bout, a purification rite inherited from Shinto?
Salt
Salt purifies the dohyō in a ritual inherited from Shinto; wrestlers also rinse their mouths with 'power water' before fighting.
Q 22When a yokozuna loses to a lower-ranked wrestler, what do fans traditionally hurl into the ring?
Cushions
Cushions are the zabuton that spectators sit on; flinging them at the ring when a grand champion is upset is officially prohibited, yet crowds have long done it anyway.
Q 23Hakuhō, who retired with a record 45 top-division sumo titles, was born in which country?
Mongolia
Mongolia-born Hakuhō reached Japan at 15 so slight that no sumo house would take him, until an older Mongolian wrestler pleaded his case and one coach gave in, right at the end of his two-month stay.
Jeet Kune Do, 'the way of the intercepting fist', grew out of a 1964 duel with Wong Jack-man that convinced Lee fixed styles were too rigid; he resisted giving his approach a name until 1967.
Q 14In Japanese martial arts, what is the term for a training hall?
Dojo
Dojo means 'place of the Way'; many schools begin or end each class with soji, a ritual cleaning of the hall by the students themselves, a reminder that the place is theirs to look after.
Q 15Which martial art, called the 'Gentle Art', focuses on leverage and submission holds?
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu grew from the judo that Mitsuyo Maeda brought over from Japan in 1914; a Rio family who learned it reworked it around ground fighting, where leverage lets a smaller fighter beat a bigger one.
Q 16Karate made its Olympic debut at which Summer Games?
Tokyo 2020
Karate debuted at Tokyo 2020 (held in 2021) as one of five sports added for that edition, alongside surfing, skateboarding, sport climbing and baseball/softball, and was dropped for Paris 2024.
Q 17Bruce Lee grew up in Hong Kong but was born in which American city during his father's opera tour?
San Francisco
San Francisco's Chinatown was hosting his father's Cantonese opera tour when Lee was born in 1940; the family sailed home within months, but the birth made him a US citizen, and he moved back at 18.
Q 18'Father of Modern Karate' Gichin Funakoshi is credited with systematizing which style?
Shotokan
Shotokan means 'Shoto's hall': Shoto, 'pine waves', was the pen name Funakoshi used for his poems, and his students put it on a sign over the entrance of his Tokyo training hall, opened in 1936.
Q 19In Japanese martial arts, what is the short shout uttered when performing an attack called?
Kiai
Kiai tightens the core muscles against a blow, sets the breathing for the strike and is meant to startle or intimidate an opponent; in kendo a strike scores only when a convincing shout comes with it.
Q 20Which martial art of Soviet origin takes its name from an acronym meaning 'self-defence without weapons'?
Sambo
Sambo was developed for the Red Army in the 1920s; one of its founders, Vasili Oshchepkov, had trained at judo's headquarters in Tokyo, and in Stalin's 1937 purge he was arrested as a Japanese spy and died in prison.
Q 24Akebono, the first foreign-born yokozuna, grew up in which US state?
Hawaii
Hawaii was home: born Chad Rowan in Waimānalo, he went to college on a basketball scholarship before a fellow Hawaiian, the former wrestler Takamiyama, took him on as a sumo trainee in 1988.
Q 25At Tokyo 1964, judo's Olympic debut, Anton Geesink beat Japan's champion to win the open class for which country?
Netherlands
Netherlands: Geesink, from Utrecht, pinned Akio Kaminaga in the open-class final at the purpose-built Nippon Budokan, denying the hosts a clean sweep of judo's four gold medals.
Q 26Karate master Mas Oyama was famed for bare-handed demonstrations against which animal?
Bulls
His students claimed he fought 52 bulls in his lifetime, earning him the nickname 'Godhand'.
Q 27Which actor earned an Oscar nomination as Mr. Miyagi, the karate mentor named after Gōjū-ryū founder Chōjun Miyagi?
Pat Morita
Pat Morita was first turned down as too closely tied to stand-up comedy and his Happy Days role; he tested five times before the producer who had resisted him offered him the part.
Q 28Which boxing champion fought wrestler Antonio Inoki in Tokyo in 1976, a bout seen as a forerunner of MMA?
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali spent most of the bout dodging Inoki, who lay on his back kicking at the boxer's legs under rules agreed shortly before the fight; it was scored a draw.
Q 29Chuck Norris played a villain opposite Bruce Lee in which 1972 film?
The Way of the Dragon
The Way of the Dragon, which Lee also directed, sets him against Norris's hired fighter Colt in a duel at Rome's Colosseum; Lee's hero wins and kills him only after Colt refuses an offer of mercy.
Q 30Glíma, a folk wrestling said to date back to the Vikings, is the national sport of which Nordic country?
Iceland
Glíma is Iceland's national folk wrestling, brought by Norse settlers; wrestlers originally gripped each other's trousers, and a belt was introduced in 1905 to give a better hold.