International Kickboxing Federation

   In July 1992, the International Kickboxing Federation (IFK) was established by Steve Fossum and Dan Stall based on their knowledge and experience as former kickboxers, trainers, and event promoters. In December of 1996, the IFK launched a website with news of various upcoming events, worldwide rankings, rules, and regulations.

    Then two years later in 1998, the IFK expanded to the United Kingdom through a former European director, Alby Bimpson with his associates Jacqui Thompson and Mick Fowles, the International Kickboxing  Federation began sanctioning events in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and other European countries. Bimpson and Fowles played a giant part in sanctioning IFK events throughout Europe in unison with the IFK World Headquarters in California, USA.

     The IFK has grown into a global organization under Steve Fossum and others associated with the International Kickboxing Federation World Team. Along with its growth was the development of the IFK Amateur Tournaments. The first amateur kickboxing tournaments was held in the United States in 1999. It eventually became an annual event and becam the North American Championships in 2004, and then the IFK World Classic in 2006. Today it is one of the largest of all amateur Kickboxing and Muay Thai Championship tournaments in the world.

John Wayne Parr

   John Wayne Parr, or JWP, is an Australian middle weight kickboxing champion. He is an 8 time World Champion and was the runner up in The Contender Asia. The Contender Asia is known as The Contender: Kickboxer in the United Kingdom and as The Contender: Muay Thai in the United States. John Wayne Parr is also regarded of the 15th best foreign (not of Thai descendant) Muay Thai fighters of all time.

  Parr was 16 when he started his professional career, and was 17 when he won an Australian title. Parr's trainer, Blair Moore, helped promote Parr at Jupiter's Casino for three of his fights before contending for the South Pacific title against Scott Lovelock. Parr won that fight in the 5th round with a KO when he was 19. Over the next few years Parr won many regional titles from the WKA (World Kickboxing Association).

   After many years of success in his career, Parr decided to have a retirement fight on June 24 2012 against K-1 veteran Jordan Tai. 2 minutes into the 4th round with a strong uppercut. Parr retired after this fight  with a 4 fight winning streak in which 3 of them were knock, and his title was WKBF K-1 World Middleweight Champion. Here is a video of the fight:

History of Kickboxing

   Kickboxing is a term that can be used in both a wide and a narrow sense, and can make the history a little difficult to understand. There are several early types of kickboxing one is Indochinese martial arts, especially muay boran, which eventually turned into modern muay thai.
  
    But in the terms of competion, a Japanese karateka, Tatsu Yamada, established an outline of a new sport that combined karate and muay thai in the 1950's. It was further explored in the 1960's, when the competions of karate and muay thai began, which allowed rule modification and the sport name kickboxing. By the middle of the decade the first true kickboxing events were being held Osaka, Japan.

   During the 1970's and the 1980's the sport had expanded Japan and had reached North America and Europe. It was also during this time that governing bodies of kickboxing were formed. In Japan, the sport was widely popular and regularly broadcast on television before going into a dark period in the 1980's. In North America, the sport was fairly new so the rules were still unclear and kickboxing and full contact karate were kind of like the same sport. And in Europe, the sport was very popular but didn't thrive until the 1990's.

  Along with the sport's growing popularity in competition, kickboxing has an increase in participation and exposure in the mass media, fitness, and self-defence.