History
In 1963 there was a competitive match between leading Japanese and Thai instructors, a karate vs muay thai tournament. Japan won the series although two of the Japanese participants Osamu Noguchi and Tatsuo Yamada wanted to create a full-contact sport similar to how muay thai is a sport in Thailand, and they started to create kickboxing. Sawamura was a young karate sports student at high-school and university who won numerous school championships and thought he was the best. He asked his hero Noguchi what he thought and Noguchi replied that the sports version of karate doesn't have the training to win in a full-contact fight and that he would lose if he traveled to Thailand to compete in full-contact.
Sawamura went to Thailand to prove he couldn't lose regardless of the rules because he thought himself to have the samurai spirit. He lost the fight against the Thai fighter in round 2 and suffered three broken rips and needed sixteen months to heal. Disheartened, Sawamura wanted to retrain himself in jujutsu and hold a rematch. Noguchi met with Sawamura while he was healing, and introduced him to Japanese kickboxing. Sawamura decided to retrain in this new martial art under the guidance of Noguchi and won his rematch in Thailand against the fighter who previously knocked him out. He became one of the sports great champions and would help make it popular world-wide, retiring with over 200 knockouts.
Read more about this topic: Tadashi Sawamura
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