Long reigning as president of global kickboxing organization WAKO, Italian academic Ennio Falsoni presents his view of kickboxing history. Find out what drove him away from karate kata and into contact sports.

During the best days of WAKO and PKO, two fighters consistantly dominated the lighter divisions. One was American Troy Dorsey who was the King of -57 Kg division from 1983 until 1990 in both, semicontact and fullcontact winning WAKO world titles in London and Munich. One division up, German Michael Kuhr of Berlin won world titles and nationals in fullcontact and light contact. Both were accomplished boxers with Kuhr winning Bundesliga matches in Germany and Dorsey fighting for professional world titles in various weight divisions. It was a dream of American promoter Michael H. Anderson to match up these two great fighters.

George was a pioneer of martial arts who was unparalleled in his skills and devotion. His roots date back to the 50ies when he started training self defense based on JuJutsu, a European version of Jiu Jitsu. Driven by curiosity he observed US-American soldiers stationed in occupied West Germany training Taekwondo and Karate. He started learning this new, modern way of Oriental combat. One of the best known American instructors was Mike Anderson. George heard about Anderson’s exceptional skills and traveled to Garmisch Partenkirchen – around 700 Km south of West Berlin – every weekend to learn the art of Taekwondo. Both became friends and partners who were instrumental in changing the landscape of martial arts in Europe.