Examines the fighting styles of some of the world's finest traditional fighters. Packed with over 2,000 breathtaking clips, recorded at major national and international events worldwide. The footage is unique and covers a time frame between the early 1970s up to the late 1980s. The vast majority of this material is Shotokan based and includes most of the world champions across those particular years, especially Brennan - Hall - Christopher - Best and many other top continental European fighters. You will never again see this kind of combat: most of these events were judged using the FAJKO system of adjudication, which basically meant 'last man standing wins' and quite often this level of savage contact resulted in serious injuries. The introduction of the WUKO system of kumite judging changed competition fighting from combat to point scoring between athletes and although this was inevitable, it sadly reduced the highly-charged excitement of championship fighting and, of course, crowd size as well. It is not uncommon these days to hear people decry traditional karate as being ok in the Dojo but little use in a real situation... well, once you have seen some of this footage, you will seriously question that kind of statement.
|