I am not so well read about kickboxing. How high were the TV ratings? I doubt it was even as popular as MMA.
It's never appealed to me as a sport to watch, there isn't the history boxing has, there isn't the exposure in the mainstream, so I never saw kick boxing growing up on TV like boxing, I get confused by all the federations, there so many it's ridiculous, makes boxing look sensible in comparison. I honestly could name a single famous kick boxer while I could name several MMA fighters and I don't even follow MMA, so clearly kick boxing as an image problem.
What were the viewing figures and which fights were the biggest? How did attendance figures compare with attendance figures at top boxing fights?
I honestly don’t know. Some people don’t like MMA because the striking isn’t always the greatest because they’re too worried about going to the ground, and then the actual ground stuff bores some people to tears, you’d think people like that would love kickboxing.
Well Van Damme was the european champ back in the 80`s and I saw footage of him in amateur karate match and he was awful, boxers that fought for the european title in boxing in the 80`s usually weren`t that good either but there was far more depth in boxing in terms of talent compared to kickboxing back then because there was more money pumped into the sport, maybe kickboxing has improved now, but it must have been awful back when Jean Claude was a kickboxer because only two opponents managed to beat him.
ONE's kickboxing especially inside the cage is enjoyable. I'm not sure if they also have MMA gloves when done inside the cage.
I love Kickboxing as well as Boxing. Why isn't as popular tho, that's a good questing to be fair, and the reasons are more than enough. But big money, sponsors and promotions are probably one of the main.
Honestly, this is spot on. You give Kickboxing the platform that the UFC has got, and you give it the big names and recent fights, and it takes over.
Yeah I wouldn't speak about Jean Claude Van Damme when it comes to kickboxing haha Once the K1 rules came along Kickboxing became much more watchable, the full contact rules prohibited kicks below the waist and knees and most of the kicks were usually nothing more than love taps until people found out just how hard you could kicks thanks to the Thai fighters. Fighters like Branko Cikatic, Ernesto Hoost, Andy Hug and Peter Aerts are a great way to start if you want to watch kickboxing from when they fought in the 90's in their primes. If you want to keep it more modern Semmy Schilt, Rico Verhoeven, Masato, Buakaw, Antonio Plazibat and Badr Hari are definitely worth watching.
There's different federations due to different rules, in the last two years I've become a bigger fan of it by going back and watching the K1 days and keeping up with Glory's heavyweight division. Realistically just stick to Glory and the old K1 if you want to try get into it.
I know Mike Tyson has attended Glory events in the last few years as has Evander Holyfield. Tyson and Lennox Lewis also attended some of the K1 USA events which were pretty underrated.
