Who was Joe Lewis in karate?

An American karate champion, the U.S. National grand champion from 1966 to 1969, who fought the first kickboxing bout in the United States in 1970 and became the first PKA world heavyweight full-contact champion in 1974. He is often called the father of American kickboxing.

How fast did Joe Lewis earn his black belt?

In about seven months, while a Marine on Okinawa in 1964-65, by the most common account. One obituary says three months.

Who did Joe Lewis fight in the first kickboxing match?

Greg Baines, a Kenpo stylist, on 17 January 1970 at the Long Beach Arena in California. Lewis won by knockout in the second round.

Did Joe Lewis beat Chuck Norris?

Yes. Norris beat him at Long Beach in 1967, and Lewis beat Norris at Allen Steen’s U.S. Championships in Dallas in 1968. He is listed as one of only five men to have beaten Norris.

When and how did Joe Lewis die?

On 31 August 2012, of brain cancer, at the Coatesville Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Pennsylvania. He was 68.

What is Joe Lewis Fighting Systems?

The training method and instructor organization Lewis built around sparring, which he taught in seminars from 1984 until his death.

Joe Lewis, 1944–2012: The Karate Champion Who Started American Kickboxing

Joe Lewis, world karate and kickboxing champion

Joe Lewis learned karate as a U.S. Marine on Okinawa, won the first tournament he entered in America, beat Chuck Norris, trained privately with Bruce Lee, and on 17 January 1970 fought the first kickboxing bout in the United States. Four years later he was crowned the first Professional Karate Association world heavyweight champion. He spent the rest of his life teaching other instructors how to fight, through the system that carried his name. He died on 31 August 2012 in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, aged 68.

Full name: Joseph Henry Lewis
Born: 7 March 1944, North Carolina (Knightdale, by most accounts)
Died: 31 August 2012, Coatesville Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Pennsylvania, aged 68
Art: Shorin-ryu karate; later Jeet Kune Do training with Bruce Lee; American full-contact karate and kickboxing
Trained under: Eizo Shimabukuro, John Korab, Chinsaku Kinjo and Seiyu Oyata on Okinawa; Bruce Lee in Los Angeles
Titles: U.S. National grand champion (1966 onward); first U.S. heavyweight kickboxing champion; first PKA world heavyweight full-contact champion (1974)
Organization: Joe Lewis Fighting Systems

Disclosure. Joe Lewis was the first recipient of the NAPMA Martial Arts Professional Lifetime Achievement Award, conferred by this magazine and the association that publishes it, and he contributed his “Science of Sparring” to NAPMA’s instructor training series. The magazine’s publisher, Grand Master Stephen Oliver, received the Joe Lewis Eternal Warrior Award from PKA Warriors and Joe Lewis Fighting Systems in 2018. Grand Master Jeff Smith, Chief of Instruction at Martial Arts Wealth Mastery, was crowned a world champion on the same 1974 card as Lewis and worked with him on Karate College from 1988.

How did a Marine from North Carolina learn karate?

Lewis grew up in rural North Carolina and enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1962. After first seeing martial arts in the service, he asked to be posted to Okinawa so he could train, and he was stationed there from May 1964 to November 1965. He studied Shorin-ryu with Eizo Shimabukuro, John Korab and Chinsaku Kinjo, and also with Seiyu Oyata, and took classes in kempo and judo on the same days. He earned his black belt in seven months by the most common account; one obituary says three months, and in a later Black Belt interview he described earning black belts in more than one style inside his first year.

In 1964 he entered the Okinawan championships and won sparring, black-belt forms and the grand championship. In 1965 he was deployed to Vietnam with the 8th Marine Brigade, where he taught hand-to-hand combat to a reconnaissance unit.

What did he win in tournament karate?

Back in the United States, Lewis won the grand championship of the first tournament he entered there, Jhoon Rhee’s U.S. National Karate Championships in Washington in 1966, after about 22 months of training. He held the U.S. National grand championship from 1966 to 1969. In April 1967 Black Belt magazine ranked him the top tournament fighter in America in the sport’s first top-ten ratings, and that September he became the first fighting champion on the cover of a national newsstand martial arts magazine.

He was part of the “Big Three” of the era with Chuck Norris and Mike Stone. He lost to Allen Steen at the 1966 Long Beach Internationals and to Norris at Long Beach in 1967, then beat Norris at Steen’s U.S. Championships in Dallas the following year. He is widely listed as one of only five men to have beaten Norris. From August 1969 he won three consecutive grand championships at Ed Parker’s International Karate Championships in Long Beach.

He also won the first professional karate tournaments. At Jim Harrison’s event in Kansas City, run under heavy-contact rules, he won and was paid one dollar, which made him karate’s first professional champion. On 24 November 1968, at Aaron Banks’s World Professional Karate Championships at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, he beat Victor Moore for the world heavyweight title and $600. He also won the grand championship of the first Battle of Atlanta, promoted by Joe Corley. 1974 was his last year in tournament competition.

Did Joe Lewis train with Bruce Lee?

Yes. Lee invited him to train privately in 1967, and Lewis worked with him for about two years, learning the combinations and the approach to fighting that Lee was then developing into Jeet Kune Do. Lewis said Lee was still his instructor in the period before his first kickboxing bout, although the two could not train together in the final months before it. He is often described as the only world champion Lee coached personally. The Hong Kong cinema historian Bey Logan has written that Lewis was Lee’s first choice for the villain Colt in The Way of the Dragon, the role that went to Chuck Norris; that account is a historian’s, not a contemporary record.

How did Joe Lewis start American kickboxing?

By the end of the 1960s Lewis believed non-contact point fighting was not proving anything, and he told promoters he would not fight again unless the fight was full contact. The Hollywood stuntman and promoter Lee Faulkner agreed. On 17 January 1970, as the main event of Faulkner’s Professional Team Karate Championships at the Long Beach Arena, Lewis fought the Kenpo stylist Greg Baines in a boxing ring, wearing 12-ounce gloves, and knocked him out in the second round. Lewis never called it kickboxing, and he wanted the sport known as Joe Lewis self-defense; the ring announcer used the word “kickboxing” anyway, and it stuck. Within weeks Faulkner had formed the United States Kickboxing Association.

Lewis then knocked out “Big” Ed Daniels in Dallas on 20 June 1970 and Ronnie Barkoot in New York in January 1971. He is credited with ten straight knockouts as U.S. heavyweight kickboxing champion in 1970 and 1971, and he is widely called the father of American kickboxing.

Mike Anderson and Telly Savalas crowning the first professional full-contact karate champions in 1974: Isaias Duenas, Bill Wallace, Jeff Smith and Joe Lewis — 1974: producer Mike Anderson and television host Telly Savalas crown the first PKA world champions, Isaias Duenas, Bill Wallace, Jeff Smith and Joe Lewis.

Was Joe Lewis the first PKA world heavyweight champion?

Yes. The idea for a full-contact world championship is credited to Lewis himself; Mike Anderson, editor of Professional Karate magazine, organized and promoted it with Don and Judy Quine, and Tom Tannenbaum packaged it for ABC’s Wide World of Entertainment. On 14 September 1974 at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, the heavyweight division was a single championship bout, Lewis against Franc Brodar of Yugoslavia, and Lewis won by knockout in the second round. Jeff Smith (light heavyweight), Bill Wallace (middleweight) and Isaias Duenas (lightweight) were crowned the same night. Chuck Norris and Joe Corley were among the judges. In 1975 Black Belt inducted Lewis into its Hall of Fame as competitor of the year.

At 39 he returned to the ring in 1983 and re-entered the PKA’s world top ten. The same year Karate Illustrated published a vote of former champions, Chuck Norris and Bill Wallace among them, naming him the greatest karate fighter of all time.

What did Joe Lewis do after he stopped competing?

He tried films first, starring in Jaguar Lives! (1979) and Force: Five (1981) among others. His lasting work, though, was teaching instructors. From 1984 he travelled the country and abroad giving seminars in Joe Lewis Fighting Systems, a training method built on what he called the science of sparring, and ran it as an organization. Black Belt named him co-instructor of the year in 1986. In the 1980s he was national director of the American Independent Karate/Kickboxing Instructors Association, and in 1988 he worked with Jeff Smith, Bill Wallace and Jerry Beasley to produce Karate College, a summer training camp for martial artists. He held a 10th degree black belt.

Joe Lewis demonstrates his flying side kick — Lewis demonstrating the flying side kick he was known for.

He was a regular contributor to NAPMA and this magazine, and was the first person to receive its Lifetime Achievement Award. In his last years he lived in Wayne, Pennsylvania, near the school of his longtime friend Dennis Nackord, who had first trained with him in 1968.

How did Joe Lewis die?

He was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2011. During the illness he was visited by many friends from the martial arts world, Chuck Norris among them. He was admitted to the Coatesville Veterans Affairs Medical Center in July 2012, moved to hospice care in mid-August, and died there on the morning of 31 August 2012, after a 13-month illness. He was survived by a son, Cameron, and a daughter, Kristina. More than 400 people attended his memorial service in Knightdale, and he was buried in North Carolina.

Timeline of record

Date	Event
7 Mar 1944	Born Joseph Henry Lewis, North Carolina
1962	Enlists in the U.S. Marine Corps
May 1964 – Nov 1965	Stationed on Okinawa; Shorin-ryu training; black belt; wins the 1964 Okinawan championships
1965	Deployed to Vietnam with the 8th Marine Brigade
1966	Grand champion, U.S. National Karate Championships, Washington, his first U.S. tournament
Apr 1967	Ranked America’s top tournament fighter in Black Belt’s first top-ten ratings
1967	Begins private training with Bruce Lee
1968	Wins karate’s first professional tournament (Kansas City) and the World Professional Karate Championships at the Waldorf Astoria (24 Nov)
Aug 1969	First of three consecutive Long Beach International grand championships
17 Jan 1970	Knocks out Greg Baines at the Long Beach Arena in the first U.S. kickboxing bout
20 Jun 1970	Knocks out “Big” Ed Daniels, Dallas
Jan 1971	Knocks out Ronnie Barkoot, New York
14 Sep 1974	First PKA world heavyweight champion, Los Angeles Sports Arena, KO of Franc Brodar
1975	Black Belt Hall of Fame, competitor of the year
1979, 1981	Stars in Jaguar Lives! and Force: Five
1983	Returns to the PKA top ten at 39; voted greatest karate fighter of all time by Karate Illustrated
1984	Begins national seminar tours in Joe Lewis Fighting Systems
1986	Black Belt Hall of Fame, co-instructor of the year
1988	Karate College summer camp launched with Jeff Smith and Bill Wallace
31 Aug 2012	Dies, Coatesville VA Medical Center, Pennsylvania, aged 68

What a school owner should take from Joe Lewis

Lewis wanted his new sport called Joe Lewis self-defense. A ring announcer called it kickboxing on the first night and the market never went back. If you do not name what you teach, someone else will, and their name will stick. Name your programs before your students, your competitors or the local paper do it for you.

His second career is the more useful lesson. A champion’s titles end; Lewis turned his into a named, teachable method and sold it to other instructors for nearly thirty years. The owner’s version is the same: the thing that lasts is not your record but a system other people can be trained to teach.

And he refused to fight on terms he did not believe in. The full-contact sport exists because one champion said he would not compete again unless the fight was real. A school’s standards work the same way: they hold only if the owner is willing to walk away from the version that does not meet them.

Quick answers

Who was Joe Lewis in karate?: An American karate champion, the U.S. National grand champion from 1966 to 1969, who fought the first kickboxing bout in the United States in 1970 and became the first PKA world heavyweight full-contact champion in 1974. He is often called the father of American kickboxing.
How fast did Joe Lewis earn his black belt?: In about seven months, while a Marine on Okinawa in 1964–65, by the most common account. One obituary says three months.
Did Joe Lewis train with Bruce Lee?: Yes. He trained privately with Bruce Lee from 1967 for about two years.
Who did Joe Lewis fight in the first kickboxing match?: Greg Baines, a Kenpo stylist, on 17 January 1970 at the Long Beach Arena in California. Lewis won by knockout in the second round.
Did Joe Lewis beat Chuck Norris?: Yes. Norris beat him at Long Beach in 1967, and Lewis beat Norris at Allen Steen’s U.S. Championships in Dallas in 1968. He is listed as one of only five men to have beaten Norris.
When and how did Joe Lewis die?: On 31 August 2012, of brain cancer, at the Coatesville Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Pennsylvania. He was 68.
What is Joe Lewis Fighting Systems?: The training method and instructor organization Lewis built around sparring, which he taught in seminars from 1984 until his death.

Sources, and what we could not confirm

Primary sources: the obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer (10 September 2012) for his death, residence, Marine service, Vietnam deployment, seminars from 1984 and survivors; John Corcoran’s report of his death (3 September 2012) and his two-part “Honoring Joe Lewis” with the 1981 interview Lewis reviewed in 2011, for the Okinawa teachers, the Long Beach championships, the first kickboxing bout, the Bruce Lee training, and the Black Belt honors; Sports Illustrated, 26 April 1971, for the naming of kickboxing, the formation of the USKA and the Daniels fight; PKA Worldwide’s history and the BackKicks report of the 1974 championships for the first PKA card; Black Belt magazine for his own account of training on Okinawa; and Dr. Jerry Beasley’s 2012 tribute in this magazine for his Knightdale roots, the AIKIA, Karate College, his last months and the memorial service.

Conflicts printed rather than smoothed over. His birthplace is given as Knightdale by most sources and as a farm near Wilmington by the Inquirer; we follow Knightdale. His black belt took seven months by the common account and three by the Inquirer. Sports Illustrated dated his first U.S. kickboxing title to the Ed Daniels fight in June 1970, while later histories date it to the Baines bout; we describe both fights and do not choose. The Barkoot fight is dated 21 and 24 January 1971. Most accounts date the start of his Bruce Lee training to 1967; Corcoran dates his Jeet Kune Do training to 1968. His daughter’s name appears as both Kristina and Christina. Reports of his burial place differ between Knightdale and a military cemetery in Raleigh, so we say North Carolina.

Correction to our own archive. This magazine’s 2012 tribute dated Jaguar Lives! to 1977. The film was released in 1979, which is the date used here.

Not established. The year Lewis received the NAPMA Lifetime Achievement Award is not recorded in the surviving register; he is listed as its first recipient. His complete professional fight record, including the 1983 comeback bouts, is not reported consistently across sources and is not given here. The account that he was Bruce Lee’s first choice for The Way of the Dragon rests on the Hong Kong cinema historian Bey Logan.

Photographs are from the publisher’s own collection. Subjects are identified as supplied; photographers and copyright holders are not established, and we will credit or remove any image on request.