I've never understood why there are so many variations in this? In kickboxing under WAKO you get: Semi Contact Light Continuos Kick Light Full Contact Above Waist Low Kick K-1 and apparently WAKO's only really big in Europe; WKA and ISKA do Semi,Light Cont,Full Cont, K-1 and MMA and they are bigger. IKF is allegedley biggest of all. Why are there so many organisations/styles? More importantly, those are Kickboxing organisations only; you get K-1, Clash of the Titans, WCL, Lumpinee Muay Thai,Rajadamnern Muay Thai, San Shou, WKF Karate, ITF Tae Kwon Do,etc. is there a reasons these have all split? Every time I ask one champion/fighter who fights in one format this, they say 'you're comparing different formats' or 'apples and oranges' I have yet to see a non-low kick/Western kickboxer take on a leg kick/Muay Thai or Dutch kickboxer. Stuff like that i'd like to see to see which kickboxing style is truley the best. Isn't the end goal supposed to be punching and kicking your way to winning titles and (much more importantly) learning how to use what you know on the mat/in the ring and thus, to protect yourself?
They haven't necessarily all split. K1, San Shou, WKF Karate, ITF TKD and so on have always been separate, they do after all represent distinct martial arts.
Semi contact < Light continuos < Kick Light (from here on in it helps with MMA so at any point one can jump into it if they do well in it-naturally if you try MMA with only the above as experience you're going to get smashed as you're not used to dishing it out with power/taking it and certainly won't have an idea how to cross train) Full contact points/Karate < Full contact continuos/ITF < Amateur K1=Amateur Muay Thai=Amateur Dutch= Amateur Japanse=Kyokushinkai (it doesn't have pads but still, not as 'flowing' as other kickboxing) < Muay Thai=Dutch=Japanese =San Shou (would be higher due to throws but they wear more padding than other kickboxing styles) <= K1 (not limited to any style so it's the best) I just wanted to know the difference between Karate, Lau Gar and Freestyle and this thread answered it. It's not that important to me now anyway, I do Jiu Jitsu (NOT BJJ), Judo and Freestyle Wrestling; obviously i'm interested in MMA as it's as close to a real fight you're going to get/it's the most credible fighting format.
don't understand this thread but WKF and kyokushinkai, are Karate based arts, not forms or rules sets of kickboxing.
It's happened a fair bit. Look at many of the early (70s 80s) match ups between the Thai's and the Americans. Benny The Jet got hammered a time or two and then never went back to Thailand. There are others as well. I've seen it in a few match ups in the last decade. In general it never fares well for the kickboxer. Having to contend with low kicks is a big deal and if your opponent doesn't know how to counter them or check them then it's not going to pan out too well for him. I've seen a few fighters with very padded fight records gain their heavyweight muay thai championship belts from fighting non-low-kick kickboxers in title bouts. There are one or two in particular in Hong Kong that are just laughable. They know it deep inside. The Thai's that work for them as trainers know it... but here it's all about saving face eh. I've worked on the inside on a few promotions where the title fights had fighters of this ilk. It's ridiculous.
"Kickboxing" has essentially always been a generic term to my mind. "American kickboxing" used to be "full-contact karate." Various other specific martial arts have been described as kickboxing as well. Off the top of my head: muay thai, lethwei, savate (le boxe francais), yaw yan, sanshou... Add to that the fitness craze of using varying degrees of boxing/kickboxing training (i.e., tae bo all the way through training in something like muay thai but without any intention of competing). And then, on top of all that, the various actual competitive formats and organizations. And, finally, the tendency to use the term of the day to describe ALL martial arts. In the 60s, all martial arts tended to be labeled "karate." Then "kung fu" in the 70s. "Ninjutsu" in the 80s. Etc. Now, everyone and their brother is a "mixed martial artist" or "cage fighter." It's just intellectual shorthand. You're never going to fix that. Just look past it.
changpeuk left rick rufous with two spiral fractures - one in each femur - after their bout in the early 80s.
