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No kissing and hugging: Wayne Barrett (left) won the decision over 185 lb champ Joe Schilling at Glory 12.

12/18/13 — BOSTON:

Kickboxing may be accompanied by punchier sound cues than any other fight sport.

On November 23 at GLORY 12, just seconds into Round 1, Brian Collette’s knockout kick to the head of Warren Thompson reported a brittle “SPLAT!” audible all the way back to the cheap seats of the Madison Square Garden Theater, such that fans groaned and some wondered, briefly, if part of Thompson had snapped.

In the US particularly, the savage art the French call “foot-and-fist” has been eclipsed over the last 20 years by the rise to mainstream popularity of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). MMA is a newer hybrid of fighting disciplines lead by Dana White’s Ultimate Fighting Challenge (UFC).

MMA allows the kicks, punches, elbows and knee strikes that comprise Muay Thai, Thailand’s ancient war dance, combined with mat-bound grappling techniques used in amateur wrestling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Kickboxing allows “no kissing and hugging,” as light heavyweight prodigy Gökhan “The Rebel” Saki has put it, just tornadoes of punches, kicks and knee strikes in combinations. Read the rest of this entry »