Everybody knows I love MMA, but I also really love me some kickboxing. Whether it be K1, Muay Thai, Glory, Bellator, or One FC, I love all styles of kickboxing.
So many phenomenal kickboxers have stepped into the ring, which makes doing a best-ever list really hard. But I’ve taken a crack at it and made a list of my 15 greatest kickboxers of all time.
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They are in no particular order and are just some of my favorite famous fighters that fought various types of kickboxing. I’ve added highlights of each fighter, so you can see how entertaining they were and why I picked them.
John Wayne Parr
I’m starting off the list with a fan favorite. The wild man from Australia John Wayne Parr. He has been fighting pro kickboxing bouts for the last 23 years fighting the best kickboxers in the world.
- Record: 99-33 (46 wins by KO) Boxing: 11-3 (10KOS)
- Nickname: The Gunslinger
- Style: Muay Thai
- Country: Australia
- Championships: 14 championships in Muay Thai, kickboxing, and boxing
In his later years, Parr has gained quite a bit of fame from social media and podcast appearances. The fans love his straight ahead style of bringing the fight to his opponents. Continuing to strike until he puts them down, he goes down, or the fight ends.
What also made him a fan favorite was his passion for Muay Thai. He lives and breathes the art and at 44 is still going strong looking for his 100th win. If you’ve never seen Parr fight, watch his highlight and you’ll become an instant fan.
Buakaw Banhamek
The ageless one Buakaw has been one of the most elite Thai fighters for over 20 years now. Somehow in all of that time, Buakaw hasn’t aged a day in almost 300 pro fights.
- Fight Record: 239-24-12(73KO/TKOs)
- Style: Muay Thai
- Country: Thailand
- Championships: 20
He is known for his unbelievable conditioning and powerful striking. Fighting the best fighters in the world since 2000. If you name a top top welterweight kickboxer from the last 20 years, then chances are Buakaw has fought them.
Buakaw is clearly among the best ever and at 38 is still fighting at an elite level.
Saenchai
If you’ve never seen Saenchai fight, he is one of the most special Thai kickboxers of all time. He has been fighting professionally for an unbelievable 32 years, which is unheard of for a Thai. He had his first fight at 8 years old and won 30 Baht, which is less than a dollar!
- Fight Record: 299-42-5 (40KOs) Boxing 5-0 (2 KOs)
- Style: Muay Thai
- Country: Thailand
- Championships: 17
Saenchai’s style is like no other Thai. He fights like Floyd Mayweather in boxing, going for precision over power. Throwing precise combos from every angle and hardly ever missing. A phenomenal fighter and always fun to watch.
Jorina Baars
What Amanda Nunes is in MMA is what Jorina Baars has been in kickboxing for over a decade. In 50 fights, she has only been defeated by split decision. Prior to that, she dominated all her opponents. And I mean all of them – to the point that she was considering getting a job since nobody wanted to fight her.
- Fight Record: 46-1-3 (16KOs) MMA: 1-3
- Style: Dutch Kickboxing
- Country: Netherlands
- Championships: 4
Baars is still with a long reach and has phenomenal striking. Her most notable win was against the then most feared female fighter on the planet Cyborg Santos. They had a phenomenal fight that was among the most viewed female kickboxing matches of all time.
Jorina has cemented herself as one of the best female kickboxers ever and her track record proves it.
Mirko Cro Cop
“Right leg hospital, left leg cemetery.” Cro Cop is one of the all time best in all of combat sports. He is the only person to win the K1 Grand Prix, Pride Grand Prix, and Rizin Grand Prix.
- Fight Record: 26-8 (13KOs) MMA: 38-11-2 1 no contest (30KOs)
- Style: Kickboxing
- Country: Croatia
- Championships: 5
Mirko first made his name in kickboxing decimating his opponents with his vicious striking and infamous left leg head kick. Almost no one has accomplished more in comeback sports than Mirko.
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Every time he stepped foot in the ring or cage it was a beautiful display of violence.
Jerome “Bam-Bam” Le Banner
Alrighty, picture this guy: Le Banner, the “Crème de la Crème” of French kickboxers and the dude who was always the bridesmaid but never the bride at the K-1 Grand Prix. This humongous, pumped-up, berserker Frenchman was like an angry, unwelcome storm in the 90s. His reputation? The one-man demolition squad – nobody danced in the ring with him without getting a proper shake-up.
Fans adored this guy! Why, you ask? Because his approach to fighting was as reckless as a driver who goes pedal to the metal while blasting “Highway to Hell”. He was the living embodiment of “YOLO” before it was even cool, opting to ditch defense and strategies for some good ol’ face-to-face smashing. His opponents? The big, bad punchers like Mark Hunt. Yeah, he had a knack for picking fights with the tough guys.
Despite missing out on the K-1 tiara, our dude Le Banner did manage to snag some shiny trophies from I.S.K.A and W.K.N. World. So, he might not have been the prom king, but he certainly was a homecoming hero!
Badr Hari
The bad boy from Morocco has always been the center of controversy in the kickboxing world. No matter how you feel about him personally, you can’t deny he is an all time great fighter.
- Fight Record: 106-15 1 no contest (92 KOs)
- Nickname: Golden Boy/Bad Boy
- Fighting Style: Kickboxing
- Country: Morocco
- Championships: 4
Badr has viciously knocked out the best heavyweight kickboxers in the world for over a decade. He has a KO ratio of around 86% in 106 wins, which is a ridiculous stat. A fight card is always a must-see when Hari is fighting.
Mark Hunt
The Super Samoan is always a fan favorite and everyone always tunes in to watch him fight. Most new fans know him from MMA, but Hunt really made his mark in kickboxing.
- Fight Record: 30-13 (13KOs) MMA: 13-14-1 1 no contest (10KOs)
- Nickname: The Super Samoan
- Fighting Style: Kickboxing
- Country: New Zealand
- Championships: 5
A former K1 champion, Hunt has constantly been having all time great fights in his career. Displaying powerful KO power, while having an unbelievable ability to take punishment. Mark has made a lot of fans throughout his career and is looking to make more before he retires.
Raymond Daniels
Raymond Daniels has some of the most explosive kicks in all of kickboxing. After dominating the Karate and Taekwondo circuits, Daniels has continued winning in full contact kickboxing.
- Fight Record: 35-3 (22KOs) MMA: 2-1
- Nickname: The Real Deal
- Fighting Style: Taekwondo
- Country: USA
- Championships: 23
He is known for his super athletic style controlling the ring and landing an array of spinning and flying kicks. The 360 spin kick KO he landed is among one of the all time best knockouts ever.
Daniels is now starting to make his way into MMA, so we may see a 2 sport champ pretty soon.
Alistair Overeem
While he only has a 10-4 record in kickboxing, his stint after Pride FC was quite memorable and terrifying. He put on 60lbs of muscle and wreaked havoc in K1 for a 2 year period winning the GP. Overeem was then referred to as Ubereem after his time in kickboxing.
- Record: 10-4 (7KOs) MMA: 46-18 (24KOs)
- Nickname: The Demolition Man, Ubereem
- Fighting Style: Dutch Kickboxing
- Country: Netherlands
- Championships: 4
His power and clinch was so devastating that K1 changed the clinching rules. Alistair will always be more known for his MMA career in the UFC, but his time in kickboxing was one for the history books.
Rico Verhoeven
The current reigning and defending Glory Kickboxing heavyweight champion is the best heavyweight kickboxer of the past decade. Rico hasn’t lost a fight in the last 5 years and he is still looking really hard to beat.
- Fight Record: 56-10 (17KOs)
- Nickname: King of Kickboxing
- Fighting Style: Dutch Kickboxing
- Country Netherlands
- Championships: 1
He is among the most highly technical heavyweights of all time and at 31 his legacy is only beginning.
Georgio Petrosyan
Now, here comes Georgio Petrosyan, a guy who was probably born wearing boxing gloves and a PhD in strategic smackdowns. So good, so precise, they just had to call him “The Doctor” – although, to be honest, he was more the guy giving out the bruises than curing ’em.
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Georgio strutted his stuff in the K-1 world and remained unbeaten longer than a lot of us stick to our New Year resolutions, almost five whole years, to be exact! And let me tell you, he wasn’t just fighting with run-of-the-mill opponents. He was up against the big guns like Albert Kraus, Mike Zambidis, and Andy “No-Sweat” Souwer.
And then there’s Thailand, right? The place where kickboxing is as sacred as cheese is in France. Our man Petrosyan was over there in the heart of it all, at the famous Lumpinee Stadium, swapping blows with the best Thai boxers, enjoying victories like a kid in a candy store.
In his career, he’s hopped across weight classes like a hyper kangaroo on a trampoline, snatching titles left, right, and center:
- The ONE Kickboxing Grand Prix Kingpin
- The ISKA World Overlord
- The double-whammy K-1 World MAX winner in 2009 and 2010
- And the champ of both WKN and WMC Muay Thai championships
This dude’s got more belts than a department store!
Rob Kaman
Alright, now buckle up for a ride down memory lane with Rob Kaman, the original Dutch Master of Kickboxing, fresh outta the world-famous Mejiro Gym in Amsterdam. Picture the late 70s and 80s, when hair was big and the shorts were short. Kaman was right there, learning the fine art of face-pummeling from the Godfather of Dutch Style himself, Jan Plas.
This dude stacked up 9 world titles in both kickboxing and Muay Thai like a boss. He was so good at kicking, people started to think his legs had a personal vendetta against the rest of the world. Seriously, 9 of his fights ended with his opponents whimpering on the floor from his savage leg kicks. Dude was more dangerous with his feet than a grumpy mule.
Before turning into the Kickboxing King, Kaman was all about soccer, playing for Ajax FC – yeah, that top European club where the players are as graceful as ballet dancers and tougher than a two-dollar steak. His soccer days were what gave him the lethal legs that would become his kickboxing trademark.
At sweet sixteen, he made the switch to kickboxing, showing the world what those thunder thighs were really capable of. He was a pro for a whopping 20 years, before he hung up his gloves in 1999 with a record that would make any boxer green with envy: 97 wins (77 of which were knockouts, mind you), and only 12 losses. What a guy!
Ramon Dekkers
The late, great Ramon Dekkers was a pioneer of Dutch style kickboxing and is without a doubt an all time great. Ramon “The Diamond” Dekkers was the Mike Tyson of kickboxing. His ferocious style would have his opponents defeated before the fight even started
- Fight Record: 186-36-2
- Nickname: The Diamond
- Fighting Style: Dutch Kickboxing
- Country: Netherlands
- Championships: 8
From when the bell rang until the end of the round, Dekkers would not stop coming. Throwing an array of punches and kicks that were all power shots.
Unfortunately we lost Ramon too soon, but his legacy lives on as he influenced numerous fighters to start kickboxing.
Ernesto Hoost
Another pioneer of Dutch style kickboxing is Mr Perfect Ernesto Hoost. Along with Dekkers, Ernesto put the world on notice that Dutch kickboxing was a force to reckon with.
- Fight Record 99-21 (62KOs)
- Nickname: Mr Perfect
- Fighting Style: Dutch Kickboxing
- Country: Netherlands
- Championships: 22
Hoost is tied with Semmy Schilt for the most K1 Grand Prix title wins of all time. Nobody quite did it the way Ernesto did. Mixing together top tier Muay Thai and pro boxing together to make the Dutch style.
It’s also not only his accolades in the ring that make him an all time great. It’s his influence.
Fighters like Verhoeven and Overeem may have never started fighting without Hoost. He, like Dekkers, is idolized in the Netherlands and has the utmost respect in kickboxing.
What do you think? Who’d I miss? Kickboxing is one of the most exciting sports around, and I hope you enjoyed this list of some of the best kickboxers of all time. If watching these fighter’s highlight reels doesn’t get you amped up, nothing will!
Source: https://t-tees.com
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