'KICKBOXING' HISTORY - PART 1
Even though I meant for this article to only cover North America there are some key points involving other parts of the world that are important to support and understand the history of these Martial ring disciplines (even Arts or sports as some view them) here. For me to cover the history of these disciplines throughout the whole world would require my research to become a full time job (and a very exhaustive one at that). I concede there will probably be many points that I have missed (I am sure) and mistakes, but in general I have reported facts from what the research turned up. It has been and still is very demanding and exhaustive work which I am sure will take me much more time to fully complete (if that will ever be possible).
Due to linguistic problems and difficulties in my research, I now totally understand why there has been so much misinformation and misunderstanding in these disciplines. Addressing this problem, I have made statements and presented facts so most of this article I can back up with concrete proof. If there is no proof or nothing concrete and some one disputes a statement (with proof) I will change the statement in this article. I hope this article opens a few eyes and I get some responses with cold hard evidence to support and/or refute some of the statements in this article. Please e-mail me at
Some of the things I have spoken of in this article are considered 'taboo'. I discuss them as historical points from the information I have been able to dig up and that is all. By no means has this been meant to cause any embarrassment to anyone or any organization. You as the reader can look at what I have turned up and then you can make your own intelligent conclusions. All of the information as well as this page has been copyrighted and may not be reproduced without written consent from me. Please respect this. If you intend to use some of the facts presented here, it would be greatly appreciated if you again would acknowledge where you got the information from. Many people have taken a lot of my research and put it onto their own web pages. Please be kind and give some credit where credit is due.
In the last quarter century plus, 'Kickboxing' has grown worldwide. It is now no different than boxing in the last few decades. There is an alphabet soup of organizations governing the disciplines. Opinions and hostilities crop up when asking which organizations are the most credible. Some of these organizations were strong in the past, some are strong now and a bunch will really never be viewed as legitimate sanctioning bodies. I will leave this up to your own opinions (if everybody saw eye to eye, there would not be such a multitude of organizations in the first place). The placement of sanctioning bodies is done alphabetically, being first by no means being the most credible organization! Past sanctioning bodies - FFKA, IMF, IMTA, KICK, PKA, PKC, WKC. Present sanctioning bodies - IKF, IMTO, ISKA, WAKO, WKA, WMC, WMTA, WPKL. These are some organizations that have a recorded history behind them. In regards to other sanctioning bodies, there are a lot more in the alphabet soup, but I could use a whole page in the article to list them all!
To make the reading more enjoyable, I have added in some old, rare and difficult to find magazine covers, book covers and hard to find photographs. I have thousands of Martial Arts magazines from around the world from the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's, and it has been a chore to find and decide which ones to use that are in their own way pertinent to this article. There are so many but I picked these few because they seem to help support my point and illustrate the history of the disciplines in this article. I have also included information from many renowned and respected Martial Arts and Kickboxing Pioneers who speak with knowledge and authority by actually being a part of the history that I address. To these friends and peers of mine, to the Muay Thai web page that gave me the inspiration to continue working on this piece, thank you for the assistance and motivation to 'finish' (Ha! This is going to be continually upgraded as I find more information) this article. To the Martial Artists around the world who have given me many facts, people including (but not limited to) Bill Wallace, Joe Lewis, Benny Urquidez, Jim Harrison, Tong Trithara, Bob Wall, Dale Floyd, Panya Kraitus, Alex Tsui... and the list just goes on and on, thank you for your input. To the readers around the world (Shingo - thanks!), thank you for the feedback as well as the additional information!
Finally, I have spoken about the history in Canada by itself (even though Canada is geographically bigger than the USA, the population is smaller and thus theoretically, it should be easier to find out the history of the disciplines in Canada but this has been far from the case). As I am from Canada, I am also interested in our countries history. Finding concrete information about Canada at times has also been like pulling teeth. I have provided information that I have uncovered or can support. I know there will be more being added in here as well.