The first use of the term "rough and tumble" for fighting dates back to the early 1700s in the North American frontier.  Rough and tumble fighting was the original American no holds barred underground hybrid "sport" that had but one rule - you win by knocking the man out or making him say "enough." All techniques of boxing and wrestling were allowed, and competitors thought nothing of biting, eye-gouging and reaching into an opponent's clothes to attack their genitals. People were maimed in these brutal fights, which were often referred to in historical records as "boxing matches."

The origins of the term "rough and tumble" was from "bragging and fighting" introduced to the North American back-country from England where it came to be called "rough and tumble." In North America, as in England, it was a savage combat between two or more males (occasionally females), which sometimes left the contestants permanently blinded or maimed. A graphic description of "rough and tumble" came from the Irish traveler Thomas Ashe, who described a fight between a West Virginian and a Kentuckian. A crowd gathered and arranged itself into an impromptu ring. The contestants were asked if they wished to "fight fair" or "rough and tumble." When they chose "rough and tumble," a roar of approval rose from the multitude. The two men entered the ring, and a few ordinary blows were exchanged in a tentative manner. Then suddenly the Virginian "contracted his whole form, drew his arms to his face," and "pitched himself into the bosom of his opponent," sinking his sharpened fingernails into the Kentuckian's head. "The Virginian," we are told, "never lost his hold . . . fixing his claws in his hair and his thumbs on his eyes, [he] gave them a start from the sockets. The sufferer roared aloud, but uttered no complaint." Even after the eyes were gouged out, the struggle continued. The Virginian fastened his teeth on the Kentuckian's nose and bit it in two pieces. Then he tore off the Kentuckian's ears. At last, the "Kentuckian, deprived of eyes, ears and nose, gave in." The victor, himself maimed and bleeding, was "chaired round the grounds," to the cheers of the crowd.

Sporadic attempts were made to suppress "rough and tumble." Virginia's tidewater legislators passed a general statute against maiming in 1748, and in 1772 added a more specific prohibition against "gouging, plucking or putting out an eye, biting, kicking or stomping." In 1800 the grand jury of Franklin Country, Tennessee, in the manner of American juries, generally indicted the "practice of fighting, maiming and pulling out eyes, without the offenders being brought to justice."

But in the southern highlands, rough and tumble retained its popularity. During the War of Independence, and English prisoner named Thomas Anburey witnessed several backcountry gouging contests. "An English boxing match," he wrote, ". . . is humanity itself compared with the Virginian mode of fighting," with its "biting, gouging and (if I may so term it) Abelarding each other." Anburey described "a fellow, reckoned a great adept in gouging, who constantly kept the nails of both his thumbs and second fingers very long and pointed; nay, to prevent their breaking or splitting . . . he hardened them every evening in a candle." Blood sports have existed in many cultures, but this was one of the few that made an entertainment of blinding, maiming, and castration." Later when the Lancashire wrestling style made it to the US and was blended with the "rough and tumble" mentality, and the gambling involved, the very aggressive American catch-as-catch-can style of wrestling emerged and created some of the most outstanding grapplers in the word. Much of today’s MMA fighting concepts can be traced to these early "shooters."