WAKO Amateur World Championships

W.A.K.O. (the World Association of Kickboxing Organizations) held its first amateur world championships in 1978 in West Berlin,^[1] after having previously staged two European championships the two years previously. It followed this with a second world championships a year later in Tampa, Florida. During the 1980s the world championships were held every other year except for in 1985 when a feud within the W.A.K.O. organization led to two versions of the championships being held on the same date – one in London, the other in Budapest.^[2]

In the 1990s W.A.K.O. held its world championships intermittently with at least one every other year although, in 1993 the organization again had a temporary political dispute which like 1985 meant two championships in one year.^[3] Additionally, the outbreak of the Balkan War resulted in the 1995 world championships being moved to Kyiv and in 1997 to Gdańsk.^[4] By the turn-of-the-twentieth-century, the organization began introducing two different world championships every two years - one typically covering forms of kickboxing such as full-contact, semi-contact and musical forms, while the other types such as Thai-boxing, low-kick kickboxing and later K-1 rules. Of late, W.A.K.O. have begun to get involved with the SportAccord World Combat Games, hosting male and female full-contact, semi-contact and low-contact kickboxing competitions at the 2010 event,^[5] with the 2009 world championships (both events) being used as qualifiers.^[6][7]