From Karate Illustrated to NASKA: The History of American Sport Karate Tournaments

NASKA did not create the great American karate tournaments. The tournaments created NASKA. This is the history of open sport karate in the United States, from the first national tournaments of 1963 and 1964, through the full-contact and ratings eras, to the promoters’ compact of 1986 that became the North American Sport Karate Association, and the 38-year presidency of Larry Carnahan that ended in 2026. It explains why the current fight over the NASKA name was, in a sense, built into the organization from the start.

Where did American tournament karate begin?

Open karate competition in the United States began in the early 1960s, when a handful of instructors started inviting other schools to compete under common rules. Four events defined the first years:

• 1963, Chicago: Robert Trias and John Keehan held the 1st World Karate Tournament at the University of Chicago Fieldhouse, generally described as the first national karate tournament in the United States. It became the USKA Nationals and later the USKA Grand Nationals.
• 1963, Dallas: Allen Steen began the Southwest Karate Championships, later renamed the U.S. Karate Championships. By 1973 it drew about 9,000 spectators and was televised on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. See Allen Steen.
• 1964, Washington, D.C.: Jhoon Rhee’s National Karate Championships. J. Pat Burleson won the first, becoming America’s first national karate champion. See Jhoon Rhee and J. Pat Burleson.
• August 2, 1964, Long Beach: Ed Parker’s International Karate Championships, where Bruce Lee gave his famous demonstration. On July 31, 1966, Allen Steen beat Joe Lewis and Chuck Norris there on the same evening. See Ed Parker.

In New York, S. Henry Cho’s All-American Open ran at Madison Square Garden for 23 consecutive years. Competition in this era was mostly “point” karate: stop-and-score sparring, with no protective equipment and inconsistent rules from one promoter to the next.

How did professional and full-contact karate start?

The next decade tried to make karate pay, for fighters and promoters alike.

• February 1968: Jim Harrison held the first World Professional Karate Championships in Kansas City, a heavy-contact event among six top fighters. Joe Lewis won and was paid a nominal purse, which made him karate’s first paid professional.
• January 17, 1970: Joe Lewis knocked out Greg Baines in Long Beach in what is recognized as the first kickboxing bout in the United States.
• 1970, Atlanta: Joe Corley and Chris McLoughlin founded the tournament that became the Battle of Atlanta, described by Black Belt as the first open tournament with full-contact evening finals.
• 1971 to 1973: Mike Anderson created the Top 10 Nationals (1971) and Professional Karate magazine (1972), whose national ratings recognized fighters other publications ignored. His 1973 Top 10 Nationals was the first championship to use Jhoon Rhee’s foam Safe-T equipment, and Allen Steen’s February 1974 championships were the first to require it. See Mike Anderson.
• September 14, 1974, Los Angeles: Anderson and Don and Judy Quine staged the first World Professional Karate Championships, broadcast on ABC. Its champions were Joe Lewis, Jeff Smith, Bill Wallace and Isaias Duenas, and the Professional Karate Association grew out of that night. The full story is in The PKA and Joe Corley.

From the mid-1970s the sport divided into two markets: professional full-contact karate, which became kickboxing, and open “point” tournaments for amateurs and black belts, with forms, weapons and sparring divisions for every age. NASKA grew out of the second.

Who rated the competitors before NASKA?

A national circuit needs a way to decide who is best across many events. Before NASKA, magazines did it.

Black Belt published top-ten fighter lists, the United States Karate Association and the American Karate Association kept points, and Mike Anderson’s Professional Karate published national ratings from 1972. The system that became the direct ancestor of NASKA began in 1977 at Karate Illustrated, under executive editor Renardo Barden. According to NASKA’s own history, the magazine divided the country into twelve regions, published regional ratings, combined them into national rankings of the top twelve fighters with honorable mentions, and later added forms, weapons, women and juniors.

Karate Illustrated also rated the tournaments. NASKA’s account says events were graded on factors including the level of competition, organization, hospitality, punctuality, venue and size. A tournament’s rating determined how many points its winners earned, and in turn how many rated competitors it could attract. That feedback loop, ratings drawing champions and champions giving events prestige, is the engine the whole circuit has run on since.

The magazine ran the ratings for about nine years and dropped them around 1986.

How was NASKA founded?

When Karate Illustrated stopped, the promoters of the top-rated events decided to keep a national ratings system alive themselves. NASKA dates its founding to 1986, when the promoters of eight top-rated tournaments formed the North American Sport Karate Association. The founding events named in NASKA’s history include the AKA Grand Nationals (today’s AKA Warrior Cup), the Battle of Atlanta, the Diamond Nationals, the New England Open, the Ocean State Grand Nationals, the U.S. Capitol Classics and the U.S. Open. NASKA’s registered trademark claims first use on January 1, 1986.

The transition was not tidy. The veteran promoter Richard Plowden has described an interim period in which Glenn Hart’s Professional Karate League tried to continue the ratings, and a split in which a rival circuit, the National Blackbelt League, formed with coverage from Boice Lydell’s sport karate magazine. Plowden also recalls NASKA’s first presidents as Cezar Borkowski of Toronto and then Jim Lantrip, before Larry Carnahan. NASKA’s own history says Carnahan was elected president in 1988; some other biographies say 1990.

The same year, 1986, a separate sanctioning body, the International Sport Karate Association (ISKA), was announced with founding directors including Mike Sawyer and John Worley. The overlap of people across NASKA, ISKA and the major tournaments is a theme of the whole story.

What were the tour’s anchor events?

Others joined as the tour grew, among them the New England Open, Compete in California, AmeriKick in Atlantic City, the Pan American Internationals in Miami, the Quebec Open and the Toronto International Tournament of Champions.

How did NASKA’s ratings and tournament grades work?

NASKA kept Karate Illustrated‘s two central ideas: rate the competitors, and rate the events. The magazine’s letter grades became a scale from 1A to 6A, with World Tour events at the top. In 2017, for example, the AKA Grand Nationals, Compete, AmeriKick, the U.S. Open, the Capitol Classics and the Diamond Nationals were 6A events, and Ocean State, Quebec, the New England Open, the Battle of Atlanta, Dixieland and the Pan American were 5A.

Competitors earned world points at sanctioned events; for black belts, the best ten World Tour results historically counted toward the final ratings, and points also decided seeding at later events. According to Plowden, NASKA also capped the prize money promoters could offer, so that the wealthiest events could not bid the best competitors away from the rest. The ratings were never just a trophy; they were the reason a competitor traveled to the next event, and the reason each event was worth more as part of the tour than on its own.

The work of keeping those ratings moved from magazine pages to a central ratings office and, in recent years, to software. MATAction, a tournament registration, scoring and ratings platform associated with Hunter Lyon, became much of the tour’s infrastructure.

Who ran NASKA?

Larry Carnahan led NASKA from 1988 until 2026, roughly 38 years. A Jhoon Rhee-trained black belt and top-ten PKA lightweight, he co-founded National Karate in Minnesota with John Worley and co-owned the Diamond Nationals, one of the tour’s crown events.

Mike McCoy and Mike Sawyer built the U.S. Open into the circuit’s television showcase and international stage. McCoy was also closely involved in NASKA’s ratings operation in its early years.

Stephen Oliver served on the board and as National Sanctioning Director from 1989 to 1999, responsible for rating World Tour and national events and for tournament quality, while promoting the Mile High Karate Classic. That decade is covered in Stephen Oliver’s NASKA Decade.

NASKA was never a league that owned its events. It was a federation of independently owned tournaments that shared rules, ratings and a name, and its board was the promoters themselves. By 2024 that board included Larry Carnahan, David Bossinotte, Dennis Brown, Claire Cocozza, Samuel Gagnon, Holly Haggart, Mohamad Jahanvash, Bob Leiker, Hunter Lyon, Mike McCoy, Mike Palitti, Manny Reyes Sr., Christine Bannon-Rodrigues, Don Rodrigues, Mark Russo, Greg Ruth, Toby Ruth, Mike Sawyer, John Sharkey and Nick Smith. The people and companies now on opposite sides of the lawsuit sat together on that board.

Why did NASKA split in 2026?

Every version of NASKA has depended on three things: the name and ratings, the independently owned tournaments, and the machinery that turns those tournaments into a circuit. For 38 years one president held them together. When Carnahan stepped down in 2026 and named Hunter Lyon, the promoters behind several of the biggest events disputed who owned the name and who should lead, and in April NASKA Inc. sued them. The case, the September 2026 verdict and both sides’ statements are covered in The NASKA Trademark Case. The people involved are profiled in Who’s Who in NASKA and Sport Karate.

Timeline of record

Frequently asked questions

When was NASKA founded?

NASKA dates its founding to 1986, when the promoters of eight top-rated tournaments formed the North American Sport Karate Association to continue national ratings after Karate Illustrated dropped them. Its trademark claims first use on January 1, 1986.

What does NASKA stand for?

The North American Sport Karate Association, the sanctioning and ratings body for many of North America’s leading open sport karate tournaments.

Who founded NASKA?

The promoters of the leading tournaments of the mid-1980s, including the AKA Grand Nationals, Battle of Atlanta, Diamond Nationals, New England Open, Ocean State Grand Nationals, U.S. Capitol Classics and U.S. Open.

Who was NASKA’s longest-serving president?

Larry Carnahan, elected in 1988 according to NASKA, who led the organization until 2026. Earlier presidents are recalled as Cezar Borkowski and Jim Lantrip.

What was Karate Illustrated’s role in sport karate ratings?

From 1977, under executive editor Renardo Barden, Karate Illustrated published regional and national ratings of competitors and graded the tournaments themselves. When it stopped around 1986, the leading promoters formed NASKA to carry the system on.

What is a 6A NASKA tournament?

NASKA graded sanctioned events from 1A to 6A. The highest-rated World Tour events award the most ratings points and attract the strongest black belt fields.

What was the first national karate tournament in the United States?

Robert Trias and John Keehan’s 1st World Karate Tournament in Chicago in 1963 is generally described as the first. Jhoon Rhee’s National Karate Championships in Washington, D.C. followed in 1964, won by J. Pat Burleson.