American Full-Contact Rules

American full-contact kickboxing was built by karate people, and it shows. Strikes are restricted to above the waist — no leg kicks at all — and fighters wear foot pads as well as boxing gloves. The clinch does not exist as a phase; referees separate on contact. Knees and elbows are illegal.

The rule that most defines the code is the kick minimum. Because early full-contact bouts had a habit of collapsing into ordinary boxing, sanctioning bodies imposed a required number of kicks per round — commonly eight — with penalties for falling short. It is the only major ruleset that legislates for how a fighter must fight rather than only what they may not do.

The restriction to above the waist is also the reason American full-contact fighters struggled badly in the first international meetings. A fighter with no defence against the leg kick, meeting a Thai or Dutch opponent under a rulebook that permitted it, was in serious trouble within a round. Those encounters — most famously Rick Roufus against Changpuek Kiatsongrit in 1988 — did more than anything else to push the American scene toward adopting low kicks.