Kickboxing is a sport belonging to the boxes feet poings1 group (BPP) developed in the early 1960s by the Americans, or "American kickboxing" with low online roundhouse kick and parallel at the same time By the Japanese, called "Japanese kick-boxing" with direct knee shot. This type of boxing, including competition, has been influenced by many oriental fighting practices and also by Western boxing, including English boxing and French boxing. In this latest version, since the 1990s, the most media form is the tournament more than 93 kg (heavyweight) K-1 World Grand Prix and the tournament under-70 kg (super welterweight or French Super welterweight), the K-1 World MAX. This practice can be assimilated to a martial art (combat art) given its origins and its practice very common in the World of martial arts.
A kick-boxing fighter is called "kick-boxer" (feminine, "kick-boxer"). This name is not to be confused with the term "kickeur", which a contrario of "boxer" (encounter with the fists only) is a fighter who uses in large quantity the kicks. The discipline is most commonly written in French, "kickboxing" and, in English, "kickboxing".
There is not, strictly speaking, a major international body managing the discipline, but rather a group of world federations developing this practice in competition. There is particular, since the 1970s, the World Kickboxing Association (WKA) created by Howard Hanson in 1976 in the United States behind the US kickboxing, and the World Association of Kickboxing Organizations (WAKO) 2 created in 1976 (Germany) by Georg F. Bruckner initially a point-fighting structure and full-contact, and Fighting and Entertainment Group (FEG) created in Japan in 2003 by Sadaharu Tanikawa, promotional company of major tournaments Japanese kickboxing ( Tournament of the K-1 World Grand Prix and the biannual tournament