Kickboxing is the Japanese equivalent of the Korean martial art and like the Korean art; it is also a martial art which combines the effective use of hands and feet. This martial art is mostly seen as a form of combat sport which gained popularity since 1990. Although the sport reached the American audience around the 1970s, it failed to gain much popularity. It was not until the eighties that the sport reached Europe in full force. However, around this time, the sport's popularity dropped among the Japanese crowd. The sport then regained its popularity among the Japanese and among the American and European audience around the nineties, and since then, it is a very popular sport throughout the world.