Is western Kickboxing/FCK still alive?

Blazeblack said:
By looking up the results of several WAKO World, World Cup and European championships. Eastern block countries have historically been among the top medal winners. Here’s the results from the latest world championships in Full contact, Light contact, point sparring and “forms”-
WAKO SENIOR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS 2019 SENIORS - PF, KL, FC AND MF, 2019-11-26
RANK COUNTRY
medal_gold.png
GOLD
medal_silver.png
SILVER
medal_bronze.png
BRONZE TOTAL
1 RUSSIA (RUS) 12 9 5 26
2 HUNGARY (HUN) 9 6 14 29
3 ITALY (ITA) 7 12 9 28
4 GREAT BRITAIN (GBR) 5 1 5 11
5 TURKEY (TUR) 3 5 9 17
6 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (USA) 3 3 1 7
7 KAZAKHSTAN (KAZ) 3 2 1 6
8 POLAND (POL) 2 3 8 13
9 BULGARIA (BUL) 2 2 2 6
10 SLOVENIA (SLO) 2 0 1 3
CZECH REPUPLIC (CZE) 2 0 1 3
12 MEXICO (MEX) 1 4 4 9
13 UKRAINE (UKR) 1 3 12 16
14 CROATIA (CRO) 1 2 5 8
15 NORWAY (NOR) 1 2 2 5
16 AUSTRIA (AUT) 1 2 0 3
17 GREECE (GRE) 1 1 4 6
18 AZERBAIJAN (AZE) 1 1 3 5
19 SLOVAKIA (SVK) 1 1 2 4
20 DENMARK (DEN) 1 1 1 3
FINLAND (FIN) 1 1 1 3
22 GUATEMALA (GUA) 1 0 3 4
23 SWITZERLAND (SUI) 1 0 2 3
SOUTH AFRICA (RSA) 1 0 2 3
25 MOROCCO (MAR) 1 0 1 2
KYRGYZSTAN (KGZ) 1 0 1 2
27 LATVIA (LAT) 1 0 0 1
CHILE (CHI) 1 0 0 1
ESTONIA (EST) 1 0 0 1
GEORGIA (GEO) 1 0 0 1
BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA (BIH) 1 0 0 1
32 GERMANY (GER) 0 2 6 8
33 CANADA (CAN) 0 2 0 2
34 SPAIN (ESP) 0 1 4 5
35 FRANCE (FRA) 0 1 1 2
TURKMENISTAN (TKM) 0 1 1 2
37 JORDAN (JOR) 0 1 0 1
BELGIUM (BEL) 0 1 0 1
39 IRELAND (IRL) 0 0 4 4
40 NORTH MACEDONIA (MKD) 0 0 2 2
MAURITIUS (MRI) 0 0 2 2
ARGENTINA (ARG) 0 0 2 2
ISRAEL (ISR) 0 0 2 2
44 TUNISIA (TUN) 0 0 1 1
ROMANIA (ROU) 0 0 1 1 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (UAE) 0 0 1 1
SWEDEN (SWE) 0 0 1 1
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ISKA is another big sanctioneer or w/e its called.
 
 
ofc other fed's too........... american symbols for me for example Urquidez ( was damn interesting and valuable for me to watch ) or Roufus in 80 ies = american KB......... not bad stuff if not take in account that Roufus initially had competed with rules with no low kicks.......... otherwise karates did had low kicks...... rules = game.
 
Dexter said:
American style KB is quite popular in Russia (amateur scene). A lot of tournaments for youth and adults, many good and educated coaches (Sport Institutes graduates, with speciality in KB).
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Really? In Russia? Russia seems the greatest country on the planet of fighting sports. I know Russia also has a big amateur circuit for kickboxing.

Can you provide some Youtube links? I know American kickboxing, but seemded forgotten or lost in time.

RicardinhoPT said:
Slamm had very big names on every event. Not one name, not two but about 10 big names on an event.
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In what years exactly? Maybe some old promotion of SLAMM? Because the last SLAMM was only linked to Suriname.


RicardinhoPT said:
Apart from that I agree with you, kickboxing is much bigger. But for example Germany has quite some mma events. A lot of Dutch mma fighters fight in Germany because they had events way more often than in NL. And you see more and more kickboxing gyms offering mma classes, it's growing
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Yeah, just that MMA is very little in Europe besides Russia and Britain. But in Britain it"s regressing again and swallowed by boxing. I even mentioned Germany has some decent MMA fighters. Honestly the level of kickboxing in Germany now is probably under the MMA. Or I don"t know, I haven"t watched German MMA since years now. Thing can change, and regress. But some years ago I had the impression their MMA fighters are better. Still, just a few fought in North America.
 
Broadcast said:
In what years exactly? Maybe some old promotion of SLAMM? Because the last SLAMM was only linked to Suriname.

Yeah, just that MMA is very little in Europe besides Russia and Britain. But in Britain it"s regressing again and swallowed by boxing. I even mentioned Germany has some decent MMA fighters. Honestly the level of kickboxing in Germany now is probably under the MMA. Or I don"t know, I haven"t watched German MMA since years now. Thing can change, and regress. But some years ago I had the impression their MMA fighters are better. Still, just a few fought in North America.
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I can't remember what years exactly but I've been to a couple Slamm events in probably 2007-2009. I believe Slamm 4 or 5 was absolutely great with guys like Saenchai, Yodsanklai, Ali Gunyar, Farid Villaume, Groenhart, Souwer, Anuwat, Ait Bassou and more fighting on one card!

Also Poland is for example big on MMA with KSW being their top organization. Bellator is picking up more and more fighters in Europe and once more kickboxers start to move to MMA, the whole MMA scene can change.
 
RicardinhoPT said:
Yes it is, in a lot of countries, I would say it's even bigger in most. For example Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal. In France mma was even banned until not so long ago.
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Full MMA rules were banned until recently in France but there was still MMA gyms and MMA fight shows called "Pancrase" which is MMA rules in a ring and without ground and pound. MMA is bigger in France than Kickboxing for sure, especially the last 5 years or so.

I wouldn't know about Belgium, Spain and Portugal but I'd also be surprised if Kickboxing is bigger than both Boxing and MMA in those countries.

But even in The Netherlands, if you look for mma gyms in google maps there's like 10 pages of 20 results per page (about 200 results), while there's less results for Kickboxing or Kickboksen.

Kickboxing is definitely not bigger than MMA in "most countries" as you say, it's rather rare that it's bigger.
 
Monte Moku said:
How was training at a Full Contact gym? I've also been curious about going to one just to see what's up, but I'm in the states haha
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It was ok and fun but the focus is different to let's say a Muay Thai gym for instance.

They train a lot of combos with punches and flashy kicks and aren't used at all to low kicks or using full rotation with the hips for the round house kicks like in Muay Thai or Kyokushin. They have a good focus on Western boxing technique though, but you can probably find that in a K-1 type kickboxing gym too anyway.

The approach is a lot more on being fast, light on the feet and flashy as opposed to stable and powerful.

Most of the competitors from the clubs I went to compete in semi-contact and not full-contact. There are some full contact fighters but it's not the majority of the competitors I've come across.

I remember that hitting pads full force like I'd do in MT or KK was not appreciated, and a lot of the people get a bit scared when you look serious and walk them down with high guard in sparring and not scared to get hit in order to hit them back in return.

It was interesting anyway and I enjoyed sparring people with that different style, some of them were pretty fast and accurate and threw stuff I'm not used to, they also pretty good with heir hands for the most part. Somehow though the training lacked that seriousness and toughness that I like in Muay Thai, K-1 Kickboxing and Kyokushin.

Also for the guys who like to train with girls, those American style Kickboxing gyms are full of them, close to 40% or 50% of the class in some cases. That's the opposite of what I look for in a gym though.
 
:)) American kickboxing in Russia, and the Americans think the Russians are haters :D

The Russians love to fight, you have no future in American kickboxing, just if you turn professional in kickboxing. I see they use helmets, it"s like Amateur kickboxing in Russia and Serbia.
Tayski said:
.

I wouldn't know about Belgium, Spain and Portugal but I'd also be surprised if Kickboxing is bigger than both Boxing and MMA in those countries.
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Spain and Belgium indeed have produced more in kickboxing lately.
 
Broadcast said:
:)) American kickboxing in Russia, and the Americans think the Russians are haters :D

The Russians love to fight, you have no future in American kickboxing, just if you turn professional in kickboxing. I see they use helmets, it"s like Amateur kickboxing in Russia and Serbia.
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It's amateur tournaments, of course. Like that one, full-contact+low-kick version:



Professional full-contact version of KB is not that popular, K-1 and MT are waaaay more interesting to train and compete.

P.S. Savate is also popular here:

 
Tayski said:
Full MMA rules were banned until recently in France but there was still MMA gyms and MMA fight shows called "Pancrase" which is MMA rules in a ring and without ground and pound. MMA is bigger in France than Kickboxing for sure, especially the last 5 years or so.

I wouldn't know about Belgium, Spain and Portugal but I'd also be surprised if Kickboxing is bigger than both Boxing and MMA in those countries.

But even in The Netherlands, if you look for mma gyms in google maps there's like 10 pages of 20 results per page (about 200 results), while there's less results for Kickboxing or Kickboksen.

Kickboxing is definitely not bigger than MMA in "most countries" as you say, it's rather rare that it's bigger.
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I can guarantee you that kickboxing is way bigger in the Netherlands than mma. For every mma school there's at least 5 kickboxing schools but probably even more. There is a trend that more kickboxing schools are also offering mma lessons now but it's not even close yet.

I was unaware that there was something similar to mma in France by the way. I heard about kickboxing events in France but hadn't heard of mma events and since there was a ban, I assumed it didn't exist.
 
RicardinhoPT said:
I can guarantee you that kickboxing is way bigger in the Netherlands than mma. For every mma school there's at least 5 kickboxing schools but probably even more. There is a trend that more kickboxing schools are also offering mma lessons now but it's not even close yet.

I was unaware that there was something similar to mma in France by the way. I heard about kickboxing events in France but hadn't heard of mma events and since there was a ban, I assumed it didn't exist.
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What I said in my first post was that it's very rare that Kickboxing is bigger than MMA, and that I guess you can probably see that in countries like The Netherlands or Romania for instance, but it's definitely not the norm in most other countries. So I guess we both agree here.
 
Tayski said:
Full MMA rules were banned until recently in France but there was still MMA gyms and MMA fight shows called "Pancrase" which is MMA rules in a ring and without ground and pound. MMA is bigger in France than Kickboxing for sure, especially the last 5 years or so.

I wouldn't know about Belgium, Spain and Portugal but I'd also be surprised if Kickboxing is bigger than both Boxing and MMA in those countries.

But even in The Netherlands, if you look for mma gyms in google maps there's like 10 pages of 20 results per page (about 200 results), while there's less results for Kickboxing or Kickboksen.

Kickboxing is definitely not bigger than MMA in "most countries" as you say, it's rather rare that it's bigger.
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In Germany my feeling is that MMA is more popular than kickboxing.

Kickboxing is usually K1, Here. Even what they call MT is essentially K1 Here.
There is some shiny pants though.

It must be said that outside of boxing, Germany is pretty shit tier in combat sports.
 
KBE6EKCTAH_CCP said:
In Germany my feeling is that MMA is more popular than kickboxing.

Kickboxing is usually K1, Here. Even what they call MT is essentially K1 Here.
There is some shiny pants though.

It must be said that outside of boxing, Germany is pretty shit tier in combat sports.
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They used to produce world class wrestlers 70 years ago, actually they still have some good wrestlers. There is that famous guy I think Wilhelm Dietrich was his name.
 
I also have the feeling in Germany MMA is more popular, but from what I know the German MMA artists do better. This is true.
 
Martial arts in Germany are all about politics these days. Back in the 70ties and 80ties when the sport of kickboxing started, Germany was actually the place where it was born. Germany's Georg Brückner pioneered fullcontact karate, kickboxing, started the WAKO and invented his own equipment.
https://www.backkicks.com/goerg-f-brueckner-died-20-years-ago/
Great personality, but died in 1992 already. He brought Bill Wallace, Joe Lewis and all the big American karate stars to Europe for the first time in 1974.




KBE6EKCTAH_CCP said:
In Germany my feeling is that MMA is more popular than kickboxing.

Kickboxing is usually K1, Here. Even what they call MT is essentially K1 Here.
There is some shiny pants though.

It must be said that outside of boxing, Germany is pretty shit tier in combat sports.
Click to expand...
 
mides said:
Martial arts in Germany are all about politics these days. Back in the 70ties and 80ties when the sport of kickboxing started, Germany was actually the place where it was born. Germany's Georg Brückner pioneered fullcontact karate, kickboxing, started the WAKO and invented his own equipment.
https://www.backkicks.com/goerg-f-brueckner-died-20-years-ago/
Great personality, but died in 1992 already. He brought Bill Wallace, Joe Lewis and all the big American karate stars to Europe for the first time in 1974.
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Kickboxing was started in the 60's with Muay Thai vs Kyokushin matches. You are talking of a different branch that came later with more limiting rules.
 
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