I don’t think there has been a sports kickboxing game since the days of the legendary Japanese promotion K-1. It’s a real shame too, especially when there is so much that could be done with it. Today I’m going to talk about my own personal pitch for a kickboxing game that wouldn’t just please kickboxing fans but would also just function as a great game on its own.

As a pre warning, today what you’re essentially going to hear is the fighting equivalent of that super cool possible Marvel game where you get to play as everyone… oh wait, that actually happened.

Well where’s my kickboxing game!?

 

First let’s talk about the career mode and how it relates to the roster. UFC games have their roster of fighters who are under contract exclusively with them. However this is not the norm in combat sports; kickboxers will fight for lots of different shows and promotions the same way that boxers do and while there are organisations like K-1, which was hugely popular, fighters would come and go in between those shows.

The reason for this is because kickboxing doesn’t typically pay very well, not unless you’re a big superstar, because of this I personally like the idea of being able to fight in lots of different organisations, similarly to how in UFC Undisputed 3 you could fight in both the UFC and Pride, and how in EA Sports MMA (which had fantastic ideas in its career mode but suffered from the combat being awful) you had a large variety of options of where to fight over the course of your career.

My own personal picks would be:

K-1

Glory

WKA

Thai Stadiums

 

Now for those of you who are not in the know, the differences between these organisations are quite important. K-1 and Glory are the most similar, being big promotions with rule sets that allow limited clinching and low kicks. The Thai stadiums are for full Muay Thai rules fights. In Muay Thai there is a heavy emphasis on elbow and knee strikes while grappling that is not allowed in kickboxing (for the most part). WKA, which is a sanctioning body, historically sanctioned a lot of bouts in which low kicks were not allowed at all.

Having these rule sets all playable would not only open up the options for the roster of fighters (fighters from Glory and K-1 as well as Muay Thai legends and classic full contact kickboxers) but it would also be very easy to implement in game.

Incorporate a stand up fighting system similar to UFC Undisputed 3 in which you’re able to strike and clinch with total control over your strike variety, and using the right analog stick to advance through the clinch. From there, just change the controls depending on what rule set you fight in. If you clinch Muay Thai style in K-1 expect to be broken up after a short amount of time, if you clinch in WKA rules expect to be broken up immediately. If you low kick, elbow or knee in a rule set which you’re not allowed to you would have a point deducted, but you would also have some benefit in that your opponent would have been damaged giving you the option to fight dirty if you’re confident you can get the knock out.

I personally like this format because you’re not necessarily being limited; you’re being expected to fight by the rules the way a fighter would. Rob Kaman, who was known for his low kicks, fought under no-low-kick rules and followed those rules, so you can do the same, or cheat. The choice is yours.

The presence of these different rules would give you more options for role playing in career mode. Where did your fighter start out? Where they fighting in Thailand under Full Thai rules? In Europe or Japan under kickboxing rules? You could pick your starting rule set and choose to fight or avoid other rule sets the way real fighters do. For example you could start off in Thailand fighting full Thai rules and then go into Japanese kickboxing the way K-1 Legend Buakaw did.

If you choose to fight under rules you’re not familiar with you would have to change your training routine to suit them. Your punching power and hand speed stat may be low and need to be tuned up in order to be more competitive in kickboxing as opposed to Muay Thai for example. The training exercises I would ideally include would be ones not unlike what we see in other video games; heavy bag rounds, pad rounds, cardio and strength and conditioning exercises, not to mention sparring drills. The option to train with real life kickboxing coaches such as Cor Hemmers, Thom Harrinck and Lucien Carbine (or gyms like Sitsongpeenong and 13 Coins) would be equally awesome, each gym could teach you knew techniques suck as flying knees, spinning kicks, new clinch techniques etc.

Finally though this brings me to the roster, who would your opposition be? Who would you be able to play as? Well with my idea of having multiple organisations you would be able to fight against fighters from all across the world of kickboxing. Much like EA’s Fight Night series actual licensed fighters from real life would serve as the tough competition as you advance more through the career mode, before that you would be fighting characters that are made with the create-a-fighter mode.

So, my personal roster? It’s one that would make kickboxing fans cream and non kickboxing fans that are still bearing with me through this article scratch their heads. Well here they are from the heavier fighters to the lower weight fighters (with the overall ratings I’d suggest based on my own subjective opinions that have no real science behind them whatsoever, many will disagree with me):

 

Heavy Fighters

Semmy Schilt 95

Remy Bonjasky 92

Peter Aerts 92

Ernesto Hoost 94

Jerome Le Banner 90

Mirko Cro Cop 88

Bob Sapp 70

Badr Hari 90

Daniel Ghita 86

Alistair Overeem 86

Musashi 82

Kyotaro 82

Akebono 54 (Hey, we could include him as a joke at least)

Ewerton Texeira 85

Tyrone Spong 92

Rico Verhoeven 88

Gohkan Saki 92

Saulo Cavalari 88

Artem Levin 94

Simon Marcus 92

Joe Schilling 89

Alex Pereira 88

Jason Wilnis 88

 

Lower Weight Fighters

Masato 94

Buakaw 94

Andy Souwer 90

Albert Kraus 90

Mike Zambidis 88

John Wayne Parr 90

Giorgio Petrosyan 96

Yoshihiro Sato 88

Artur Kyshenko 89

Yodsanklai Fairtex 96

Gago Drago 85

Andy Ristie 89

Robin Van Roosmalen 89

Davit Kiria 88

Sittichai Sitsongpeenong 90

Saenchai 98

Pakorn 94

Pornsaneh Sitmonchai 88

Nieky Holzken 90

Joe Valtellini 89

Raymond Daniels 86

Karapet Karapetyan 85

Yuta Kubo 90

Masaako Noiri 90

Mosab Amrani 88

Gabriel Varga 89

 

Kickboxing/Muay Thai Legends

Samart Payakaroon 98

Sagat 94

Coban Lookchaomaesaitong 90

Sakmongkol Sitchuchok 90

Orono 90

Rob Kaman 92

Ramon Dekkers 92

Dida Diafat 89

Gilbert Ballantine 90

Benny Urquidez 92

Rick Roufus 90

Jean Yves-Theriault 89

Don Wilson 89

Cor Hemmers Not listed for fear he will find me and kill me if it’s not to his liking.

 

A roster like that would please just about everyone (hopefully) and would be more than enough to fill a game. It’s also a roster that wouldn’t be too expensive to acquire either. There would be more to be included but those would be my personal picks.

I haven’t listed proper weight divisions because weight divisions in kickboxing tend to be a mess, but that would be the call of the developers

Let me know what you think, share it around and hope that maybe one day we can pressure a developer into making it a reality!