Pete Cunningham (kickboxer)

Pete Cunningham (kickboxer)

Peter "Sugarfoot" Cunningham is a retired Canadian kickboxer and martial arts actor.

Peter, like many others, wanted to train in the martial arts after watching Bruce Lee movies. His professional kickboxing career spanned 18 years, where he became a 7-time, undefeated world champion, and in 1998 became the first inductee into the ISKA Hall of Fame. Cunningham got the nickname "Sugarfoot" because of his extremely fast and technical kicking abilities. He also incorporated boxing hand techniques, defense and footwork into his style, and held a 10-4 record as a professional in that sport.

Cunningham retired from kickboxing, with a record of 50-0-1 record, 21 KO's, after defeating Dida Diafat (in a rematch) in June 1996, by decision, in Paris, France.

Peter Cunningham authored the definitive kickboxing training manual, "Civilized Warring: Fundamental Kickboxing Techniques" (with Robert Mickey) in 1996.

When opportunities in kickboxing started to become scarce in the mid-1980s, Peter made the transition into working as an actor in both film and television. In his first role, Cunningham (as lightweight champion fighter Frank Peters) faced off with action star Jean-Claude Van Damme in the 1985 martial arts film, No Retreat, No Surrender. He was also featured in the 1986 Yuen Biao/Corey Yuen film Righting Wrongs. Additionally Peter guest starred opposite David Carradine on the "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues" television series (1993) and worked on big budget features "I Spy", where he doubled Eddie Murphy (2002), and "The Fighter" (2010), playing the role of Mike 'Machine Gun' Mungin.

Peter is currently a popular kickboxing instructor and coach in the Southern California area.