Buakaw Por Pramuk Retires

The martial arts legend Buakaw Por Pramuk has retired. Known for his devastating low kicks and mastery of shin kicks, the K-1 champion and Muay Thai legend has already delivered his retirement statement from both kickboxing AND Muay Thai.

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 This retirement was caused by a rift between Buakaw and his managers. Buakaw felt that too much of his money was being sent towards his training camp and was dissatisfied with his tournament earnings being split up and taken away from him. Due to Buakaw rapidly approaching retirement age anyway, he felt it was in his family's best interest for him to save away money for when he would be too old to compete. His managers disagreed and Buakaw decided to pack his bags.

Buakaw has some of the most feared kicks in the modern martial arts scene

While Buakaw may have a future in the acting field, this recent development has, once again, brought light to the unsavoury world of sport politics and the harm it brings to the sport, the athletes, and the viewers.

However, Buakaw is rumored by many to be preparing an entrance into the American MMA field, but this remains only speculation.

Andy Hug: The Blue-Eyed Samurai

Andy Hug was a Swiss-German Kyokushin Karate practitioner. Known as one of the few to give Mirko Cro-Cop a run for his money, Hug was the 1996 K1 Grand Prix Kickboxing world champion. An often underrated fighter, Hug was one of the top standup fighters of his time, exhibiting excellence in every field, ranging from striking to blocking to footwork and his ability to take damage.

Andy Hug displayed a wide variety of kicks. Although he maintained a Kyokushin or a kickboxing stance when fighting, his kicks were highly influenced by Taekwondo. Hug launched spectacular axe kicks throughout both his Karate and kickboxing career, rising far up over his opponent's guard, and coming down on the shoulder or the head. These kicks had been previously regarded as fairly useless in high level competition due to the precise timing and high speed required to hit a moving target, in contrast to simpler kicks such as roundkicks. Andy also regularly used spinning hook kicks, a technique relatively new to kickboxing, to the legs and head of his opponent. His leg kicks were powerful enough to often end the fight on their own. Andy Hug was one of the few fighters to prove that unorthodox fighting could, indeed, prevail in the ring.