How come Americans are not in same level as europeans in kickboxing?

[Snubnoze707]

Perhaps the talent pool is big enough but the distance fighters would have to travel to fight each others is too big. In comparison an amateur in the uk, netherlands, france just have to travel a couple of hours at most and can get fights pretty easily. More intense local competition would also help developing the US fighters for sure. Of course the training is also important.

That's certainly true. There is only a few spots where there is kind of a scene. Like Bay Area, LA, NY and probably a few others.

Most guys don't get past smokers because their is no local Amature scene. You have to travel far just to get okay experience. There isn't much incentive for up and coming fighters when MMA and Boxing is way more accessible.

 

[jtwarwagon4life]

Also the idea that there are mostly just inadequate muay thai instructors in the US, doesn't seem true to me. Alot of good retired fighters have immigrated to the US to become trainers: Jongsanan, Kaensak, Sakmongkol (formerly), Neungsiam, Kongnapa, Matee, Khunpon, Coban and others. Now just because they were good fighters doesn't mean they'll be good trainers, but it's not like these guys will be teaching watered down muay thai either.

 

[Kanka]

Also the idea that there are mostly just inadequate muay thai instructors in the US, doesn't seem true to me. Alot of good retired fighters have immigrated to the US to become trainers: Jongsanan, Kaensak, Sakmongkol (formerly), Neungsiam, Kongnapa, Matee, Khunpon, Coban and others. Now just because they were good fighters doesn't mean they'll be good trainers, but it's not like these guys will be teaching watered down muay thai either.

Probably good trainers but the infrastructure isn’t there. Even when you have Sakmongkol at you gym you’re still going to have big group classes where your pad holder might be really shitty. The more good trainers and training partners available per gym, the bigger the chances are you succeed.

I trained at like 6 different gyms apart from training in thailand and while all of them had some notable names including people some big thai names every now and then the differences were huge. The best gym in my opinion the one that had trainers and fighters frequently going to thailand to train during the summer. And they trained to fight, not for the sake of training, so the training itself was better.

Even evolve muay thai with all those trainers doesn’t seem to produce a lot of good muay thai fighters. I’m not sure the trainers teach the same way they would if they were to be trainers in a smaller gym in thailand.

Also remember the thread is about kickboxing,but i think it’s interchangable since many kickboxers have a muay thai background

 

[Monte Moku]

Also the idea that there are mostly just inadequate muay thai instructors in the US, doesn't seem true to me. Alot of good retired fighters have immigrated to the US to become trainers: Jongsanan, Kaensak, Sakmongkol (formerly), Neungsiam, Kongnapa, Matee, Khunpon, Coban and others. Now just because they were good fighters doesn't mean they'll be good trainers, but it's not like these guys will be teaching watered down muay thai either.

America is also really, really big. All of those guys and more have immigrated to the US, but the nearest gym that has anything close to world class training is two states away from me. The best gyms in my area are the regional level Muay Thai gym and the MMA gym that sometimes has their guys do smokers. The west coast and the northeast US are where most of these guys go to, the rest of the country gets the occasional seminar lol.

Lack of quality instruction is one of the biggest issues with the scene, from my personal experience. I try to learn from everyone when I train, but honestly there are only a handful of coaches I have met who I would really trust to have in my corner.

 

[Tayski]

America is also really, really big. All of those guys and more have immigrated to the US, but the nearest gym that has anything close to world class training is two states away from me. The best gyms in my area are the regional level Muay Thai gym and the MMA gym that sometimes has their guys do smokers. The west coast and the northeast US are where most of these guys go to, the rest of the country gets the occasional seminar lol.

Lack of quality instruction is one of the biggest issues with the scene, from my personal experience. I try to learn from everyone when I train, but honestly there are only a handful of coaches I have met who I would really trust to have in my corner.

In Europe we have the opposite challenge "which gym should I join out of all the top level ones around where I live?"

 

[JoeZayAldo]

Americans dont really care about KickBoxing.

 

[ChrisCross]

Some Americans competed in K1 like Maurice Smith, Duane Ludwig who were also MMA and UFC fighters but only US regional champs. The structured school wrestling programs breeds a lot more MMA fighters than kickboxers. Kickboxing is like soccer in US something kids and soccer moms do for exercise but it's not a popular sport. I'd say it's even less popular than hockey, motocross, snowboarding, or any other extreme sports. Boxing and MMA are the only combat sports that's heavily promoted and outside of a young niche demographic still aren't mainstream for the most part. Americans just care about American football NFL and basketball NBA sometimes and just because they represent their state or city and casual sport fans don't care about anything else.

I see Rugby is growing in USA too

 

[moreorless87]

WTF are you talking about? I'd understand if you specified HW Boxing but you just said "Boxing" so I guess guys like Terence Crawford, Errol Spence Jr, and Mikey Garcia are just run of the mill boxers to you? As for K-1 and American HWs the Kickboxing fad had already started to die down by the time K-1 started to pick up so we was left with guys like Rick Roufus and Duke Roufus moving over to that style and not being able to make it to the top. Then you had fighters like Carter Williams and Dewey Cooper who just never lived up to their potential. Finally we were left with the American slots being filled with freakshow fighters like Sapp and Mighty Mo. I'm sure it's due to the same reason we aren't seeing any really good Americans playing Soccer its not something that too much ppl care about here.

Moreso the higher weights I would say and I think its the same issue, US sports like the NBA, NFL, etc have increasingly drawn big athletic guys to them where as in Europe there isn't the same draw for soccer based on size so more likely big men end up in fight sport. You look at the dutch HW scene as well and a lot of those fighters come from an immigrant background, the kind of background were a high percentage of great footballers have yet because being 6 foot 4 isnt as much of a priority in that sport they ended up in kickboxing.

The golden age of HW MMA depended heavily on European talent, Fedor, Crocop, Aleks, Sergei, Arlovski, Igor, Semmy, etc

 

[king of theRing]

The coaches are a big factor. The coaches in Europe are light years ahead than America. And very few notice that. You can't make it against the best when you train with shit coaches.

 

[ChrisCross]

But which European countries is Kickboxing popular as it seemed only France and Holland it was quite big time from the late 1970s onwards with a little mixed scene in England ?

 

[king of theRing]

Holland, france, Germany and england ( not near boxing though) is only ones i really noticed

 

[Snubnoze707]

The coaches are a big factor. The coaches in Europe are light years ahead than America. And very few notice that. You can't make it against the best when you train with shit coaches.

The coaches aren't shit, their just isn't many that train fighters specifically for a Kickboxing ruleset because their is nobody fighting in that rule set over here.

 

[king of theRing]

The coaches aren't shit, their just isn't many that train fighters specifically for a Kickboxing ruleset because their is nobody fighting in that rule set over here.

Ok a nicer way of putting it. They are just not at that level yet

 

[Snubnoze707]

Ok a nicer way of putting it. They are just not at that level yet

I can't think of anyone that's trying to prepare multiple fighters for international Kickboxing. Most of these Glory random Americans come from MMA gyms. I'm sure their are exceptions that I'm unaware of.

 

[Mr Mojo Lane]

1. Americans tend to just go to MMA
2. Americans don't visit Thailand as much as others

 

[Max Thomas]

I still retain hope, because the head coach at my gym has received instruction from Thailand, and the gym offers trips to Thailand for training.

 

[Vincentsky]

Not sure why Canada ended up being so differnt from the the USA in this regard. From Canada You have old school guys like Michael McDonald. But also current fighters like Simon Marcus, Jospeh valtelini, and Gabrial Varga all former glory champions and all 3 come from different gyms.

 

[Saku'sEar]

Well first, they should start checking (low) kicks...

 

[king of theRing]

So i just found out that a legend of the k1 days wants to move to Tx and open up a gym. Finally we gonna have dutch style here in the states. Atleast in Tx.

 

[Snubnoze707]

Not sure why Canada ended up being so differnt from the the USA in this regard. From Canada You have old school guys like Michael McDonald. But also current fighters like Simon Marcus, Jospeh valtelini, and Gabrial Varga all former glory champions and all 3 come from different gyms.

Not really so different. You could also put together a small list of comparably accomplished guys from the US.