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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9440427">I think boxing might also just be a unique case because amateur boxing is so massive and there are still plenty of platforms for serious competition like the olympics, golden gloves etc. Also amateur boxing and professional are deeply intertwined. If you go to a boxing gym there will be amateur fighters there but also professional, as well as semi-pro. The olympics is one of the things that helps boxing gyms get fresh bloodBut the reason TKD is amateur is there has never really been a successful professional TKD circuit. I would be interested in seeing such a thing, it has been tried, but it never took off.The stork thing is very recent. That would always still happen from time to time in the past (especially if two equally skilled competitors faced off). But the sensors really altered the way matches looked.The rules for taekwondo are a bit different from point karate. My understanding is in point karate, you stop when a point is scored (correct me if this is a misunderstanding). In TKD you can keep kicking and punching the whole round like in boxing or muay thai, and in the past you would do that full force, trying to score but also trying to hurt or knock out the person. You can't punch to the head in TKD (you can only punch to teh chest). But kicks to the head are completely legal and encouraged (they are worth more points). I lost a fight from a shin kick to the nose that sent me to the ground. I was knocked out from a kick directly between the chin and neck. Knocking out an opponent with a head kick is a way to win a match. The not stopping when a point is scored really makes it a different thing IMO (it allowed people to land heavy combos and not stop)The two big things that make TKD not particularly like real fighting are 1) no punches to the head (this has been a long standing rule to preserve the purity of the kicks and define the sport) and 2) the sensors (these are more recent and they have led to a move away from true trembling shock as the criteria for point scoring---I believe trembling shock is still described in the rules I could be wrong, but you can tell watching it trembling shock is not the benchmark, it is just automatic now).The other element is the chest protector. This is pretty bulky, and while I don't have a problem with chest guards, they make you move a little different than you would without them, and they shield your body too much from the impact (I will say though one reason you may need them in TKD is because it is all kicking for the most part, things like spinning back kick counters land with a lot more force than they do in MMA or other forms of kick boxing (because TKD roundhouses are often thrown full body, meaning you pivot 180 degrees into the kick, and the spinning back kick interrupts that full force). There are so many matches at a competition and so many competitions each year for every participant, I imagine there would be a lot more injuries without the chest guard.Also you can't kick the legs in taekwondo (this obviously leads to a lot of standing on one leg that would never happen in a sport where you can just kick out that kick).The only thing I would say here is I tend to agree but I also think you want to protect fighters to the best possible limit without impacting the purity of the sport (and I think what constitutes pure can vary from one combat sport to another depending on what they are trying to do). It is very disturbing when a fighter dies in the ring or shortly after a fight. And every time that happens there are always more calls for bans. So I think it behooves the sports to do what they can to keep the fighters safe. Again avoiding mismatches is a huge part of that, having refs er on the side of caution and stop fights the moment a fighter looks like they are not defending themselves well or getting into trouble, etc. Too many of the boxing deaths I can think of off hand seem to result from fights where one of the fighters demonstrated a lot of heart, but at the expense of their life. So I think moving away from pressure to go the distance would also help. It is still risky, people sign up knowingly but if you force yourself to watch fights when people die (and when I hear about a fight where someone dies I always force myself to watch the whole thing, and usually watch it multiple times so I can understand what happened), you see how fuzzy the line can be, but also how often obvious signs of a problem are missed because the people organizing the fight or the ref, or the doctor, aren't prioritizing the safety of the fighters.</blockquote>

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