Punches

The jab is the most-thrown punch in kickboxing and the least appreciated, because most of its work is invisible. It measures distance, interrupts entries, hides the shots behind it and — critically in a sport with leg kicks — establishes the head as a threat so the opponent's guard stays up and their weight stays back. A kickboxer with no jab is a kickboxer whose low kicks arrive alone and get checked.

The cross is the rear-hand straight, and in kickboxing it is the punch that most often ends a fight without a kick being involved. It travels from the rear guard along the shortest line to the chin, driven by the rear foot pivoting, the hip rotating and the shoulder following — a kinetic chain that starts at the floor and arrives at the fist.

The lead hook comes around the side of the guard on a horizontal arc, and it is the punch that most reliably finds a fighter who is defending straight lines. In kickboxing it carries an additional role: it is the standard partner of the head kick. Both arrive from the same side on a curved path, and a guard adjusted for one is out of position for the other. Alex Pereira's left hook and left head kick are the modern textbook case — the hook establishes the reflex, the kick arrives above it.

The liver shot is a hook or uppercut landed under the right side of the ribcage, into the soft tissue below the floating ribs where the liver sits. It is one of very few strikes legal under every ruleset including Kyokushin knockdown, because it does not touch the head, and it is the reason body punching survives in codes that otherwise look nothing alike.

The overhand is the rear hand thrown over the top of the opponent's guard on a looping downward arc, arriving where a straight cross cannot reach. It exists because guards are built to stop straight lines, and a punch that travels over the lead hand rather than through it bypasses the whole structure.

The spinning backfist turns the body away from the opponent and brings the back of the fist around on a horizontal arc, arriving from a direction the guard is not built to cover. It is legal in every ruleset that permits head punches, and it is one of the few techniques that reliably scores against a disciplined, high-guard opponent — because the guard is designed to stop what comes from the front.