Where does kickboxing come from?
Man, I guess people are just willing to make stuff up when they don’t know the answer. Kickboxing was practiced in the US a long time before Muay Thai was introduced in the US. Sport kickboxing is not derived from Muay Thai, that’s why they are much different and have different rules. Kickboxing, American kickboxing and Full Contact kickboxing are all synonymous. (Unless you are talking about fitness or cardio kickboxing, not a sport.) They wear pants and foam shoes and no leg kicks are allowed. It looks much different than Muay Thai. The leg kick is a staple of Muay Thai. And we don’t wear shoes of any sort. We use knee strikes and they don’t allow them in kickboxing. Wikipedia says, “The American Kickboxing sport was invented by Joe Lewis and other American martial artists in 1970, as a result of combining Boxing punches and tactics, with the kicks of Karate.” If you watch American kickboxing, it’s obvious that it’s meant to be like boxing, but with using your feet to box with also.
