Despite the many studies on physical and physiological features of combat sport athletes, there has been considerably less consideration of psychological factors. Here, we present a narrative review of literature related to perceptual-cognitive skill in combat sports that require the athlete to score points by hitting or touching the opponent`s body with the hands, feet or weapon: boxing, French boxing, fencing, kung fu (wushu), karate, taekwondo and other martial arts. Based on a thorough search of literature, we synthesised findings from empirical studies on Reaction Time, Anticipation, Visual Search and Information Pick-up. Contrary to the belief of coaches, there was no clear consensus regarding Reaction Time being a good predictor of success in combat sports. However, consistent with findings from other sports, expert combat sport athletes better anticipate the opponent`s actions based on information perceived before and during the attack. This is likely facilitated by experts using a gaze fixation strategy (i.e., visual pivot) that facilitates information pick-up. In the final section, we present a model that describes how the evolving perception-action relationship between the attacking athlete and opponent depends on distance, attack progression and opponent reaction. Suggestions are provided for training and for future research in combat sports.
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