From Kickboxer to Boxer

Rumors are that Dustin Nichols used to kickbox

 

I want to see CroCop vs Wilder in a kickboxing contest. Forget Bambi on ice, it'll be Bambi in a gruesome, horrific abattoir.

 

Josh Taylor was a junior taekwando champion before he turned to boxing at the age of 15.

 

Most of the Thai champs.

 

Povetkin was a world champion kickboxer, he was legit!

 

Mike Bernardo, former WBF champ. Damn good fighter back in the day.

 

Pele Reid.

Ustinov.

 

Always blows me away to be reminded that Povetkin actually did kickboxing for years before he took up boxing proper. Usually that has a lasting, empirically visible effect on a fighter's style (as seen in the famous awkwardness Vitali Klitschko used to great effect throughout his career) but Sasha has never looked anything but a purely conventional and color-by-numbers product of the Russian amateur system. If you told me after watching him once that he started boxing at the age of seven and never studied any other combat sport I'd believe you in a heartbeat. If you then said "Just kidding, he started at 21 after spending his teens and early adulthood in kickboxing", I'd assume you were pulling my leg and had been correct the first time.

 

Indeed. He's one of the most textbook boxers the division has seen. Clearly a very talented guy who chose the right sport to be in.

 

Samart Payakaroon (Muay Thai) won a WBC title in boxing

Ricky Hatton tried kick boxing as a kid but after doing it for a while & it not really working for him was told he was too short

 

Yeah. I'd be very curious to know to which he was introduced first in early childhood, and further to know why he chose kickboxing for a time.

 

Were they amateurs, trained under it, or were all of these guys actually professionals with a legitimate bout? I don't need an answer for every name but, for the most part, actually had pro kickboxing bouts?

Great thread, by the way.