American style kickboxers in ufc?

[SandaKicker]

Fang Bian uses a style that is similar to an American kickboxer’s, the difference is he can grapple a bit and defend leg kicks;

 

[Pancake Sprawl]

what about Raymond Daniels? i know he's got a bunch of black belts in Karate and Tae Kwon Do, but his style seems kind of similar. he also has a weakness to leg kicks.

 

[MMAart]

Yeah what style would classify max holloway under? I see a little bit of American kickboxing in his style. At least I thought I did until he started standing upright and throwing leg kicks again against volkanovski after the long kick hiatus.

Max fights mostly like a boxer with some kicks mixed in, to me, because he boxes more than he kicks.

Karate kickboxers seem to use kicks more often than they use punches, and their punches are relatively basic compared to your typical boxers.

 

[MMAart]

what about Raymond Daniels? i know he's got a bunch of black belts in Karate and Tae Kwon Do, but his style seems kind of similar. he also has a weakness to leg kicks.

Never heard of him until you mentioned his name.

His bio says that his background is Taekwondo, Shotokan Karate, and American Kenpo.

His highlights show that he uses mainly Taekwondo kicks. He looks like a very exciting striker!

 

[Deleted member 512089]

Well Wonderboy is pretty much that. He competed in Chuck Norris kickboxing league who is 100% American kickboxing rules with the addition of a few limited legkicks if I'm not mistaken

 

[Pancake Sprawl]

Well Wonderboy is pretty much that. He competed in Chuck Norris kickboxing league who is 100% American kickboxing rules with the addition of a few limited legkicks if I'm not mistaken

so did Raymond Daniels and Pat Barry.

 

[Pancake Sprawl]

Never heard of him until you mentioned his name.

His bio says that his background is Taekwondo, Shotokan Karate, and American Kenpo.

His highlights show that he uses mainly Taekwondo kicks. He looks like a very exciting striker!

he's also Sage Northcutt's brother in law.

 

[Ufcmaster]

Just to clarify, American kickboxing is a sport as well as a style. It was pioneered by guys like Bill Wallace and don Wilson and Benny the jet.

But sadly it became disgraced in a match that involved a thai fighter vs duke roufus who ended looking like more of an antagonist than John kreese and cobra kai by forcing their rules on the thai fighter and cheating. Yet they lost within their own rule set.

This pretty much killed karate kickboxing. But I feel that they have very techniques. Are there any MMA fighters that train and fight in this particular style?

~ Javier Mendez
~ American Kickboxing Academy









AKA Bless
Khabib Bless

 

[Goon Dog]

There was just no money in it. Ray Thompson took Wonderboy all over the world looking for competition when he was a kid and it was just too few and far between. The WAKO's was fairly successful, IKF much less so but it just wasn't viable as a sport. That's how Stephen met GSP, by the way. He was in Canada to kickbox and ended up becoming GSP's striking coach for a while. But yeah, the leg kicks were a big part of the downfall. When I trained at Thompson's gym, they wouldn't even let us train leg kicks until brown belt and even then it was rare. Mostly just kicking heavy bags at leg level. Stephen kicks harder than anyone I've ever seen. I mean, mother fucker he kicks. But he doesn't go to the legs very often and it's because he never did while training. Now he probably wouldn't want to get into exchanges because of his knees, but even before he rarely used leg kicks. Muay Thai is superior, plain and simple.

 

[Tylerlikesmma]

Who remembers Chuck Norris' WCL?

 

[Vil7]

~ Javier Mendez
~ American Kickboxing Academy









AKA Bless
Khabib Bless

View attachment 786709

I'll have to watch this later. Jacklin was a beast.

 

[Ogata]

Tong Po broke Eric Sloane’s back. That settled the debate until Eric’s brother, David, got revenge a couple years later. Note, Kurt Sloane also beat Tong Po but that wasn’t American kickboxing.

The real life version revolved around the American kickboxer being the bad guy and the Thai the good guy. In the Rofous vs Thai boxer fight, Duke wanted to show case the superiority of American kickboxing but made the rules so that the Thai could not throw knees and elbows. They didn't mind the low kick.

That was all that took for the Thai fighter to get the win despite it being American kickboxing vs limited Muay Thai.

a lot of time muay thai was done in seminars. It was hard to find people with experience outside of thailand or Ireland. We'd have guys like Brooks Mason come through who had exp with Don the Dragon Wilson and he'd teach us some things we hadn't seen. A lot of us ended up fighting in the IKF which was big in the early days too. It was fun times 'cus everything felt so new and cutting edge. A lot of smaller guys had no UFC dreams cus the weight classes didnt exist but we were working on mid combo stance switching, lead leg side kicks( sick setup for the spinning back fist that NO ONE USES except maybe Valentina) , and a lot of other cooler shit you see guys using today esp coming out of Bang MT. Cool times.

True, when I was a kid in the 90s and even the 2000s, you had tons and tons of kickboxing gyms around. They had the belt system from karate as well. Many of them went out of business. Two years ago I trained with one of the person who owned an American kickboxing academy. Despite having experience in pure Muay Thai and Boxing, I was very impressed with what he knew and he showed me some real good moves and I took a lot out of it because the stance he showed was a bladed one like boxing but to be fair, he was good at low kicks and knees but never threw an elbow.

All and all, American kickboxing gets a bad rep and some of it was the ruleset and maybe how the organization went about the way they promoted it. But the art itself in its purest form was and is very respectable and it bothers me to hear people call it a "watered down Muay Thai"

Maybe went out of style when Rick Roufus got his legs kicked off by a Thai boxer on live TV.

Yup, that fight single handedly disgraced the American kickboxing world in a major way. But the techniques are solid. Some trainers teach you how to deal with low kicks and knees but not elbows. Also the stance resembles boxing and you learn boxing fundamentals while learning to kick as well.

Stephen Thompson?


Also, I think what "killed" karate kickboxing was Muay Thai leg kicks exposing their lack of defense.

I think so, yes that's a good example. Stephen is a fantastic striker and a great guy. He embodies that karate style kickboxing which is an image of clean and sportsmen type martial arts athlete.

Rich Franklin

Rich trained in Muay Thai and boxing. I remember it specifically because he at one point trained with Militch and Pat was big in to knees and elbows as well as boxing. In fact, those guys didn't really like kicks, just knees, elbows and basic boxing to ground and pound.

I think Denis Siver had a couple titles in it.

Great call!!!

He had great spinning back kicks and did have good kicks and boxing combos.

 

[DaleBoca]

The real life version revolved around the American kickboxer being the bad guy and the Thai the good guy. In the Rofous vs Thai boxer fight, Duke wanted to show case the superiority of American kickboxing but made the rules so that the Thai could not throw knees and elbows. They didn't mind the low kick.

That was all that took for the Thai fighter to get the win despite it being American kickboxing vs limited Muay Thai.



True, when I was a kid in the 90s and even the 2000s, you had tons and tons of kickboxing gyms around. They had the belt system from karate as well. Many of them went out of business. Two years ago I trained with one of the person who owned an American kickboxing academy. Despite having experience in pure Muay Thai and Boxing, I was very impressed with what he knew and he showed me some real good moves and I took a lot out of it because the stance he showed was a bladed one like boxing but to be fair, he was good at low kicks and knees but never threw an elbow.

All and all, American kickboxing gets a bad rep and some of it was the ruleset and maybe how the organization went about the way they promoted it. But the art itself in its purest form was and is very respectable and it bothers me to hear people call it a "watered down Muay Thai"



Yup, that fight single handedly disgraced the American kickboxing world in a major way. But the techniques are solid. Some trainers teach you how to deal with low kicks and knees but not elbows. Also the stance resembles boxing and you learn boxing fundamentals while learning to kick as well.




I think so, yes that's a good example. Stephen is a fantastic striker and a great guy. He embodies that karate style kickboxing which is an image of clean and sportsmen type martial arts athlete.



Rich trained in Muay Thai and boxing. I remember it specifically because he at one point trained with Militch and Pat was big in to knees and elbows as well as boxing. In fact, those guys didn't really like kicks, just knees, elbows and basic boxing to ground and pound.



Great call!!!

He had great spinning back kicks and did have good kicks and boxing combos.

I know the story. Rofus actually knocked the Thai down early in the fight. But the Thai dude continued to chop away at his leg, which basically ended the fight.

You’re welcome.

 

[Ufcmaster]

I'll have to watch this later. Jacklin was a beast.

This is what Jacklin wrote in the description box under that video:

" The first of 2 epic battles between Javier and I. I beat him this one. He beat me in our 2nd fight for the world title which he won and moved on to better things. He now runs AKA gym in San Jose CA and trains the likes of Cain Velasquez and many champs today. "






Javier Bless
Khabib Bless

 

[Ogata]

I know the story. Rofus actually knocked the Thai down early in the fight. But the Thai dude continued to chop away at his leg, which basically ended the fight.

You’re welcome.

I already explained it but anyways, TJ says at 9:30 that Thai style is too stationary and that an MMA version or a kickboxing style is better because of footwork:

 

[armbarforhire]

Kevin Rozier

Was he ever a trained kickboxer? Even when he was more fit he looked more like he was using Donkey Kongs tyle and his kicks were crap.

 

[Vil7]

Kevin Rozier

Was he ever a trained kickboxer? Even when he was more fit he looked more like he was using Donkey Kongs tyle and his kicks were crap.

He had some credentials but he wasn't a technical fighter at all. He had a great chin & a big right hand & that's about it. He tried pro boxing but got badly exposed there from what I remember.

 

[aerius]

Valentina was a shiny pants kickboxer in her youth

 

[Lawrence]

Dennis Alexio

Born a few years later might have made waves.

I watched him KTFO some guy in South Lake Tahoe in the twilight and wearing MC Hammer parachute pants