Is American/Full Contact Kickboxing dead in the United States?

[Yodsanan]

Sure but when you combine a few different pieces of information, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that Muay Thai is just a relatively limited style.

Roufus was killing the Thai guy until the leg kicks came into the picture.
Wilson had success, perhaps precisely because he was better able to handle leg kicks.
From a common sense point of view, being more mobile and versatile is better than being plodding and only having a few options.

Do you follow the sport of kickboxing, or are you making assumption based on youtube videos of the 80's?

 

[Tunney]

Do you follow the sport of kickboxing, or are you making assumption based on youtube videos of the 80's?

They aren't assumptions, they're logical conclusions.

I watch it sometimes and have also trained karate and muay thai.

 

[Yodsanan]

They aren't assumptions, they're logical conclusions.

I watch it sometimes and have also trained karate and muay thai.

those are only logical in your head. refining a few techniques has been shown to be the most effective way in kickboxing. If Kickboxing would be won by using a wide aray of kicks, then it would be trained that way. Logical evolution of the sport.










Don Wilson got brought up here, and while he is a good fighter he was 6 ft, around 180 lbs and beat up some 150lbs thais. wowzers! same goes for the Roufus vs Changpuek fight.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

From a common sense point of view, being more mobile and versatile is better than being plodding and only having a few options.

Timing and distance control >>>>> Being more versatile.

 

[executionermma]

TKD's flaw is that the punching, when there even is any, is straight garbage. If a TKD guy developed solid boxing, he'd be pretty good.

Then he wouldn't be a TKD guy. Because 90% of the time they have shit hands. The fact that a TKD guy would need to train (a lot) in other discipline (boxing) so he could be competitive in a stand up fight shows that TKD is a incomplete martial art, same for American Kickboxing, it has many holes and flaws. Thais don't need that, they can jump right in and adapt to kickboxing slowly while professional fighting and still do really well.

Just look at GLORY/K1 JPN/Kunlun.. the reason there isn't many AK guys other than Daniels (who isn't fighting top competition in Bellator KB) it's because it's a less effective style to full contact. If you start learning things from other discipline, like Daniels is doing where he is improving which his hands, then obviously he can be a top guy, anyone can, but will be much harder and take much more time for someone with a AK background.

Most Muay Thai guys do not even learn anything besides round house kicks (and push kicks). I know this because I trained Muay Thai. It's pretty much just round house kicks. There is no good reason for that.

Well apparently it's the most effective techniques, if it wasn't, they wouldn't be using just that. These are solid techniques, and they invest so much time in them that people know what is coming but still are caught, their speed, power and timing with round houses is amazing.

 

[Tunney]

Then he wouldn't be a TKD guy. Because 90% of the time they have shit hands. The fact that a TKD guy would need to train (a lot) in other discipline (boxing) so he could be competitive in a stand up fight shows that TKD is a incomplete martial art, same for American Kickboxing, it has many holes and flaws. Thais don't need that, they can jump right in and adapt to kickboxing slowly while professional fighting and still do really well.

Just look at GLORY/K1 JPN/Kunlun.. the reason there isn't many AK guys other than Daniels (who isn't fighting top competition in Bellator KB) it's because it's a less effective style to full contact. If you start learning things from other discipline, like Daniels is doing where he is improving which his hands, then obviously he can be a top guy, anyone can, but will be much harder and take much more time for someone with a AK background.
Well apparently it's the most effective techniques, if it wasn't, they wouldn't be using just that. These are solid techniques, and they invest so much time in them that people know what is coming but still are caught, their speed, power and timing with round houses is amazing.

That was kind of my point about TKD. TKD is seriously flawed. AK is not nearly as limited as TKD. Of course, all styles have pros and cons. Muay Thai most certainly has pros and cons as well, and its cons are that it is plodding and lacks versatility.

It's a little misleading to call Daniels an AK fighter. He's just a karate guy. AK (at least theoretically) combined karate with boxing and many AK guys had legit boxing skill. Some competed professionally as boxers (like Don Wilson and Rick Roufus).

And in all fairness, it's not like Daniels is some bum. He's a ranked fighter (who has defeated Muay Thai guys by the way).

 

[Tunney]

those are only logical in your head. refining a few techniques has been shown to be the most effective way in kickboxing. If Kickboxing would be won by using a wide aray of kicks, then it would be trained that way. Logical evolution of the sport.

Don Wilson got brought up here, and while he is a good fighter he was 6 ft, around 180 lbs and beat up some 150lbs thais. wowzers! same goes for the Roufus vs Changpuek fight.

It's trained that way because that's the direction the sport took. A big reason it took that direction is because AK lost out to Muay Thai because of leg kicks. Which is the whole point I'm making. Instead of saying "Wow, these AK guys are awesome except they suck at lowkicks, so let's refine AK with lowkicks" they irrationally said "Wow, Muay Thai."

Roufus also has a win over Ernesto Hoost and many others so it's not like he just beat small Thai guys.

 

[Guestx]

those are only logical in your head. refining a few techniques has been shown to be the most effective way in kickboxing. If Kickboxing would be won by using a wide aray of kicks, then it would be trained that way. Logical evolution of the sport.

I guess everything is true . . . until it's not.

I remember when people were just laughing their asses off at karate and talking about how it sucks and how it was totally useless in MMA. Then a karate guy came along and people were like. . .



. . . oh, maybe something like Shotokan is actually okay, you just have to actually understand the art well enough to use it. (Which far too few karateka do.)

The same thing may very well happen in kickboxing when a guy like Raymond Daniels, but just a little bit younger, a little bit better defense against leg kicks, and a little bit stronger boxing comes along and reaches the top of the sport.

What happens then? Same shit that happened before.



I always caution people to be careful about these style vs style debates because it just takes one phenom to come along and overturn the apple cart and force everyone to reconsider what they think they know.

 

[Guestx]

Then he wouldn't be a TKD guy. Because 90% of the time they have shit hands. The fact that a TKD guy would need to train (a lot) in other discipline (boxing) so he could be competitive in a stand up fight shows that TKD is a incomplete martial art.

Not exactly.

First, it's worth noting that TKD is broken up into fairly different styles. ITF and WTF TKD are fairly far apart.

If you look at the actual techniques in TKD though, everything you need is there: punches of various kinds, elbows, knees, and so on. The problem is that, since a lot of these weapons are not allowed in TKD competitions, they are not trained to be utilized effectively.

But what if a TKD instructor comes along and says something like, "Hey, you know what, our elbow-and-knee game is not strong enough. We need to work on that"? Is what he's doing not TKD anymore because other schools aren't doing the same thing?

Karate is the same way. If you really look at the wealth of techniques that are available in the kata, there is all sorts of shit that most karate schools aren't spending enough time (sometimes any time) training. That doesn't mean that karateka who DO do these things aren't doing karate. It just means that far too few schools are taking advantage of the full system.

 

[Guestx]

Just look at GLORY/K1 JPN/Kunlun.. the reason there isn't many AK guys other than Daniels (who isn't fighting top competition in Bellator KB) it's because it's a less effective style to full contact. If you start learning things from other discipline, like Daniels is doing where he is improving which his hands, then obviously he can be a top guy, anyone can, but will be much harder and take much more time for someone with a AK background.

I don't think Daniels' boxing is really up-to-par with the best AK guys when AK was still really a thing.

Someone like Daniels is more like the closes equivalent that we have today of professional AK fighter, but I'm sure he'd have gotten pieced up on the feet if he engaged in a boxing match against guys like Don Wilson, Joe Lewis, Dennis Alexio or Bill Wallace.

A true top-shelf American Kickboxer is going to have much better fundamental boxing skills than Daniels has.

With that said, it's not like Daniel's hands are THAT bad or that Daniels is himself a bad fighter. How many guys, even if they can do low kicks, are going to jump in the ring and beat him? Not all that many. Only the top guys.

 

[Kim Jong Un]

It's a weakness. If your opponent has a variety of techniques and you have one, you're at a huge disadvantage.

Watch olympic wrestling, the guy with the 10/10 double leg beats the guy with 9/10 every other throw.

 

[executionermma]

A true top-shelf American Kickboxer is going to have much better fundamental boxing skills than Daniels has.

If that ever happens and this mythical creature turns out to be very successful under K1 rules i may change my mind about AK, i don't see that happening though.

 

[executionermma]

Watch olympic wrestling, the guy with the 10/10 double leg beats the guy with 9/10 every other throw.

Yep.

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

- Bruce Lee (?)​

Yeah, i mean, that feels dorky and cliche but it's pretty much true as far as effectiveness goes.

 

[Guestx]

If that ever happens and this mythical creature turns out to be very successful under K1 rules i may change my mind about AK, i don't see that happening though.

I guess you're going to ignore all that other shit I wrote. No comment on the lack of the utilization of the full TKD system?

Regarding AK guys, as we've said, AK doesn't even really exist anymore like it used to so it's not really fair to say, "Where are the good AK guys at?" You have to first ask the question, "Where is AK at all? Where is the AK professional circuit that is going to produce these guys?"

As far as the quality of boxing from the old AK guys, one thing to keep in mind is that they trained boxing with legitimate boxing trainers. It's not like they were picking up their boxing skills from a book or taking lessons down at the local rec center.

 

[executionermma]

I guess you're going to ignore all that other shit I wrote. No comment on the lack of the utilization of the full TKD system?

Regarding AK guys, as we've said, AK doesn't even really exist anymore like it used to so it's not really fair to say, "Where are the good AK guys at?" You have to first ask the question, "Where is AK at all? Where is the AK professional circuit that is going to produce these guys?"

I'm not *ignoring* it, i just don't think i have anything to say about that. You seem more informed than i am about the AK scene so yeah that last question is probably the one that matters.


That said, i have no interest in the answer, not my thing.

 

[Yodsanan]

WAKO alone has 20k members in Germany and is in 120 other countries. I doubt it’s dead.

It’s the condecending tone of “if we’re training for it we’re actually the superior sport, and mt is slow plodding and has weak boxing” that’s just disrespectful. Stay in your lane and discuss your own ruleset, without putting any baseless implications about other sports into it.

 

[Guestx]

WAKO alone has 20k members in Germany and is in 120 other countries. I doubt it’s dead.

It's basically just an amateur thing now, that's the problem. There are no big money pro organizations to inspire people to develop pro-level skillsets.

Back in the days when ISKA was putting on big fights at Caesar's Palace that were broadcast on ESPN and the winners were capturing big purses the sport was attracting really talented fighters and those fighters were able to bring in the best coaches.

That just doesn't exist today.

It’s the condecending tone of “if we’re training for it we’re actually the superior sport, and mt is slow plodding and has weak boxing” that’s just disrespectful. Stay in your lane and discuss your own ruleset, without putting any baseless implications about other sports into it.

I don't know how many people have that attitude. It's not my attitude.

What I do think is that the American Kickboxing ruleset tends to lead to the most exciting fights, mostly due to the often fast pace and the kicking arsenal a lot of those guys would bring into their fights. When a kickboxing match mostly just consists of boxing and roundhouses it gets repetitive pretty quickly, at least in my opinion. I want to see impressive, and varied, use of the legs, not just jab-cross-leg kick over and over with the occasional attempt at a roundhouse to the head.

I mean, can I get some spinning shit? Is that too much to ask?

BTW, since you're chiding people for being condescending and smug I can assure you that MT guys often prove themselves to be masters of that. There are a lot more MT guys running around acting like their martial art is God's gift to the world than there are guys sticking up for AK.

 

[Tunney]

If that ever happens and this mythical creature turns out to be very successful under K1 rules i may change my mind about AK, i don't see that happening though.

Rick Roufus already exists.

 

[Tunney]

Watch olympic wrestling, the guy with the 10/10 double leg beats the guy with 9/10 every other throw.

So you're telling me if I do nothing but train my jab I'll be the greatest fighter of all time? MT guys are sitting ducks for all kinds of techniques for the simple reason that they never train them, just like AK guys were sitting ducks for leg kicks because they rarely if ever trained them.

 

[Yodsanan]

So you're telling me if I do nothing but train my jab I'll be the greatest fighter of all time? MT guys are sitting ducks for all kinds of techniques for the simple reason that they never train them, just like AK guys were sitting ducks for leg kicks because they rarely if ever trained them.

see that's the kind of disrespect, I'm talking about. AK can work, it doesn't in most of the cases. Is that bad? No, because it wasn't build around other rulesets.

It's a style build around no lowkicks, and not many people can adapt to K1 and muay thai.

Tenshin knocking out Wanchalong with a spinning back kick, doesn't mean every thai camp is drilling spinning back kicks ever since, because for the most fighters it doesn't make sense and working on basic but incredible refined techniques has been shown to be the norm. Be it kickboxing or boxing. In fact most K1 Champs ( Takeru, Noiri, Koya ) right now come from a Karate background with a wide array of kicks, and most fight a fairly "basic style" that has been adapted to be effective under K1 rules.

I like AK, but you are talking disillusioned nonsense straight from the 80's coming from a full contact standpoint.



since you can't actually form an argument because you don't watch the sport we're talking about here, other then fights from 40 years ago, let me help you out. Here is one of the best AK stylist in the world right now Johannes Wolf, having an impressive performance over former K1 Champ Hirotaka Urabe. enjoy.