The story for his character to be a whimp, it's absolutely dumb. The events related to his past, makes him act like a total loser. He's afraid to fight because of what happened to his father, the reason his mother went away. All runs out on the least believable reasons. In martial arts, it is true that you must never use them to attack, only to defend yourself. But in martial arts competitions, the possibility of a hit killing you opponent are high. It depends on the strength and also you can hit or get hitten on a place that's really harmfull.
He's traumatised by the fact that a guy died on a fight competition with his dad. But all the time the make you think that his father killed him on purpose. And that's the part of the story I dislike. His mom is in fact selfish, cause she didn't try at all to help his husband understand that what happened was an accident.