Remembering Hilary J. Sandoval III: Martial Arts Promoter, School Owner, and Industry Pioneer

In Memoriam: Hilary J. Sandoval III, promoter, school owner and industry pioneer, El Paso

Hilary J. Sandoval III promoted his first professional kickboxing card in El Paso at eighteen, with a twelve-year-old brother as his partner, and went on to stage world title fights across Texas and Arizona before turning promoter’s instincts into a chain of karate schools. Black Belt magazine reported his death on September 30, 2026. This is the record of what he built, and of what we could and could not confirm.

Disclosure. Stephen Oliver, the publisher of Martial Arts Professional, knew Hilary Sandoval personally. This profile is written from the public record, not from his recollection.

Name: Hilary J. Sandoval III
Home: El Paso, Texas
Known for: Professional kickboxing promotion, 1970s–1990s; the ABK (America’s Best Karate) schools in El Paso, from 1988
Death: Reported by Black Belt magazine on September 30, 2026. Date, age and cause have not been made public.

How did Hilary Sandoval start promoting?

Young. By the account in his own published biography, which Black Belt repeats, Sandoval promoted his first professional kickboxing event a few months after graduating from high school, aged eighteen, in partnership with his younger brother Tony, who was twelve. That made the Sandoval brothers, as Black Belt puts it, among the youngest promoters professional martial arts has seen. They worked out of El Paso, a city that produced its own champions in the sport: the world super lightweight champion Cliff Thomas was an El Paso fighter who began training there in 1972.

In 1980, according to the same biography, Sandoval promoted the first nationally televised world kickboxing championship held in Texas. We have not found the broadcast record that would confirm the network and the bout, so that claim is his, as Black Belt reports it.

What happened in July 1981?

On the night of Thursday, July 23, 1981, a single-engine Piper Comanche flying from Texas to Atlantic City came down near Gainesboro, Tennessee. All four people aboard were killed; an FAA official suggested a thunderstorm in the area may have caused the crash. The dead included Tony Sandoval, nineteen, who was travelling as a cornerman, and Demetrius Havanas, thirty-two, the Dallas lightweight ranked number one in the world and one of Cliff Thomas’s instructors. They were on their way to Thomas’s world title defence against Paul Vizzio, set for the next night.

The fight went ahead. On July 24, 1981, Thomas beat Vizzio by technical knockout in a bout broadcast on NBC’s SportsWorld. Black Belt writes that it was Hilary and Thomas who decided, together, to go on with it. He had lost his brother and business partner the night before.

What did he build as a promoter?

After 1981 Sandoval took his promotions beyond El Paso, to Phoenix, Dallas, Midland and Houston. His biography credits him with working with or promoting twenty-one world champions over his career, a figure we report as his own. His cards were built as events, not just fight nights: the special guests his biography lists include Chuck Norris, Cynthia Rothrock, Ernie Reyes Jr., the heavyweight Randall “Tex” Cobb, the football walk-on Rudy Ruettiger and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.

His biography and Black Belt both describe him as one of the original founders of the International Sport Karate Association, formed by promoters and former PKA executives after the Professional Karate Association collapsed. ISKA’s own history, and the standard reference accounts, name five first directors when the association was announced on July 16, 1986: Mike Sawyer, Karyn Turner, Tony Thompson, John Worley and Scott Coker. Sandoval is not among them. He may well have been among the promoters who backed the new body at its start; we could not find a document that shows it, and we print both accounts.

How did he become a school owner?

In 1988 Sandoval opened his first martial arts academy, with the support of the forms champion George Chung, who had developed the brand in California with Cynthia Rothrock. The Sandoval family built it into the ABK schools of El Paso. The business still operates in West El Paso as ABK Martial Arts, America’s Best Karate, and says it has served the city since 1988.

It was a move many promoters of his generation never made. Promotion is a business of single nights: a gate, a broadcast fee, a sponsor, and then the next card. A school is the opposite, a business of monthly members and years-long relationships. Sandoval did both, and the schools outlasted the era of televised kickboxing that made his name.

What did his colleagues say?

The fullest tribute so far came from George Chung, his partner in the schools, writing in Black Belt. Chung placed him in the generation of promoters who built professional martial arts before today’s large combat-sports platforms existed, and described a man who believed in the arts enough to create opportunities for others. We would welcome the recollections of the fighters, officials and students who worked with him, and will add them here.

What a school owner should take from Hilary Sandoval

Events build audiences; schools keep them. Sandoval spent his twenties filling arenas and his thirties building schools, and the schools are what lasted. Every owner who runs a tournament, a demonstration or a fight night should ask the question he answered in 1988: where do the people who came tonight go next month? An event that does not feed an enrolment path is a cost. One that does is the cheapest marketing a school can buy.

Guests sell tickets that fights alone cannot. His cards put Chuck Norris and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders in the same building as the fighters. Bringing in people the public already knows remains the quickest way to put new families through the door.

Related profiles

Sources, and what we could not confirm

His death. Reported by Black Belt magazine, “Remembering Hilary J. Sandoval III, a Pioneer of Professional Martial Arts,” by George Chung, September 30, 2026. No family announcement or formal obituary had been published when we wrote this, so his date of death, age, cause of death and survivors are not given. We will add them when the family makes them public.
His career. Most of the career detail — the first promotion at eighteen, the 1980 televised championship, the twenty-one world champions, the guest list and the ISKA founding role — comes from his own published biography (CelebrityPress), which Black Belt follows closely. It is a promotional record and is labelled as his account throughout.
ISKA. ISKA’s own history names Sawyer, Turner, Thompson, Worley and Coker as its first directors, with the founding announced on July 16, 1986. Sandoval’s founding role is not documented there. Both accounts are printed.
The 1981 crash. UPI, July 24, 1981, which names the four dead, gives Tony Sandoval’s age as nineteen and his role as cornerman, and reports the flight’s destination. The date of July 23 follows UPI’s account of a Thursday-night crash and Havanas’s recorded date of death. Thomas’s July 24 win over Paul Vizzio and the NBC broadcast follow the standard reference account of Thomas’s career.
The schools. ABK Martial Arts (America’s Best Karate), El Paso, which states on its website that it has served the city since 1988; George Chung’s role, per Black Belt.
This profile is short on purpose. It is calibrated to what the record supports. We have not found contemporary newspaper coverage of his promotions, and we have not used recollections we could not attribute.