Promoter Laco Villanueva was the composer of this event but his mother Fabiola was the clear conductor. She had her entire family and a cache of loyal parents and volunteers working to make sure that the event ran smoothly. Results were accurate and everyone got what they needed quickly. Rumors have it that Laco Villanueva has a martial arts school the size of a convention center and the support from his school alone gave credence to that theory.

El Paso is located right on the border with Mexico and although there was plenty of support from across the border, a bit of unrest prevented all the support that had been expected. However, plenty competitors from the NBL WestPac National conference made the journey to face the locals and those from south of the border who were able to attend. The forms and weapons competition played opening number to the true love of the south - fighting. Joshua Durbin was definitely the favorite going into the competition with plenty of wins under his belt in adult forms and weapons but a rare appearance by Darrell "Gandhi" Lewis meant there would definitely be some challenges. Durbin got shut out of the weapons divisions when Nick Schneider of Team Straight Up got it together and performed superbly to win the men's creative weapons competition. Lewis won the men's musical competition with his kamas. Durbin had to make-do with wins in the men's creative and musical forms divisions at this event.

Laco Villanueva's Team Alchemy specializes in continuous and point sparring and the team made that clear with a ton of junior wins in continuous sparring. Team Alchemy first started with a nice win over Team PKKA in boys team sparring. Sergio Razo, Orlando Colon and Dan del Valle had no trouble with their victory and will be a nice contender for boys' team sparring at the end-of-year Super Grands. It was then a Team Alchemy schooling session in youth continuous divisions. The final fights for many of the youth continuous divisions were held on stage in the finals and it was an El Paso evening. Jesse Martinez started it off for Alchemy with a win in the tiny fighters' division, he defeated team mate Raul De Avila. Chance Maxwell kept it up in the next weight class with a win over Team Langley's Erika Slade of Houston. Sergio Razo pulled off a narrow one point victory over California's Bobby Seronio III. Benjamin Hernandez of Team Alchemy dropped some sweet cartwheel kicks on Drew Beatty and managed a one-point victory in the 88 pound and under division. Daniel del Valle got two wins in the finals, one over Curtis McNeil in his continuous division and the second over Miguel Soto for the boys 14-15 point sparring competition. Team Alchemy topped off the evening with a win by Stephanie Rosales in the girls' lightweight continuous sparring as Rosales defeated Taylor Maudlin of California.

The fighting wasn't all about Alchemy! There was a nice showing from Utah and Breanna Smedley of Team Pinnacle in Utah took home a two point victory over Nicole Grabe of Idaho in the girls' middleweight continuous division. Daniel Talamantes of New Mexico was successful in his bid against Karina Perea of Team Alchemy in the youth 99 pound and under continuous division. Nevada's Karl Bettencourt emerged victorious after a heated exchanged with Josue Guerrero of Top Team while Conner Cordova of Colorado's Team PKKA held off the high kicks of Juan Gonzalez of Mexico to win in the 143 and under junior continuous division.

Teammates Isaac Padilla and Lorenzo Silva put on a show in the boys 12-13 point sparring final round with Silva winning with a 3-1 victory. Ashlee Grant is growing up fast and still fighting hard as she took on Narda Beas of Mexico. It would be Grant with the 8-2 win.

Although the night time finals highlights the top competitors at an event, sometimes you need to see the daytime eliminations to really understand the importance of the finals' performances. Although he wasn't in the finals for men's sparring, during the daytime eliminations, Deandre Walker put on an incredible show in the men's middleweight division. He first opened against Justus Lawrence with a beautiful kick to Lawrence's face and then went on to defeat the unnaturally flexible Lawrence by a score of 11-9. Walker hung on to the very final fight with a last second kick to Josh Horwege's head to win that round 9-8. It was Joshua May of Team FMA that finally put a stop to Walker in the final round with an overtime win of 7-6.

Don't count the executive fighters out when it comes to excitement. David Coppock is a large man - but he's a large man with enthusiasm and deceptive speed. Coppock is over 45 but he still enters just about every division he is eligible to compete in and he's certainly not intimidated when he has to compete against the younger players. In the 45 and over men's heavyweight division, Coppock showed his stuff, ending the division by clobbering Shannon Apple with a massive ridgehand to take first place with a 5-4 score. Coppock went on to defeat Alexander Hutchinson of Team FMA to go to the stage to face the formidable Damon Gilbert for the 35 and over men's grand championship title.

Gilbert had his own dramatic saga going on during the eliminations. He won his 35 and over division to move to the stage for the senior grand championships. He also won the 18-34 year old division and had an opportunity at a second grand championship - but so did Jose Pacheco, another historic executive figure. This time Gilbert conceded to Pacheco and Pacheco moved into the finals along with Kyle Richards, Willie Hicks and Joshua May to fight for the men's sparring grand championships.

The grand concerto which was the Battle of the Champions, took a brief intermission on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. to prepare for the grand finale. No, competition didn't just stop - instead, competition was actually over - at 5:00 p.m. That's right, somehow Villanueva managed to keep the event moving at a steady pace all day and finish with enough time for a rest and dinner before the night show.

The night show opened with a great breaking demonstration by Mike Spizzuco, the youth breaking winner from Friday evening. Team PKKA also provided some demonstration entertainment during the finals with their team form routine that won the team form division.

The kids had four grand championship competitions in forms and weapons. In the junior choreographed musical forms competition, it was all California and Mexico on the stage. Jamie Nakamura has grown tremendously and is starting to gain in strength and creativity. Little Jacob Ellis is also getting stronger as he grows and although Juan Gonzalez had an unfortunate bad landing on a trick, his routine will definitely get high scores at the year-end finals. However, it was little Mackensi Emory with her acrobatic skill who managed the grand championship this evening.

Emory was back in the junior choreographed musical weapons grand championship but she couldn't manage a second win. Earlier in the day she did manage to destroy her new cell phone with her kamas however - whoever said those weapons are just for demonstration? Her challengers were Jordan Simon and Anthony King. King has been improving steadily throughout the years but Simon is the one to beat for weapons in the NBL. Simon's musical bo performance had the judges drooling and he got the top scores.

The kids also had two traditional grand championship chances. In the junior Japanese forms grand championship, Jordan Simon was back. He was joined by Adryanne Angat of California and Damian Marquez of Mexico. Angat got a lot of cheers as the pint-sized black belt showed excellent stances and rarely seen extreme power in her little 8-year-old techniques. However, Marquez was super-intense and had wonderful stances and punches that put him into the top spot for the judges. In the junior Korean forms grand championships, high kicks are a definite benefit and Karina Hipolito used her crazy flexibility to wow the judges and the audience as she jumped into the winner's circle. Hipolito's challengers were Jacob Ellis and Sergio Calva of Mexico.

The kids' grands went without a hitch and the adult contemporary forms grand championship was similar. Joshua Durbin had two bites at the apple with wins in two different divisions. He was facing Ashley "Mocha" Davies and Roark Hodson. Durbin's martial arts tricks and speed left little to chance and he took the win handily.

Damon Gilbert had no problem winning the men's 35 and over sparring grand championship against David Coppock. The final 10-2 score said it all.

In the adult traditional weapons and forms grand championship, Scott Wu had three chances. He won in men's Japanese, adult Kenpo and adult traditional weapons during the daytime eliminations. The grand champion line up was completed with Daniela Barrientos, Camille Deloach and Andrew Cabilan. It was Wu's Japanese performance that won his title during this finals. After that, it was time for some interesting riffs in this tournament concert.

The adult contemporary weapons grand championship was the first movement. Nick Schneider got his first chance at an NBL grand championship as he faced Darrell Lewis, Ashley Davies and Roark Hodson. Lewis was the hometown hero - representing Team Alchemy - but Schneider was focused and on the ball this time. As the scores were read, Lewis received nearly all 9.99s and Schneider was certain he had lost but when the judges showed their scores, there were three 10s on the cards and Schneider not only held onto his bo but got the victory this night.

Women's point sparring was another phenomenon. New adult Shavaun Langley was on stage for her debut in a grand championship and she faced senior fighter Camille Deloach. Langley started strong but with the cheers of her coach and supporters, Deloach made a great come back, scoring with a few blitzes to get a final point as time ran down and her first grand championship title. Needless to say, Deloach was ecstatic as she cartwheeled across the stage before receiving her award.

More sparring hi-jinks awaited the fans in men's team sparring. It was the Bay Areas Best line up of Willie Hicks, Deandre Walker and Damon Gilbert against Team FMA's Joshua Pittman, Joshua May and Michael Jefferson. In round one, Pittman started out with the lead but Hicks finally got warmed up and finished the round with a tied score of 4-4. Joshua May and Deandre Walker had already met during the daytime eliminations and this time Walker ended up getting the better of May with a 7-6 win to put Team FMA up by one point. The final round between Gilbert and Jefferson is where it all went nuts. Jefferson started strong, scoring first on Gilbert and Gilbert responded with some hard hits and a late hit. After that, the crowd was not having it when Gilbert threw a couple more hard hits on Jefferson. Jefferson was rocked by one blow and awarded a point. When the center referee started the match again, Gilbert went on the attack and this time the response was a disqualification. This was the first disqualification Gilbert had ever experienced in his career and he was none too happy about it. It would be Team FMA with the win.

With Kyle Richards and Willie Hicks in the men's sparring grand championship semi-finals, no one paid close enough attention to the other bracket with Joshua May and Jose Pacheco. Richards turned it on and fought with few tricks and many smarts against Hicks. He had a 5-1 lead early in the match and Hicks came back to within one point with 13 seconds left. Richards scored again to go up by two and held on to win and move into the final match. In the Pacheco versus May match, Damon Gilbert was Pacheco's coach and gave his opposing coach (Ernest Frohm of FMA) the eye. Pacheco was down by a point with 16 seconds left but two kicks by Pacheco put him in the lead for good and moved him into the final match against Richards.

After the way Richards fought Hicks, everyone was expecting him to take the grand championship against Pacheco but Pacheco has lots of experience and he knows how to win. Pacheco resorted to leg pumping that stymied Richards. Richards couldn't get past the leg. Both fighters were frustrated by the judges not calling much but in the end it was to Pacheco's advantage as he ended with a 2-1 lead and the win!

With that, the Battle of the Champions played its last notes and came to an end. The nearby pizza joint had its best night ever that evening with a multitude of pizza being delivered to the tournament hotel. Overall, the event was relaxing and pleasant and a nice way to spend a July weekend. Congratulations to all the champions and participants and great job to the promoter and his family for orchestrating a fun event.