A short history of buhurt
People assume this sport was invented in a garage about ten years ago.
Not quite. The word is older than most European countries, the first
recorded attempt to ban it was in 1130, and blunt weapons were written
into English law in 1292. The sport we fight today is still really new!
The thing it is descended from really is not.
Sources and further reading
Most of the citations above point at Wikipedia, which is an honest
starting point rather than an authority. If you want to go properly
into the medieval material, the first item here is the book to get.