The tournament was held in the El Paso Convention Center and Performing Arts Center across from the street from the beautiful Camino Real El Paso Hotel. The humidity of west Texas was excruciating, but that didn't hinder the great competition during the weekend. Walking the short distance to the tournament venue in the heat was the only downfall, but everyone was exhilarated with the air conditioning in the facility. The tournament started at 5:00pm on Friday without hesitation and with the cool air in the convention center - it was time for business!

The men's Japanese/Okinawan and  traditional weapons divisions were the ones to watch on Friday night. Scott Wu and Brandon Bertsch were the veterans of the divisions while Mike Spizzuco and Sergio Calva were first time adults this year. Wu was the victor for the Japanese division but he was followed closely by Bertsch and then Spizzuco. In the traditional weapons division, Wu and Bertsch tied and had to go again. This time it was Bertsch who took the win. Spizzuco took another respectable third place.

Nicole Bentley shocked the audience and her competition as she beat out the tournament favorite, Daniela Barrientos, in the women's Japanese division. Bentley also took the Korean division to truly dominate the traditional realm for women at this event. In the men's Korean division, Nicole's brother Derek Bentley beat out the first year adult competitor Mike Spizzuco.

The men's creative weapons division had some real talent and the main competitors to watch in the division were Josh Durbin, Nick Schneider, and Jeff Langlois. The veteran Josh Durbin was not going home with an easy win. Both Schneider and Durbin tied on the first performance and had to go again. This time Durbin slipped passed Schneider with a win. Schneider was not ready to go home empty-handed as he won the men's choreographed musical weapons division to get a chance on stage to defend his grand championship title from last year.

Sage Northcutt faced tough competition from Mackensi Emory and Peter Timmes in the junior choreographed musical weapons division but he came out as the victor with his kama routine. Jordan Simon won all of his weapons and forms divisions Friday night as expected. For the past year and a half, Simon has been simply unstoppable in the junior weapons divisions. He's now expanding out to creative forms and faring quite well!

In the men's team sparring division, Team GOP didn't get to compete due to Bryan Young's knee surgery. So Team Got um and Team Proper earned berth to the Saturday night finals to duke it out for the title.

In the adult point sparring divisions, Kyle Richards was able to beat out fellow Californian Sean Arceo for the feather weight division. Jason Holmes won back to back fights to take first in the light middle weight division. Jamal Albini didn't have a problem with his competition in the light heavy weight division. Jonathan Garcia gave an upset defeat to Brandon Bertsch in the super heavyweight division. Regina Thompson fought hard against Jessica Covarrubias in the women's sparring competition. Thompson was able to get through to the finals with a win. This set the stage for some exciting final sparring matches for the Battle of the Champion finals.

After energetic competition during the day time eliminations, there was a chance to rest up before heading through the desert climate to the convention center for an evening of finals competition. The competitors who made it to stage were ready to give it their all to the appreciative audience.

The kids started out the night with musical forms. Mackensi Emory beat out her competition, Jonathan Hernandez and Jordan Simon to take the junior choreographed musical forms grand championship title. The adults were on the stage next and Josh Durbin started out nicely by flipping his way to a win over Nancy Alcantar for the adult contemporary forms grand champion title.

Texas loves to fight and the junior continuous sparring matches that made it to the stage were quite intense and full of excitement. Dominic Ruvalcaba beat out Robert Natera with the score of 92 to 69. In the next match, Chance Maxwell gave no chance to let Jesse Martinez surpass him. After the punches and kicks, the score was 94 to 81 and Maxwell was the winner. Bernadette Escalada proved that girls can kick butt as she defeated Ronny Zapata with the score of 87 to 52.

California's Bobby Seronio had a close battle against Utah's Drew Beatty. Beatty slipped under Seronio's close guard to catch a win with a score of 70 to 67. Bradley Norris kicked and punched his way through Javier Estaban as the score came out to 126 to 119.

Out of all of the fights, Sage Northcutt against Chris “Scarface” Montanez was the most bizarre. During the first few seconds of the match, both Northcutt and Montanez rolled off the stage onto the announcer's table. The crowd including our own Jeff Langlois was going wild. After the fight resumed, Northcutt started getting penalties called by the center judge for headlocks. Northcutt tried to dodge the headlock situation, but Montanez kept going head first into Northcutt's arms. From the audience's view, it apparently seemed as if it was Northcutt's doing. Finally the arbitrator came into the ring and made a controversial decision to disqualify Northcutt for excessive headlocks. While it may have been controversial the ruling stood and Montanez went home the victor.

Curtis McNeil dominated his continuous match over Marcos Alcantar with the score of 82 to 46. Leon Jefferson and Jose Lara's match was a close one, but Jefferson prevailed with a score of 94 to 83. Stephanie Rosales plowed her way through teammate Karina Perea and ended with the score of 107 to 81. Ashlee Grant did the same to her opponent, Cecilia Calva, with score of 126 to 85. Colbey Northcutt won by default on the last continuous match of the night when her opponent could not compete, but Northcutt was still suited up and ready to fight if needed.

Men's team sparring matched some of the best adult fighters at the event against each other with Team Got um facing Team Proper. Kyle Richards of Got um faced off against Sean Arceo in round one for a rematch of their point sparring division. Both fighters were quick and careful at the same time. Arceo scored a 2 point head shot on Richards to open, but Richards was able to counter some of Arceo's blitzes. The final score of round one was 2 to 1 with Team Proper leading by 1.

In the next match Julio Castro of Got um fought Jason Albini. Both Bay Area competitors are no strangers to each other and both had already studied the other's fighting style yet they went all out in their kicks and blitzes. Castro was able to come up with 4 points while Albini only got 3. This meant the team score was now tied 5 to 5.

The final match was winner takes all so anything could happen as Jason Holmes faced Jamal Albini. Both players timed each other accurately as if they knew what move the other was going to throw before it even happened. The match was tied as the final seconds ticked down with a 10-10 score. Within the last 7 seconds, Holmes was able to deliver a reverse punch to Albini's side for one point. As time ran out, Got um walked out as the delighted team sparring victors with an 11-10 overall score.
In the junior choreographed musical weapons grand championship, the diminutive Jesse Martinez of Texas faced off against California's much larger Jordan Simon. Simon gave a flawless performance with his bo while Martinez demonstrated some difficult kama technique. In the end, Simon won with perfect scores from the judges of 30.00.

The adult contemporary weapons grand championship had a tough line up of competitors with Josh Durbin, Nick Schneider and Anja Greenhall coming to the stage. Durbin and Schneider's scores were close but this time Durbin was a .01 ahead of Schneider's score. As a result, Durbin walked out with a second grand championship title of the night defeating the 2008 grand champion - Schneider.

The kids were back to fight in the point sparring divisional finals for a few choice divisions. Keyon Allen and Lorenzo Silvar kicked off the point sparring matches for the night as Allen shut out Silvar with the score of 5 to 0 in their fight for the boys 14-15 title. Cecilia Calva was back on stage but this time redeemed herself as she beat Narda Beas with the score of 7 to 2 in her divisional match up for the girls 13-14 title.

Alex Arceo and Leon Jefferson, were able to put on a great show in the 16-17 boys finals. But Arceo was able to overcome Jefferson and walk out as the winner. Colbey Northcutt was back on stage again, but this time had an opponent in the girls 15-17 final match. She gave Maile Mendiola a good fast fight. Northcutt nearly shut out Mendiola with the score of 12 to 2 to take her second title of the event.

The senior men's point sparring grand championship fight looked like a match between David and Goliath, but David was actually Junior Salientes and Goliath was David Coppock. Salientes had the match controlled until a tragic move where Salientes' knee buckled. Being the warrior he is, Salientes tried to continue the match but unfortunately he couldn't continue any longer due to the pain. Coppock won the title by default.

In the junior Japanese forms grand championship, Mackensi Emory, Trevor Kim and Jordan Simon were up on stage. Each competitor had their own distinct strength in their form. Kim had the snaps and breathing, Emory had the sticking kicks and stances, and Simon had the focus and intensity. In the end, the judges gave the win to Emory with the score of 29.97 and she took a second grand championship title for the night.

On stage for the the junior Korean forms grand championship, it was Karina Hipolito, Mara Hipolito, and Colbey Northcutt. All three girls gave outstanding performances and the judges had a real hard time determining the winner. In fact, after calculation, the scores resulted in a 3 way tie! The judges were forced to break the tie between the three young ladies and they chose...Colbey Northcutt as the grand champion.

The adult traditional forms and weapons grand championship saw some familiar faces on stage. It was Scott Wu, Derek Bentley, Nicole Bentley and Brandon Bertsch going head to head. Derek Bentley performed a Korean form to set the standard for the rest of the competitors. Scott Wu upped the notch by performing twice with his Kajukenbo and Japanese forms. Nicole Bentley started with a strong performance but unfortunately she had a slip and then forgot her form so she had to bow out. Brandon Bertsch closed the competition with his bo routine. In the end, the scores were really close between Wu and Bertsch, but Bertsch won by .01 points over Wu with the overall score of 29.97.

Anything can happen in the men's point sparring semi-finals. Kyle Richards was up against Jason Holmes for the first match. Richards seemed to be very vocal during his match, talking and yelling up a storm. The match was very tight between the two. In the end, Richards won with the score of 4 to 3, which advanced him to the final round. He was one step closer to the win - a title he lost in 2008 to the infamous Jose Pacheco in the final round. The next semi-final match was between Jonathan Garcia and Jamal Albini. The winner of this match would face off against Richards in the finals. Like the previous match, this one was a tight one. Albini was able to conquer Garcia with the narrow score of 5 to 4.

Cynthia Arceo was up against Regina Thompson in the women's point sparring grand championship fight. Arceo was able to get some points in at the start of the match but Thompson plowed right through Arceo like a freight train as she finished off the match with a win. Thompson was a very happy person after the win and practically attacked promoter Laco Villanueva with emotion as she received her award!

The last event of the night was the men's point sparring finals. It was Kyle Richards against Jamal Albini. Both Bay Area competitors are obviously no strangers to each other back home, but in the ring they didn't allow any feelings of friendship to prevent them from fighting hard. Richards decided to down some redbull drink before his match and became very animated and even more vocal during his match than he was previously. Richards was even quicker than the last match - perhaps the energy drink did it! The calm Albini kept his cool and control throughout the match. He was able to get a head kick and body shot into Richards. Richards threw some of his lightening fast and hard sidekicks on Albini. Richards' blitzing fury and his kicks ended up earning him a win with the score of 6 to 4, making Richards the men's point sparring grand champion for 2009.

The tournament ended with some great treats for the staff members and audience as the Villanueva family displayed their traditional Texas hospitality. And then everyone filed out into the Texas heat and back to the cooled down tournament hotel for some after-event social time before heading back to the reality of life the next day. Congratulations to all the participants at this fine event and to the promoter and his family for a job well done!