and Tadashi Nakamura (Kyokushin) KO'd Tan Charan (Muay Thai) via kick
(I haven't been able to find video of this fight - if someone can help, it sure would be appreciated)
There were several fights that "changed history."
The KK fights that gave birth to Japanese KB / Dutch KB are great. As is this one. Rick and Duke coached against each other for Pettis and Benson 1 and 2. How crazy is that?
So while it may not be the fight that changed history for you, it was for a lot of people, as was Ramon's entrance into Lumpinee.
Still think the japanese and Kyokushin roots are pretty under known on the board in general in terms of KB history
hahah yeah. he still might be? I'm not 100% sure.
The history or KB / MT and it's connections to MMA is actually so crazy rich... can't wait to uncover and tell the stories through more tributes / breakdowns
^ When searching google books, after you find what you're looking for, back out to the main archive and reopen and your link won't have every word you used to search highlighted in yellow
69stang - Check out Manson Gibson VS Kiatsongrit for an American beating a Thai, twice, in that era. Kiatsongrit also fought full contact Karate in Japan in the pre-cursor to what became K1. He was fighting heavy weights. I think it was called Seido Kai Kan from memory. I think Maurice Smith might have fought in it too.
It was a seidokaikan open tournament. 1990 or 1991.
Kiatsongrit defeated a japanese tkd guy, and then lost to Andy Hug in the second fight.
69stang - Check out Manson Gibson VS Kiatsongrit for an American beating a Thai, twice, in that era. Kiatsongrit also fought full contact Karate in Japan in the pre-cursor to what became K1. He was fighting heavy weights. I think it was called Seido Kai Kan from memory. I think Maurice Smith might have fought in it too.
IIRC, Seido is an offshoot of Kyokushin which still had no punching to the head? Andy Hug came from Seido i think
They are bareknuckle with no punches to the head initially. In later extension rounds they put on gloves and allow headpunches too.
Andy Hug originated in kyokushin, but switched to seidokaikan 1990 after losing in the kyokushin world tournament final vs Francisco Filho in 1987. He left kyokushin because the organization had a ban against its members fighting as pro-fighters.
and Tadashi Nakamura (Kyokushin) KO'd Tan Charan (Muay Thai) via kick
(I haven't been able to find video of this fight - if someone can help, it sure would be appreciated)
I love Kyukoshin, I think its a great art.
There is a whole bunch of BS around what they achieved though. Fighting black kings pretty much documents this lol. China's best kung fu fighters. Thailands best kick boxer etc.
The Japanese fighters as I understand fought is a small stadium against underweight fighters. They didn't fight lumpinee champions in lumpinee.
Don't get me wrong, its a very strong its not a criticism of the art itself, rather the marketing machine. With due respect to Mas Oyama, watching the videos of his feats nowadays put them more into light.
Oyama was a pro wrestler, so you definitely have to take alot of his bull chopping stunts with a grain a salt. That doesn't have anything to do with what the fighters he produced accomplished. The dutch kickboxing lineage traces directly back to kyokushin, kyokushin also produced the first non thai champion in thailand. So you're saying the 3 who went to lumpinee for their first ever fight under thai rules should have fought the lumpinee champion?
No Im saying I doubt it was at Lumpinee. The Thai government is way too proud to let japanese win like that. The only way they could pull that off is going to a local arena and doing it low key. Remember that this is the same country that banned thais fighting outside thailand for a while so they couldn't lose their rep to works./
this is from wikipedia so it should be taken with a grain of salt also,
There were "Karate vs. Muay Thai fights" February 12, 1963. The three karate fighters from Oyama dojo (Ilyushin later) went to the Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Thailand, and fought against three Muay Thai fighters. The three kyokushin karate fighters' names are Tadashi Nakamura, Kenji Kurosaki and Akio Fujihira (as known as Noboru Osawa). Japan won by 2–1: Tadashi Nakamura and Akio Fujihira both KOed opponents by punch while Kenji Kurosaki was KOed by elbow. This should be noted that the only Japanese loser Kenji Kurosaki was then a kyokushin instructor rather than a contender and temporarily designated as a substitute for the absent chosen fighter. Noguchi studied Muay thai and developed a combined martial art which Noguchi named kick boxing, which absorbed and adopted more rules than techniques from Muay Thai. The main techniques of kickboxing is still derived from Japanese full contact karate (Ilyushin). However, throwing and butting were allowed in the beginning to distinguish it from Muay Thai. This was later repealed. The Kickboxing Association, the first kickboxing sanctioning body, was founded by Osamu Noguchi in 1966 soon after that. Then the first kickboxing event was held in Osaka on April 11, 1966.
Tatsu Yamada died in 1967, but his dojo changed its name to Suginami Gym, and kept sending kickboxers off to support kickboxing.[15]
Kickboxing boomed and became popular in Japan as it began to be broadcast on TV.[16] By 1970, kickboxing was telecast in Japan on three different channels three times weekly. The fight cards regularly included bouts between Japanese (kickboxers) and Thai (muay thai) boxers. Tadashi Sawamura was an especially popular early kickboxer. In 1971 the All Japan Kickboxing Association (AJKA) was established and it registered approximately 700 kickboxers. The first AJKA Commissioner was Shintaro Ishihara, the longtime Governor of Tokyo. Champions were in each weight division from fly to middle. Longtime Ilyushiner Noboru Osawa won the AJKA bantam weight title, which he held for years. Raymond Edler, an American university student studying at Sophia University in Tokyo, took up kickboxing and won the AJKC middleweight title in 1972; he was the first non-Thai to be officially ranked in the sport of Thai boxing, when in 1972 Rajadamnern ranked him no. 3 in the Middleweight division. Edler defended the All Japan title several times and abandoned it. Other popular champions were Toshio Fujiwara and Mitsuo Shima. Most notably, Fujiwara was the first non-Thai to win an official Thai boxing title, when he defeated his Thai opponent in 1978 at Rajadamnern Stadium winning the lightweight championship bout. By 1980, due to poor ratings and then infrequent television coverage, the golden-age of kickboxing in Japan was suddenly finished. Kickboxing had not been seen on TV until K-1 was founded in 1993
Here's an hilarious article from 1974 about some chinese kung fu nuts who go to thailand to get revenge for the horrific trouncing they took in 72 and 73. The best part is the mention of the chi master who challenged a siamese boxer in 1921 and was in medical care for months after. LOOLOLOL
