Football and hockey may help, but a real fighter needs combat sports. So let s start with boxing. Boxing is the combat art of the Western world. Sim ply because boxing works to put an opponent down and out. The fact remains that boxing blows are the most effective ways to end a fight fast, in the ring or on the street.
Street fights are messy, though, and often end up in grappling.
Therefore, boxing, like any style, is necessarily incomplete. Wres tling works especially well for the stocky, heavily built fighter who was never meant for the Asian bal let of spinning side kicks, but whose strength and mass make him murder when the fight comes to grips. If you re dead set on an Oriental style, then I suggest you give judo a try. Through the 1950s, judo was fashionable in combat circles, and every body and his brother called his system judo, no mat ter its real source. Judo is really a kind of Japanese wrestling, and so possesses most of the same advan tages as Western freestyle.