The Forgotten Kickboxing...

Discussion in 'Kickboxing' started by Korpy, May 28, 2008.

  1. Korpy

    Korpy Whatever Works

    As many of us know, there are detailed histories and fighters of Muay Thai and Full Contact Rules Kickboxing. Both have great stories, and histories. but what I find is that Kickboxing (also known as Low Kick or International Rules) barely has any history at all, and is hard to find old Kickboxing matches of them.

    There were some great Kickboxing bouts and fighters. Longinidis fought Kickboxing, as did Dennis Alexio, Don Wilson, Ernesto Hoost, and Fred Royers.

    Most of the fighters I mentioned were also either FCR or Muay Thai stylists, but fought in this great ruleset.
     
  2. bigreddog

    bigreddog Valued Member

    Well I guess low kick is best exemplified as K1 now?
     
  3. slipthejab

    slipthejab Hark, a vagrant! Supporter

    Yeah really much of the better matches were in the early days of the K-1.
    I think kickboxing in many ways was a victim of it's own organizations... so many of them... in so many different locations with slightly varying rule sets etc. So it made it damn near impossible to follow any of the fighters for the most part.

    Also many of the guys you mentioned were fighting before the mass popularity of the internet and that information access that it has afforded us. So as someone who's been following boxing and the fights for a long time... I can tell you... it was hard enough to get copies of boxing fights let alone something relatively as low profile as kickboxing.

    Look through any of the old Ringside magazines from a decade ago... there are ads galore in the back for services that taped fights that you could order. Often they had everything on one fighter or another. It was convenient and it often wasn't cheap. But that's how it was if you wanted to really follow fights.

    I think part of the reason that kickboxing looks so dated is the silky pants and the foam booties. :D It's got something of an image problem. It just comes off as soooooo '80s. It's a pop culture joke for whatever reason.

    With the advent of MMA and the popularization of Muay Thai... kickboxing in general comes off as a very pale second choice. No elbows, no knees isn't all that exciting if you have the choice. There is K-1 which I do like a lot... but even they've had some silly rule changes (eg. the clinch rule change when Buakaw was destroying everyone in his wake with his clinch skills).

    So really.... if you're a died in the wool kickboxing fan... then you doing the research and tracking down the footage is going to be your key to compiling a history of it. Those of us who are heavy into our Muay Thai or Boxing have in some senses done the same. It takes time and patience... and often a bit of cash. Just be happy that you now have Google and the internet to find such information... because not so long ago... nothing like that existed.
     
  4. shift

    shift Valued Member

    This is so very true

    When I was growing up in the 80's and 90's I always heard about Don the dragon, Joe Lewis, Super foot wallace, Jerry Trimble etc. I could only see them in movies.

    I once rented a VHS with Joe Lewis and I was amazed.

    But I wanted to see the old kickboxing footage. Couldn't find it short of martial arts magazines that had more basic instructional videos than kickboxing fights.

    When a kickboxing match or karate match like the Shidokan fights they aired on ESPN came on in the late 90's I was super stoaked. But ESPN brought them on as novelties.

    UFC was the easiest video rental to find when it came to these competitions back in the 90's

    Now with google and youtube I can watch Benny the Jet fight

    It was till 2004 0r 2005 till I saw a documentary about a tournament held in Japan that had full contact fighters from every region of the world including Jamaica back in the 70's. It was called the fighting black kings or something of that nature. Though the fighting wasn't very evolved back then I really appreciated the training and how hard core the fighters were.

    History can bring a lot of perspective to your training... At least I think so
     
  5. slipthejab

    slipthejab Hark, a vagrant! Supporter

    Yep... Fighting Black Kings is a brilliant bit of footage. I'm glad we have it. It gives us in competitive fighting a sense of where we've come from to some extent. The guys were hardcore. You get to see the training mentality of the karateka's of that era. Hardcore is the word.
     
  6. I beg to differ... to me the best thing about the full contact ruleset is the trousers and boots. "WHAT?", I hear you say... bear with me!

    The trousers and moonboots are full contact's image. Dated or not it serves its purpose. The rest ALL wear shorts, and it's hard to differentiate between styles until you've watched a few rounds. Countless times I've watched 'kickboxing' events and most of the crowd seem non-plussed with the rulesets. "Why doesn't he knee", "Is this thai boxing" are all comments which I've heard.

    At least with full contact it is set aside by the unique clothing style and ruleset (It would be the only one with kicks not allowed to the legs). Once the crowd see the trousers they realise that it's full contact. In all the other cases when an event is advertised as 'kickboxing' and fighters wear shorts, the fans are left wondering wether it's thai boxing, k-1, modified thai or any of the other thousand styles.

    As slip says, there are far too many rulesets with VERY minor differences (international rules, K-1, thai, low kick, whatever else). Full contact is significantly different enough that it doesn't blend in to the rest. Thus, it has its own history. The rest are all similar enough to be grouped by Joe Average under the same banner and therefore the les dominant styles are forgitten about. Incidentally I believe Jerome Lebanner currently holds an ISKA low-kick kickboxing title!

    Sorry for the long winded-post. I'm tired so if it doesnt make much sense then just ignore :)
     
  7. Moi

    Moi Warriors live forever x

    This is when my son's instructor was king. He trained under Master Toddy when he first moved to Manchester. Couldn't find enougth thai fights in the UK then so he switched to kickboxing. Won 3 world titles in different weights and went on to coach............and he lives up the road, Result!

    If you want some video of the old days, he's just released a DVD (Give it a week or two and it'll include a very young Ricky Hatton fight)

    http://thaikickboxingwales.co.uk/ Go to shop

    p.s. I liked those shiny pants:p
     
    Last edited: Jun 2, 2008
  8. Korpy

    Korpy Whatever Works

    I like the shiny pants too. :p :cool:

    But yeah, FCR and MT have their own histories, but when it comes to Low Kick/International, the history is very hazy and not mentioned.
     
  9. Moi

    Moi Warriors live forever x

    I know when Russ started he had all that 6 kicks above the waist per round nonsense and I'm sure it says on the DVD that the rules changed, whether he changed ruleset or whether the ruleset changed I'm not sure. I know he fought with low kicks.
    I'm with him tomorrow getting some matting and punchbags from Manchester, I'll see if I get get some better info for you.
     
  10. Korpy

    Korpy Whatever Works

    Ah, thank you very much.
     
  11. Van Zandt

    Van Zandt Mr. High Kick

    I think low-kick has a hazy history because it wasn't very popular during the FCR boom of the 70s and 80s. At the time people wanted to see fighters do the stuff they saw in the movies, the fancy Van Damme high kicks, etc., and so were probably turned off by two intense guys belting each other in the thighs. How can a promoter expect to pull in a crowd for a low-kick contest when you had the likes of "flashier" (and just as powerful) fighters like "Superfoot" Bill Wallace and "The Jet" Benny Urquidez?

    Then, in the 90s, the MT and MMA boom took off. When people looked at low-kick, they maybe thought, "That's just pretend MT" and were put off again. At least, until now, when we have great events like K-1, which receive the attention and promotion they deserve.

    Just my two-cents. Or is it ten-cents? Not sure of the currency rate these days.
     
  12. Moi

    Moi Warriors live forever x

    I was talking to someone who used to fight within these rules at the time. He seems to think that low rules kickboxing was adopted as an alternative to the 6 kicks per round rule which was brought in to stop boxers dominating the sport.
     

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