On June 7th 2025, the amazing Greg Dorsey hosted the Black Dragons Open Karate Tournament. It was held at the Sterling Pruitt Activity Center Gym. This place is beautiful and a modern venue for this event and is centrally located in the charming downtown area of Beaumont, Texas. Beaumont is a pleasant city with a population of over 115,000 people that has a big city demeaner with a hometown atmosphere. Beaumont is best known for Spindletop. Spindletop was the 1st major oil field in the country for most of the last century. This city grew out of black gold from the ground and for most of the 20th century made many a man wealthy from the vast oil reserves under the ground there. Lately it is a prosperous city with a warm demeanor and pleasant people. I have competed there many times over the years and always enjoyed the experience.
It was good fortune for me to be able to compete at this well run and exciting event. There were many competitors and an equal number of parents and spectators in attendance. The Gym was filled to the brim and finding a place to stand or sit was a challenge.
Competitors competed like this was the world games. It always surprises me to see the junior under belt competitions because you never know what you’re going to see and I was not disappointed. Many of these kids compete on a semi-pro level and are always excited and produce action packed competition. Texas is a hub for the top competitors in the country, and it’s not unusual to see competitors from other states, especially with Beaumont being right next to Louisiana and competitors traveling as far away as Arkansas and Oklahoma. This TKO event was WKL rated for the 2025 World Karate League Games.
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The junior black belt and under black belt divisions finalized with a lot of new champions and produced some exhilarating competitive matches in both open hand kata, weapons and sparring competitions. This event also featured stick fighting, grappling, continuous sparring and kickboxing which competed simultaneously with the sport karate divisions. All those disciplines featured great matches to make this
tournament a well-rounded event.
The Adults ran consecutively with the junior divisions first and adult black belts primarily being last on the agenda, which is typically the case at these events. The whole event was finalized with the junior under belt and black belt grand championships with winners receiving dragon trophies. The black belt adult sparring featured many of Texas best and finalized with memorable fight competitions and Dragon trophies with cash for the adult men and women’s champions. The last competition was the forms grand championship where Johnnie Murphy of Spring, Texas defeated the other forms division champions Angel Cruze, Jamison Dale, Keven Benavides and Yul Acoste. To take home the 2025 black belt forms grand champion Dragon trophy and the cash.
