What is the 'premier' Kickboxing organisation ?

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Hi guys, I'm interested in starting to watch kickboxing but to be honest I've no idea where to start, it all seems very disorganised to be honest. What is the best organisation to follow if I wanted to start watching ?
 
Glory, K-1 and Kunlun are were the best fight at the moment.

Edit: in before Broadcast says SuperKombat or Coca and JT claim you should only watch Raja and Lumpinee fights.
 
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To elaborate, the kickboxing scene is much more divided than MMA, but there are also less restrictions on where fighters go. The biggest orgs at the moment are Glory, Kunlun and K-1. If you go to their wiki pages, you'll see who the current champs are and who they have fought. Just go from there. You'll see that fighters often fight in different orgs, sometimes even while they're champ. Verhoeven, for example, is the HW champ of Glory, but did fight (and lose) in Kunlun.
 
Kunlun fight, Glory, K-1, etc. To be honest, kickboxing is a sport where you follow individual fighters you like rather than the orgs imo, since fighters move around a lot and fight everywhere.
 
Since you are just starting its best to go with answer which is easiest to digest: For 70kg and up, Glory. For 65kg and down, K-1. Don't worry about Kunlun until you are balls deep in kickboxing.
 
K-1 is only a shadow. Kunlun and Glory, but in Kunlun there is still a bit of mess regarding organization. On the other hand Glory lost a bit from the quality of the fights. Good luck, I also like Superkombat because it"s a successful promotion to me in terms of management but is smaller than these two as pumped money.

In the US you have Glory, Bellator and from 2017 Superkombat, in Asia Kunlun and K-1. Unfortunately I still hope Kunlun will be seen in Europe. :(
 
Cool, thanks guys. Glory have an event on next week so I'm gonna check that out. Quick question, can someone explain Glory's 'Superfight Series', they have a main card with a Middleweight title fight and Welterweight tournament, then before that a 'Superfight Series' card on UFC Fight Pass with a Featherweight title fight and a few fights before that.

Is the 'Superfight Series' basically just prelims with a title fight to get people to watch ?
 
You can check here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_in_Glory

Some of the Superfight Series were really good but not better than the main cards usually of course.

Yeah, the Superfight Series are preliminaries but sometimes at another level than the preliminaries of the UFC.

You can get them from torrents too.
 
Megalodon said:
Is the 'Superfight Series' basically just prelims with a title fight to get people to watch ?
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Pretty much. They know MMA fans with Fight Pass will be more interested if they throw in a title fight. I think its a pretty cool idea.
 
Glory and Enfusion I believe is the top of the foodchain right now, then there's Kunlun Fight which is really weird.

Bellator Kickboxing exist from nowhere.

K-1 is still there, but failed to be notice.

Super Kombat is almost failing roght now, due to Respect Gym and it's rosters started their own Promotion (Respect World Series).

I don't know if WFL is still alive.

Then we have Final Fight Championship and other European and Chinese Promotions aswell.
 
panzer723 said:
Glory and Enfusion I believe is the top of the foodchain right now, then there's Kunlun Fight which is really weird.

Bellator Kickboxing exist from nowhere.

K-1 is still there, but failed to be notice.

Super Kombat is almost failing roght now, due to Respect Gym and it's rosters started their own Promotion (Respect World Series).

I don't know if WFL is still alive.

Then we have Final Fight Championship and other European and Chinese Promotions aswell.
Click to expand...
Stop posting.
 
SuperLuigi said:
Since you are just starting its best to go with answer which is easiest to digest: For 70kg and up, Glory. For 65kg and down, K-1. Don't worry about Kunlun until you are balls deep in kickboxing.
Click to expand...

What are your thought on Glory adopting the MMA (Unified Rules) weight-classes just wholesale? I don't think it suits kickboxing at all, personally.
 
Sakuraba7 said:
What are your thought on Glory adopting the MMA (Unified Rules) weight-classes just wholesale? I don't think it suits kickboxing at all, personally.
Click to expand...
There is a problem in KB with a lack of uniformity, but if you put that aside Glory actually has a fairly good weight class system. The classic K-1 system of openweight + 1 other weight class was too limited, the boxing/MT system of a weight class every 5-10 lbs is too crazy. The MMA/Glory system is a nice intermediary.
 
Enfusion have some incredible fights.
Doesn't get enough exposure.
In my opinion, Tayfun, Jarayah and Ben-Moh could carry most of the promotion alone but they have a good deep roster.
 
SuperLuigi said:
There is a problem in KB with a lack of uniformity, but if you put that aside Glory actually has a fairly go/798od weight class system. The classic K-1 system of openweight + 1 other weight class was too limited, the boxing/MT system of a weight class every 5-10 lbs is too crazy. The MMA/Glory system is a nice intermediary.
Click to expand...

I agree 100% that K-1's model was outdated and screwed up. Its a big reason why they failed as well. If the problem in recent years was the lack of a Japanese star (with Masato retiring), its in the lower weights that they would have had their next star. Even in boxing, Japanese have several champions in the lower weights.

I don't like how Glory just copied the MMA weight-classes, disregarding the traditional boxing & kickboxing weightclasses. You don't need to have super/junior weights like boxing, but going from 155 to 170 to 185 lbs doesn't seem suitable (big leap, & kill lotta prospects who fall in-between) and the names don't match other orgs'. Here's how i would have done it:

LW (135 lbs), WW (145), MW (155 lbs/ 70kg), Sr MW (165), Lt HW (180), CW (200), HW (+200).
 
Sakuraba7 said:
I agree 100% that K-1's model was outdated and screwed up. Its a big reason why they failed as well. If the problem in recent years was the lack of a Japanese star (with Masato retiring), its in the lower weights that they would have had their next star. Even in boxing, Japanese have several champions in the lower weights.

I don't like how Glory just copied the MMA weight-classes, disregarding the traditional boxing & kickboxing weightclasses. You don't need to have super/junior weights like boxing, but going from 155 to 170 to 185 lbs doesn't seem suitable (big leap, & kill lotta prospects who fall in-between) and the names don't match other orgs'. Here's how i would have done it:

LW (135 lbs), WW (145), MW (155 lbs/ 70kg), Sr MW (165), Lt HW (180), CW (200), HW (+200).
Click to expand...
My understanding of the fall of K-1 is that it was rooted in the general culture of Japan shifting away from combat sports(relatively speaking). I met a Japanese guy a few months ago and we became friends. I asked him about K-1 and he said he loved the old days of Aerts, Hoost, Masato, etc. so then I asked him if he was a Takeru fan and he had no idea who he was. I tried to get him interested in the new scene but he just had zero interest, even though there are new Japanese stars.

For the big guys I like the big jumps in weight classes. Just a preference I suppose.

The weight class names are very superficial and I don't think much of them. When talking about K-1 I pretty much always just use the number and its no issue. They just use it to ease the transition of MMA fans. Probably a good idea to put pragmatism over tradition, especially as they are still really pushing to grow their brand.
 
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