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Kickboxing is a relatively modern, full-contact sport and martial art that has its roots in several other martial disciplines. With the modern sport of kickboxing beginning in the USA in the 1970s, it was an amalgamation of several other striking arts put into a more familiar American concept, manly by holding competitions in a boxing ring.
Japanese karate, Muay Thai, western boxing, the French kicking art of Savate and Korean Taekwondo are all in part responsible for the modern sport of kickboxing, with the sport taking off rapidly and being popular around the world. However, it was in America and Japan that were (and still are) kickboxing strongholds.
The American kickboxing scene was dominated by its home-grown superstars, such as Joe Lewis, Benny Urquidez, Chuck Norris, and Bill ‘Superfoot’ Wallace whilst in Japan, their gradually became a big box office draw, from the 90s attracting top competitors from around the world.
Today, kickboxing has been overshadowed somewhat by the emergence of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) but still remains popular around the world. Unlike some other sports, kickboxing has a multitude of different governing bodies and international and national associations. However, despite some slight discrepancies, the rules of full contact kickboxing remain the same regardless of association.
Like its close relative – boxing – the aim of kickboxing is to beat your opponent by using kicking and punching techniques to knock them out, force the referee to stop the fight or to display superior skills in both defence and attack to win on the judge’s points cards. Kickboxing is a full contact sport and, as well as being adept at striking with both their hands and feet, kickboxers need to be extremely fit and flexible, as some of the most effective techniques are kicks to the head.
Kickboxing requires relatively few pieces of equipment.
There may be different methods of scoring depending upon each different individual kickboxing organisation, but the vast majority use the type of scoring as used in boxing. Judges (or in some cases, just the referee) score each fighter in each round depending upon their performance.
The better fighter in each round is awarded ten points, whilst the other fighter is awarded nine points. If both fighters are deemed to have performed equally well, then both are awarded ten points, whilst if one has significantly outperformed the other or has knocked them down, the round is scored ten points to eight.
Like boxing and Muay Thai, there are several ways in which a fight can be won:
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