Kickboxing

Kickboxing refers to a group of martial arts and stand-up combat sports based on kicking and punching, historically developed from karate, Muay Thai and western boxing. Kickboxing is often practiced for self-defense, general fitness, or as a contact sport. Historically, kickboxing can be considered a hybrid martial art formed from the combination of elements of various traditional styles. Kickboxing has contributed to the emergence of mixed martial arts via further hybridization with ground fighting techniques from jujutsu and professional wrestling.

The term kickboxing (キックボクシング) itself was introduced in the 1960s as a Japanese anglicism by Japanese boxing promoter Osamu Noguchi for a hybrid martial art combining Muay Thai and karate which he had introduced in 1958. The term was later also adopted by the American variant. Since there has been a lot of cross-fertilization between these styles, with many practitioners training or competing under the rules of more than one style, the history of the individual styles cannot be seen in isolation from one another.

Kickboxing has a number of different rulesets. For example, American kickboxing and/or American full contact karate restricts to strikes using punches and higher kicks; whereas some other arts often regarded as “kickboxing” allow low kicks and even knee strikes, elbows, and grappling maneuvers. All forms of kickboxing use an identical scoring system, however. A winner is declared during the bout if there is a submission (fighter quits or fighter’s corner throws in the towel), knockout (KO), or referee stoppage (technical knockout, or TKO). If all of the rounds expire with no knockout then the fight is scored by a team of 3 judges. The judges determine a winner based on their scoring of each round. A split decision indicates a disagreement between the judges, while a unanimous decision indicates that all judges saw the fight the same way and all have declared the same winner.

Kickboxing

Kickboxing refers to a group of martial arts and stand-up combat sports based on kicking and punching, historically developed from karate, Muay Thai and western boxing. Kickboxing is often practiced for self-defense, general fitness, or as a contact sport. Historically, kickboxing can be considered a hybrid martial art formed from the combination of elements of various traditional styles. Kickboxing has contributed to the emergence of mixed martial arts via further hybridization with ground fighting techniques from jujutsu and professional wrestling.

The term kickboxing (キックボクシング) itself was introduced in the 1960s as a Japanese anglicism by Japanese boxing promoter Osamu Noguchi for a hybrid martial art combining Muay Thai and karate which he had introduced in 1958. The term was later also adopted by the American variant. Since there has been a lot of cross-fertilization between these styles, with many practitioners training or competing under the rules of more than one style, the history of the individual styles cannot be seen in isolation from one another.

Kickboxing has a number of different rulesets. For example, American kickboxing and/or American full contact karate restricts to strikes using punches and higher kicks; whereas some other arts often regarded as “kickboxing” allow low kicks and even knee strikes, elbows, and grappling maneuvers. All forms of kickboxing use an identical scoring system, however. A winner is declared during the bout if there is a submission (fighter quits or fighter’s corner throws in the towel), knockout (KO), or referee stoppage (technical knockout, or TKO). If all of the rounds expire with no knockout then the fight is scored by a team of 3 judges. The judges determine a winner based on their scoring of each round. A split decision indicates a disagreement between the judges, while a unanimous decision indicates that all judges saw the fight the same way and all have declared the same winner.