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Is kickboxing dying ?
Is kickboxing dying?? Is the rising tide of global muay thai the death knell for kickboxers??
By nick stone. bulldog gym.
Certainly in australia over the past ten to fifteen years the emergence of muay thai to this country has put kickboxing as a sport on the back foot, it seems as promotions go to be still pretty even, although the old style of “full contact” as we used to call it above the waist kicking with 8 kicks per round has totally died out.
I feel without doubt muaythai will be the number one contact sport here in oz, but now with the ufc style of fights growing in this country this will also take over, in holland well known as the mecca of combat sports split shows of half kickboxing and half mma are the go.
To get the dutch angle on this question of whether or not the sport of kickboxing is dying I asked my friend dutchman dirk stal who is well known for his knowedge of contact sports in holland.
No, here in holland kickboxing is not dying, it is very popular as in the old days, we have k1 champion semmy schilt and also k1 max champion andy souwer, at the heavyweights we still have the two legends fighting , ernesto hoost (4 times k1 winner) and peter aerts (3 times k1 winner) also chalid arrab who won the las vegas k1.
In the lighter weights we have a great talent tyrone sprong a fighter who will become very big! And in the middleweights we have champions such as joeri mes, rayen simpson and the legendery ramon dekkers whos back in the ring, in the k1 max of course we have albert kraus and gado drago a man who will win the hearts of kickboxing fans in japan, no, kickboxing is alive and well here in holland!
So, it seems in the mecca of fighting sports kickboxing is alive and well, a lot of dutch gyms now I know fight all rules, thai, mma, boxing and kickboxing also.
To get a europe overview I next asked my mate who runs bulldog uk, who has over 20 yeasr experience and has trained many world class champions head trainer carl sams, first question, full contact? Is it dead??
Well, yes and no, there can be no doupt that thai boxing rules the roost in britain, europe and USA, in the usa it has devolped to such a point over the last 7 or 8 years that “full contact” has been relagated to 3rd behing muay thai and k1.
Are the yanks any good? Probably by and large as good as the brits- only we took 30 fucking years to get that good when they did it in 7.
I think that we are starting to turn out some genuine world class thai boxers but we are still behind mainland europe in general.
The dutch as always are excellent, as are the french and some eastern bloc countrys. Most mainland europe fights are split between muay thai, k1 superleague and mix fight, but full contact is all but dead there.
However, the full contact scene is similar all over with each country having pockets of full contact success, for instance, with regards to Europe when I am looking for full contact fighters I can normally get plenty, but often these are camps that would normally fight K1, Thai or Superleague.
The Germans fight full contact and low kicks but I struggle to get Thai fighters from there. The Hungarians have pure full contact pockets which are just ok astheir Thai Boxing is a bit poor. The French are as they have always been adaptable to any rules if the money is right. The Dutch are the same, just stronger.
The Belgians have good, pure full contact. Most of the Thai fighters seem to cross the border to go to Deckkers gym in Breda. There are strange places such as Spain and Portugal who seem to knock out the odd high profile Thai Boxer, but in my experience the scene is limited and quite full contact orientated.
The norwegians are full contact strong, their government restrictions see too that. Before trevor ambrose moved there from uk they were still in ameter WAKO type scenario that we all fought in the 80,s .
The fins are thai boxing , no full contact there,
The eastern bloc countrys such as belarus, latvia, moldova, poland etc are all thai with the exception of czech republic which are semi and full contact inclined, most of the eastern bloc fighters are here in britain illegally now anyway so that’s boosted thai here.
So…… that sums up the scene in most of the world, it seems that in general most fighting disciplines are on the up and up which is good for all of us.
Nick stone.
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