On Friday night, a tall, lanky blonde haired kid approached us and asked if we remembered him. We looked him up and down but really couldn’t place him although his face looked familiar. He then said “I’m Cass Sigmon” and the memories flooded back. Sigmon was a top NBL competitor who we last saw at the 2003 NBL Super Grands where he won a title in traditional forms. Now, five years later he is back and much bigger with a focus on sparring - even though five years ago he did forms, weapons and sparring. Although Sigmon said he stopped training completely for 3 of the years he was out, he has certainly been back in the gym lately as he came out on top in the boys 16-17 point sparring division after defeating the talented Jason Albini from California.

Sigmon wasn’t the only phoenix at the event. Nick Bateman, who has been absent from competition for a couple years competed with his bo. Bateman didn’t get to the stage for anything but placed in the top 3 of his divisions. After a year off from competition, Adam Lewis returned to show that he is still doing well in the contemporary forms competition. He’s moved up to the big kids division and won the 15-17 choreographed musical forms division to go to stage. Although he was defeated in the grand championships by the cherubic Ryan Young of Canada, watch for Lewis to make some waves at this year’s Super Grands should he elect to compete.

Although he’s never really disappeared, fighter Askia Allison is quite choosy about the events he decides to participate in. This year he was at Kumite Classic along with a contingent of fighters from his training ground - Plowden’s Championship Martial Arts in Detroit. In 2007, Willie Hicks, a Plowden protegee was the overall winner after taking the win in the men’s lightweight point sparring division. History pretty much repeated itself in 2008 as Allison was the lightweight divisional winner and then blitzed his way through a bevy of West Coast fighters to win the men’s overall sparring grand championship, bringing another title home to Detroit.

And to make the weekend even more interesting, we received word that early in the morning of May 23, 2008 (1:55 a.m. to be exact) Casey Nash (formerly Marks) gave birth to her first child - Nathan - with her husband, another top competitor Trevor Nash. If the unusual appearances, births and general atmosphere of the Kumite Classic wasn’t enough, the competition put it all over the edge. A large group of competitors from the West Coast made the long trip to this East Coast event to try and solidify some seeds for the 2008 NBL Super Grands (the NBL world championships for the year). With the Super Grands scheduled to be held in Sacramento, California at the end of the year, the West Coast competitors hoped to assure good seed placement and check out their potential competition.

The West Coast competitors did more than check out their competition, they ate it up in point sparring. Sean Arceo, Jason Holmes, Jamal Albini, Ortice Harper and David Coppock all won their sparring divisions, defeating the local talent. In team sparring, two West Coast teams made it to the stage; No Limits’ Kyle Richards, Jason Holmes and Ortice Harper and Team Proper’s Sean Arceo, Sean Dumlao and Jamal Albini.

The Finals
The 2008 Kumite Classic had a nice smattering of competitors from a few spanish speaking countries. Guatemala’s Schumann Martial Arts team sent a dozen or so adult and junior competitors while a small team from Puerto Rico made an appearance. Puerto Rico’s Zuleima Acevedo brought back the most honors for the foreign competitors with her 10-5 women’s point sparring grand championship victory. Acevedo defeated Katy Lipps of Ohio for the title.

The youth competitors were showcased in weapons, forms and continuous sparring during the finals. Adam Lewis faced off against Amanda Chen and Ryan Young for the junior choreographed musical forms grand championship. Lewis and Young tied after the first go around and were forced to perform again to break the tie. In the second performance Lewis shortened his routine a bit and Young had some music trouble. Young is an interesting story because he hails from Ontario, Canada where extreme and creative forms are not necessarily the most popular martial arts pastime. Nevertheless, Young has come a long way and his win on stage at Kumite Classic proved that southern Canada has a lot of tricks up its sleeve.

Canadian Justin Lanteigne displayed the traditional talent that competitors from that country are known for. His Japanese routine defeated a strong performance by Trevor Blanchard to take the youth Japanese grand championship title for his second year in a row. Mike Spizzuco of New Jersey was the youth Korean grand champion winner giving him coast to coast titles after his win in April at the Golden Gate Internationals in San Francisco.

The West Coast started its drive to dominate in the youth choreographed musical weapons grand championships as Jordan Simon of California faced Silvio Scarcello of Canada. Simon’s ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ routine gets more intense with each passing and he handily defeated Scarcello for the title. Simon was the 2007 winner at Kumite as well making it back-to-back and coast-to-coast grand champion wins in 2008 for Simon after his Pacific Jewel victory in Portland, Oregon.

The kids put on a nice show in the continuous sparring divisional finals on stage. During the daytime, Sean Arceo and James Davidson fought like wild beasts in the boys superheavy weight continuous sparring division and ended with Davidson coming out on top. In the finals, the competitors worked to put on similar shows in the ring.

Nicole Kukieza vs. Kayla Cocco - In this girls’ super lightweight competition the punches and kicks were flying. Kayla took a nice straight punch to the face partway through round that resulted in a penalty point being awarded. When the first round scores were announced, it seemed to spur Nicole on further even though she had the lead. Kayla lost some steam as the second round finished and in the end it was a mere two points that separated the girls with a final score of 63-61 in favor of Nicole.

Nicole Ciesielski vs. Ali Viola - The lightweight girls continuous sparring competition opened with Ali landing a round kick to Nicole’s head. Last year Ali gave away a win by bloodying the nose of her opponent and getting disqualified. This year, Ali still gave away 6 points in the first round due to penalties for face contact but Nicole stayed solid. Ali had nearly a 20 point lead after the first round and kept pummeling away in round two ended the match with a 65-56 win for her.

Colbey Northcutt vs. Shanna Young - Northcutt is an aggressive fighter and in the girls’ middleweight continuous sparring finals she was all over Shanna. However, Shanna landed some very effective ax kicks that put her ahead 56-39 after the first round. Northcutt knew she had to step up the game and was all over Shanna in the second round but her efforts were not quite enough as the match ended with a mere 1 point difference between the competitors with Shanna coming out ahead 98-97. Penaty points made all the difference here.

Nicholas Mich vs. Ethan Martin - The boys in the flyweight continuous sparring division were so small that the center referee nearly threw his back out to bend down and speak with them. When the bell sounded, Ethan went insane and started dishing out punches and kicks like they were going out of style. Nicholas struggled to get a few of his own techniques in while backing up from the rabid attack of Ethan. Ethan’s fists of fury didn’t let up despite his huge lead after the first round. At the end of the second round, it was all Ethan as he took the win.

Robert Turner vs. Nicholas Merlin - It was Virginia versus Canada in the boys middleweight continuous sparring finals. The boys let loose with reverse punches to the face and both received stern warnings from center referee Jerry Roberts. Turner was able to move Merlin back a lot but Merlin never let up and took the lead after round one. The second round looked like a rockum-sockum robots game as the boys worked their punch-punch, round kick combo non-stop. This led to some big point scores and ended with Turner ahead 129-124.

Daniel ‘Twisty’ Pitlock showed lots of raw talent as a little kid and now, all grown up, he is starting to shine. Pitlock dominated the men’s forms and weapons divisions throughout the day and found himself with very few people to compete against for the grand championship titles. In adult contemporary forms, Pitlock faced Ashley Artese. Artese’s routine was very choreographed and lengthy as well. Pitlock elected to go without music and let his performance speak for him - it spoke up loud and clear and gave him his first grand championship title of the evening. Pitlock’s winning spree continued in the adult contemporary weapons grand championship with his defeat of Emily Haward giving Pitlock two titles for the evening and plenty of spending money.

Another Daniel who has grown up in the NBL was also on top in the adult traditional forms and weapons grand championship. The first three competitors in this grand championship, Cody Hackman, Ashley Artese and Scott Wu all tied with their scores. After the scoring of David Coppock, only Daniel Marshall of New York was left to break the tie in the division. The judges gave Marshall’s Korean performance a slight lead for his first grand championship of the year.

The West Coast had a chance to completely clean up in the men’s sparring championships and in men’s team sparring. In team sparring, the West Coast fighters defeated all other teams in the eliminations leaving only California teams No Limit and Team Proper remaining. Kyle Richards and Sean Arceo fought first with Richards wracking up a nice 8-2 score for No Limit. Jason Holmes’ lanky limbs put No Limit even further ahead with his 6-1 defeat of Sean Dumlao. It was all in the hands of Jamal Albini in the final round. Albini, fighting as an adult for the first time in a major tournament, found himself in a pressure cooker. Down by 8 points, Albini knew he had to get to work and opened by scoring 2 points on opponent Ortice Harper. Harper came right back with his own two points. Albini kept up the pressure but Harper held on and kept Albini from running up the score. The final team score was 18-10 in favor of No Limit.

Each year the Kumite Classic gives the audience a chance to see some traditional Japanese style sparring. The competitors in this kind of competition don’t get head gear and foot gear is optional. They must hit super-hard and with a ton of focus to score a point. Besim Murati and Dustin Baldis were the two finalists in the division and met on stage to determine the champion. There was no blood shed in the fight but we got to see a couple blows to the head by Murati that nearly put Baldis on the mat. In the end, Musati won 4-3.

Joey Shiflett and Junior Salientes met once during the daytime eliminations in the 35 and over middleweight sparring division. They met again in the 35 and over men’s point sparring grand championship on stage. Shiflett has some great kicks but Salientes was able to counter just about everything Shiflett threw. Salientes managed 3 spectacular head kicks to solidify his 10-3 win over Shiflett and bring another title back to the west.

All eight men’s 18-34 year old point sparring divisions were represented on stage in the finals. Sean Arceo of California had no trouble eliminating the flyweight Michael Holstein of Oregon to move into the final four. Askia Allison and Jason Holmes spent quite a bit of time sizing each other up in their semi-finals round. Allison played his cards right and managed a 4-2 win. Jamal Albini did well in the daytime eliminations, winning his division in his debut as an adult. He faced Ortice Harper of Oregon on stage as his first challenge and repeated the exact score between the two from their team sparring match-up (7-4 for Albini). CJ Corbin of South Carolina was still high from defeating Team Paul Mitchell’s Travis Plowden during the daytime eliminations. Corbin faced Todd Humes of Erie, Pennsylvania and despite Corbin getting off the line first, Humes was able to score with quick counters that got him a lead that he kept, moving on with a 8-6 score.

Again, patience was the key for Allison in his next match against Sean Arceo. Each of Allison’s techniques was carefully chosen and Allison was very difficult for Arceo to hit. A 3-1 score advanced Allison to the final round. Rookie Albini then faced Humes to see who would meet Allison in the championship round. Albini stayed strong and fought smart to win 5-3 and advance.

In the final fight, it was another measured round as Allison’s patience controlled the fight. Albini managed to put himself into a 2-1 lead as time ticked away but Allison tied it up with nine seconds left in the match. The two exchanged blows again and each was given a point before time ran out. This forced a sudden victory overtime. when the center yelled ‘go’, Allison went high with a back fist while Albini countered with a kid but the kick was too slow as the judges gave the point to Allison to give Allison the victory for the evening.

Allison’s win prevented a west coast sweep in the men’s point sparring divisions. The returning and new faces at the 2008 Kumite Classic definitely set the stage for what looks like it will be an exciting Super Grands in December.