Stephen Oliver’s NASKA Decade: The Mile High Karate Classic, 1989–1999

From 1989 to 1999, Denver was a stop on the NASKA World Tour, and the man who ran it also helped decide which tournaments across North America deserved NASKA’s highest ratings. Stephen Oliver promoted the Mile High Karate Classic for a decade while serving on NASKA’s board and executive committee and as its National Sanctioning Director. Then he walked away from national tournament promotion, and later wrote candidly about why. This is that decade, and what it taught him about the difference between a tournament and a school.

How did Stephen Oliver come to sport karate?

Oliver came into the sport through the Jhoon Rhee system rather than as a star competitor. He began training in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1969 under instructors teaching for the Jhoon Rhee Institute, trained at Rhee’s Washington headquarters alongside people including Jeff Smith, Larry Carnahan and John Chung, earned his black belt from Jhoon Rhee in 1978, and served as a Jhoon Rhee Institute head instructor and branch manager while at Georgetown. In 1983 he moved to Denver and founded Mile High Karate, opening five schools in eighteen months. The full story of that lineage is in The History of the Martial Arts School Business in the United States.

By the late 1980s Mile High Karate was running its own intramural tournaments on a scale most open events would envy. A 2024 biographical feature puts them at roughly 500 to 800 students a quarter; Oliver’s own 2001 account mentions internal events of up to 750.

What was the Mile High Karate Classic?

In 1989 Oliver launched the Mile High Karate Classic in Denver as a national open tournament. It received NASKA’s highest designation, World Tour status, every year from 1989 through 1999; older Mile High Karate material describes it in the terminology of the time as a NASKA “AAA” event and one of the highest-rated in the western United States. It filled a gap in a tour concentrated in the East, South and Midwest, and it drew competitors from all fifty states, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala and Haiti.

The first Classic, in 1989, set the standard with its grand champions. According to Stephen Oliver’s records, the grand champions that year were Charlie Lee, a national and world forms champion and, like Oliver, a student of Grand Master Jhoon Rhee, and Steve “Nasty” Anderson, then the number-one-ranked point fighter in North America.

Independent records place it on the national black belt circuit:

• 1996 and 1998: the national competitor Jeremy Keller’s published record lists a fourth place in men’s Korean black belt forms at the 1996 Classic, and in 1998 a first place in men’s Korean forms and fourth in men’s middleweight sparring, alongside results at the Diamond Nationals, Compete, the New England Open and the U.S. Open in the same seasons.
• 1997: Black & Blue Productions, the tournament video company, recorded “Stephen Oliver’s Mile High Classic,” with highlights of the eliminations and the complete night finals, and sold it in its 1997 catalog alongside the U.S. Open, the New England Open, the Empire State Nationals and the Las Vegas USA Nationals.

Who competed at the Mile High Karate Classic?

The Classic drew the top-ranked competitors of its decade. According to Stephen Oliver’s records, its fields included the following athletes; the notes describe each one’s standing in the sport during that period.

Women: forms, weapons and fighting

• Christine Bannon-Rodrigues (Warwick, Rhode Island), the dominant “triple threat” of the decade: NASKA World Champion, nine-time WAKO world champion, Black Belt‘s 1989 Female Competitor of the Year and the first woman on Team Paul Mitchell, with world titles in the NBL and PKL as well.

Men: forms and weapons

• Mike Chaturantabut (“Mike Chat”), 1995 NASKA Overall Forms and Weapons Champion and the top-ranked hard-style weapons and musical forms competitor, later the Blue Ranger and a co-founder of XMA.
• Jon Valera, ranked first nationally in the 12–14 division as early as 1990, later the 1995 top-ranked Korean forms competitor, 1996 Otomix World Forms Champion and 1997–98 ISKA World Forms and Weapons Champion, and a Team Paul Mitchell member.
• Chris Casamassa, the number-one North American sport karate champion across 1989–1994 and 1991 NASKA Sportsman of the Year, later “Scorpion” in Mortal Kombat.
• Kevin Thompson (“The Total Package”), who won NASKA and PKL titles in both fighting and forms into 1993 and was the 1990 WAKO world forms champion.
• Garry Waugh, NASKA National Champion, NBL World Champion and ISKA International Champion, a bo staff and extreme-forms specialist.
• Ho Sung Pak, a forms star and 1991 Hall of Fame inductee.

Men: point fighting

• Steve “Nasty” Anderson, first in men’s fighting in the late-1980s NASKA ratings and a 1989 Classic grand champion.
• Tony Young, Terry Creamer, Jerry Fontanez, Joey Shiflett and Anthony “Mafia” Holloway, perennial top-ten fighters from the 1987 ratings who remained active on the tour.
• Hakim Alston, NASKA men’s light-heavyweight and overall men’s fighting champion.
• James Webster, ranked first in NASKA’s ratings and undefeated in ten consecutive national AAA tournaments; his 1994 grand championships included the Battle of Atlanta and the New England Open.

Other nationally ranked competitors

• Ashley Lane, a nationally active forms and weapons competitor of the mid and late 1990s.
• David Douglas, a forms and weapons competitor on the Charlie Lee and XMA circuit.
• Harrison Snider, a black belt under Stephen Oliver who competed on the NASKA circuit through the 1990s, became an instructor at Mile High Karate, later trained with Mike Chat, and went on to become a WKC world champion.

The decade’s competition changed as it went. The early 1990s still looked like classic NASKA point fighting, the era of Anderson, Young, Creamer and Bannon-Rodrigues. In the mid and late 1990s musical, creative and extreme forms exploded, and athletes such as Chat, Valera, Waugh and Casamassa became the faces of the night-show grand championships, Team Paul Mitchell and television’s WMAC Masters.

What did it take to run a World Tour event?

In writing published in 2001, two years after his last Classic, Oliver described the scale of a national event: more than 200 divisions in more than 20 rings, 150 or more volunteers, and at least 100 black belt judges. He itemized the costs of a top event of the period:

At its peak, he wrote, the Classic could net $30,000 to $50,000. His judgment was that even that did not repay the time, travel and opportunity cost. Staying relevant as a promoter meant attending other promoters’ events, and he counted twelve to fifteen major-event weekends a year on the road.

What did NASKA’s National Sanctioning Director do?

From 1989 to 1999 Oliver served on NASKA’s Board of Directors and executive committee and as its National Sanctioning Director. Older biographical accounts describe the job as responsibility for rating World Tour and national tournaments and for the quality control of those events.

That role sat at the heart of how NASKA worked. Since Karate Illustrated‘s ratings of the late 1970s, the national circuit had run on two ratings: of the competitors, and of the tournaments themselves. A tournament’s grade determined how many points its winners earned and therefore how many rated competitors it could attract. In the NASKA of the 1990s, Larry Carnahan was president, Mike McCoy was closely involved in the competitor ratings, and Oliver held the sanctioning chair that assessed the events. How those pieces fit together is told in From Karate Illustrated to NASKA.

Why did he stop in 1999?

No contemporaneous announcement of the Classic’s end has surfaced. What the record shows is that it held World Tour status to the end, that Oliver’s own account describes it as profitable at its peak, and that his reasons, as he later wrote them, were time, travel and opportunity cost.

The timing also matches a turn in his work. In 1999 he wrote what is regarded as the first book on internet marketing for martial arts schools, and his 2001 writing already dealt with search engines, autoresponders, online registration and separate websites for prospects and students. In 2000 he founded the coaching organization that became Martial Arts Wealth Mastery, and in 2007 he acquired NAPMA and this magazine. The Classic was the bridge between the Denver school operator and the national industry figure.

What did he conclude about tournaments and schools?

Oliver’s 2001 article, “Martial Arts Tournaments and Other Diversions From a Business Perspective,” is unusual because it came from someone who had spent a decade inside NASKA’s leadership. His advice to school owners was to promote a great tournament only if they loved tournament karate and valued the relationships, not because they expected it to grow their school.

He valued what the circuit gave him: relationships across the industry that lasted for decades, and a chance for his students to see elite competitors of the day, among whom he named Jimmy Pham, Jon Valera and Mike Chaturantabut. But he drew a sharp line between open competition, which served networking and the elite competitor, and intramural tournaments, which served ordinary students, retention and school culture. Mile High Karate went on to produce well over 120 intramural tournament events.

Timeline of record

Frequently asked questions

What was the Mile High Karate Classic?

A national open martial arts tournament in Denver, promoted by Stephen Oliver from 1989 to 1999, which held NASKA World Tour status every year of its run and drew competitors from all fifty states and several other countries.

What was Stephen Oliver’s role in NASKA?

From 1989 to 1999 he served on NASKA’s Board of Directors and executive committee and as National Sanctioning Director, responsible for rating World Tour and national tournaments and for event quality control.

Why did the Mile High Karate Classic end?

In his own later account, Oliver concluded that although the event was profitable at its peak, the time, travel and opportunity cost of national tournament promotion were not worth it. He turned his attention to internet marketing and coaching school owners.

Who won the first Mile High Karate Classic?

The 1989 grand champions were Charlie Lee, a national and world forms champion and a student of Jhoon Rhee, and Steve “Nasty” Anderson, then North America’s number-one-ranked point fighter.

Who competed at the Mile High Karate Classic?

The top-ranked competitors of the 1990s, including Christine Bannon-Rodrigues, Mike Chaturantabut, Jon Valera, Chris Casamassa, Kevin Thompson, Garry Waugh, Ho Sung Pak, Steve “Nasty” Anderson, Hakim Alston and James Webster.

Is there video of the Mile High Karate Classic?

Yes. Black & Blue Productions recorded the 1997 event, including the eliminations and the complete night finals.

What did Stephen Oliver advise school owners about tournaments?

To promote open tournaments only for love of the sport and its relationships, and to use intramural tournaments as the tool for student development and retention.