During the mid seventies following the explosian of the many Kung Fu movies that had been brought over onto our cinema screens a new sport emerged onto our British soils. The sport had already established itself onto the American market and was making progressive success amongst Martial Artists who were brave enough to put them selves on the line and pitch their gained skills against each other in full contact battle.

It didnt take long before what had been going on over in the states found its way over to British and European soil. Fighters from all over the country eagerly grabbed any opertunity to be a part of what was going on in the hope of making a name for them selves, or somehow catapult their ego’s into someone to be recognised by. The sport was named as Kickboxing or in certain cases it was referred as Full Contact Karate. Never the less what followed from the initial explosian now brought the martial Arts circle into an era that had never been witnessed before nor for that matter practiced. With it names of succesful fighters began to emerge as true stars of the sport and began to appear regularly in the Martial Arts magazines such as Combat, Fighters and Fighting Arts.

Many organisations took hold of the sport and began to promote prominent Kickboxing tournaments up and down the country such as  the B.K.A.   W.A.C.O.   P.K.A.  W.K.A.and the C.K.O.  winning a title in any of the organisations was one thing, trying to hold onto it was another with the constant pressure of the fighters awaiting their turn to challenge for what you had just achieved.

Please take the oppertunioty to take a brief look into the Kickboxing scene of the 70′s,  80′s and the early ninties and follow the story of one fighter who emerged through that mile breaking era   “The Wigan Hammer”  Steve Taberner