History

In 1994 a few of the members of the then MTBN decided to put a stop to the one-sided policy of the Dutch Kick and Thai boxing organisations.
These members decided that more should be done for the smaller martial arts schools with respect to matches. Partly because they themselves had fighters who didn’t or hardly did get the chance to participate in matches.

That is why they decided to set up their own organization under the name of WPKL (World Professional Kickboxing League). The organization grew quickly and was at first only intended for fighters in the A and B-class. It soon became clear, however, that there was a lot of demand for a solid organization for fighters in the Novice and C-class. The WPKL then decided to take care of fighters in all classes. In addition to operating at national level, the WPKL, based on its world-wide contacts, also started to operate on an international level.

The WPKL experienced a lot of opposition from existing organizations, but its first members, among which were Mousid-Gym, Martial arts school v.d Vathorst, Pattaya-Gym, Beekwilder-Gym, Sports centre Ommoord and Sitan-Gym, kept the faith and together made a strong stand for a breath of fresh air into the Dutch martial arts world to achieve their goal.

Several ambitious promoters presented themselves and organized successful, talked-about events under the WPKL flag, during which top fighters from all over the world participated.

The WPKL has had the best fighters at its events, such as:

Dekkers, Hippolyte, Ballentine, Kassrioui, Ettaki, Simson, Sackmonkhol, Jomhod, Pajonsuk, Veselic, Drago, Yakut, Dede, Ziani, Moris, Najim, Balrak, Vielvoye, Fightin Nordin, Shakuta, Fikri, Spong, Main, Sauer, Lima, de Randamie, Ignashov, Kamel Dajamel, Kraus, Ubeda and many other top fighters.

Despite the fact that a whole lot has changed within the sport since 1994, the WPKL has followed along with all of the developments. The new handbook does not contain Kickboxing anymore and therefore in October 2008 we decided to change the name into WPTBL (World Professional ThaiBoxing League)