The Story Behind Sidekick Boxing

Daniel Knight was born in Brighton on 12 April 1983 and grew up in Woodingdean, where he attended Rudyard Kipling Primary School before moving on to Longhill School. At that stage, there was little indication that his life would eventually become closely tied to the world of combat sports. But, in a way, the foundations of Sidekick Boxing were already being laid.

Daniel’s mum had always been fascinated by martial arts. She loved Jean-Claude Van Damme films and would often joke, “Wouldn’t it be great to be able to kick arse with the bad guys?” At the time, it was simply something she enjoyed saying. Neither of them could have known that those words would eventually become part of the story behind a global combat-sports brand.

When Daniel was 12, his mum took him along to a kickboxing club. It wasn’t a case of instantly falling in love with the sport. Daniel trained, but kickboxing was simply another part of his childhood rather than something he believed would shape his future. Sometimes, however, the things that eventually define us begin quietly, long before we understand their importance.

Finding His Way Back

For much of his working life, Daniel was a car paint sprayer, eventually building his own business, Auto Colourworx. It was a completely different world from the one he would later occupy in combat sports, but running his own company gave him valuable experience in building something from the ground up.

After eventually making the decision to sell the business, Daniel began thinking seriously about what he wanted to do next. He wanted to create something that wasn’t restricted to one local area and had the potential to grow nationally, and eventually internationally. The idea was to build a business with room to become something much bigger.

At around 23, Daniel found himself returning to the same kickboxing club his mum had taken him to as a 12-year-old. This time, his relationship with the sport was completely different. What had once been something he simply tried became a major part of his life, with Daniel training almost every day and eventually working towards his black belt.

He competed a few times, but fighting itself never felt like his ultimate calling. What had really captured him was everything surrounding the sport: the training, the culture, the equipment and the wider world of combat sports. Daniel didn’t necessarily want to become the fighter. He wanted to build something within the world of fighting.

The Birth of Sidekick

As Daniel worked towards his black belt, the idea of creating a martial-arts business began to take shape. The initial spark came from an unlikely source. His dad returned from a holiday in Thailand and mentioned how inexpensive martial-arts equipment appeared to be there.

It sounded like an opportunity worth exploring, but when Daniel began looking into it properly, he discovered that the equipment wasn’t quite as affordable as it had first appeared. Rather than abandoning the idea, however, the setback pushed him towards a different approach.

If buying and selling somebody else’s products wasn’t the answer, why not create his own?

That meant developing his own equipment, building his own identity and, ultimately, having control over the direction of the business. From that idea, Sidekick was born.

SHOP: Kickboxing Equipment

Building Something Bigger

From the beginning, the ambition was about more than simply selling boxing and martial-arts equipment. Daniel wanted Sidekick to become a recognised name within combat sports, and building that reputation meant finding ways to put the brand in front of as many people as possible.

Products were important, but so were relationships, visibility and sponsorships. Sidekick began working with a range of personalities and fighters, including Andrew Tate and Alex Reid, helping the brand reach audiences beyond the traditional combat-sports market.

When Andrew Tate became the subject of enormous international attention, Daniel recognised the potential to expose Sidekick to an audience far larger than the one it had traditionally reached. The brand subsequently appeared in mainstream media, including Channel 4’s I Am Andrew Tate and Sky’s Doom Scroll: Andrew Tate and the Dark Side of the Internet, alongside coverage in publications including The Sun and Sport.

Whatever people’s individual views of the personalities involved, the underlying strategy was straightforward: put the Sidekick name in front of people and make the brand impossible to overlook.

Losing Mum

In 2022, the story took a deeply personal turn when Daniel lost his mum. She was the person who had first introduced him to martial arts at the age of 12, long before either of them could have imagined where that introduction would eventually lead.

Her death changed the meaning of the journey for Daniel. What had started as a mother taking her son to a kickboxing club had, decades later, become the foundation of the business he had built his life around.

The loss became a source of renewed motivation. That first kickboxing class was no longer simply a childhood memory. It was the beginning of a journey that had taken Daniel from Woodingdean, through a career spraying cars and building Auto Colourworx, back into the gym and eventually towards creating his own combat-sports brand.

The seed his mum had planted all those years earlier had grown into Sidekick, and Daniel was determined to keep building it.

2026: A Global Audience

By 2026, Sidekick had grown far beyond the small idea Daniel first had while working towards his black belt. The brand had established connections throughout international combat sports, including relationships with ONE Championship, while sponsoring high-profile fighters such as Jonathan Haggerty.

But Sidekick’s growth is no longer limited to the boxing and kickboxing world. Social media has become an increasingly important part of the brand’s reach, with Sidekick’s Facebook content recording more than 32 million views in 2026.

That kind of audience is a long way removed from the early days of an idea taking shape in Daniel’s mind. It represents the scale the brand has reached since its beginnings and the possibilities that remain ahead.

Behind those numbers, however, is a story that began much closer to home: a boy growing up in Woodingdean, a mother who loved Jean-Claude Van Damme films, and a kickboxing club that Daniel first entered at the age of 12. From there came a career spraying cars, a business called Auto Colourworx, the decision to start again, a black belt and, eventually, Sidekick.

The Story Continues

The journey from Woodingdean to the international combat-sports scene was not something Daniel could have predicted when he first walked into a kickboxing club as a 12-year-old. He wasn’t a fighter, and he didn’t immediately see the sport as something that would define his life. It was simply something his mum introduced him to.

Years later, after building and selling his first business, Daniel returned to martial arts and discovered a completely different connection with the sport. He realised that his future didn’t necessarily lie inside the ring, but in helping build the world around it.

That realisation ultimately led to Sidekick. What began as an idea became a business, then a recognised combat-sports brand with an increasingly global audience. And after losing the woman who had started the journey with him, continuing to build Sidekick took on an even more personal meaning.

The story that began with a kickboxing class in Woodingdean is still being written.

This is the story behind Sidekick Boxing.