Just wondering.....
When we see comments like;

"dying and not overly deep style"

About Full Contact Rules kickboxing, it makes us think the people who say these things don't get out much...
It's obvious that the majority of the posting individuals here favor MuayThai, but how many here are really fighters, promoters and trainers? And of them, how many truly get around the world "In Person" to see what's really happening?

Those with these comments seem to only know about K-1, which is understandable since it, as a promotion, is paying the best purses today, and what you guys have seen on the ESPN shows in the past few years. However, what you don't see is what is "Really" going on around the world as a whole.

1: To begin with, the ESPN thing, Keep in mind that the reason we were told why ratings slipped over the past 5 years and why you don't see a lot of kickboxing on TV now is because those with the deal were doing less and less FCR style fighting. When the promoter was doing FCR, those ratings were a lot higher. This is not "Our" opinion, this was a fact shown to us.

2: At our (IKF) USA National Amateur Tournament, FCR has always outnumbered both MuayThai (MTR) and International Rules (IR) every single year for the last 4 years. In some years, IR & MTR together did not equal the total number of FCR Fighters.

3: At this years National Tournament, In the JUNIOR divisions, the future of our sport here in the USA anyway (Ages 8-17) we had 71 Junior fighters in FCR. However the total number of fighters in IR & MTR was "12".

4: At this years National Tournament, in the Adult Divisions, we had a total of 122 Adult fighters (Men & Women). Of them, 69 were in FCR, 26 in IR and 27 in MTR.

5: In Europe, as many can verify, there is a more even mix of FCR, IR and MTR, however, MTR & IR are NOT leading by any means. FCR is VERY Strong in Europe as well.

6: The only area we see very little FCR is in central Canada and Australia. However in Western and Eastern Canada we have a lot of FCR action. In Australia, although we have had FCR action, the leader there seems to be International Rules.

7: In Asia, we have had a mixture of all styles again, in fact, one of the largest World Title fights in Asia was in Malaysia, and it was a FCR World Title fight with GREAT Purses for BOTH fighters.

8: In Central Europe, an organization known as WAKO is very successful there. The main rule style they sanction? Full COntact.


This is not an advertisment for FCR. We're not saying we like FCR better either as some would think. Our job as a sanctioning organization is to support and feature all rule styles equally and we believe we do a very good job of this because ALL Fighters in ALL Styles deserve this.

So with this being said, lets remember, if we want our sport to grow we must treat all our styles fair. Like the saying goes in Martial Arts, "There is no right or wrong way, better or worse way, only different."