[4] The STAR ratings helped internationalize the sport by encouraging transnational matchmaking, and by enabling free agent champions such as: Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, Rob Kaman, Stan "The Man" Longinidis, Dennis Alexio, Maurice Smith, Peter "Sugarfoot" Cunningham, Fred Royers, James Warring, Graciela Casillas and Lucia Rijker.
Competitors were ranked according to actual fight outcomes from rated contender bouts as opposed to the traditional opinion-of-the-judges approach.
[4] Kickboxing contests included in the STAR ratings and kickboxing records featured paid professional competitors who fought for a knockout or multi-judge decision with kicks and punches, over timed rounds with rest periods, where strike-and-hold techniques were prohibited and round judging followed the international standard of overall effectiveness.
With the help of John Corcoran, a former PKA events coordinator and editor of "Inside Kung-Fu"’s sister magazine "KICK Illustrated", the STAR ratings expanded into professional kickboxing to pressure the sport’s major sanctioning bodies to rank world contenders fairly, rather than to protect favored champions or to punish less favored contenders.
STAR discontinued its tournament ratings at the end of 1981 and dissolved as an organization in 1989 before the start of the mixed martial arts movement.