Return of the king

COVID Might Have Won Last Year, But THE U.S. OPEN — the World’s Biggest Martial Arts Tournament — Is Back in Action!

- Mark Jacobs

Mike Reeves paused for a few moments before bringing the calloused edge of his hand down on the stack of concrete in front of him. There hadn’t been time to properly adjust the height of the slabs because the television crew was signaling that it had a schedule to keep, and he needed to go quickly. So Reeves just lined up his shot and let it fly.

It was 1998, and breaking was still a relatively new event at the U.S. Open — that’s back when the Open was just a karate tournament and hadn’t yet become the extravaganza that martial arts devotees flock to every year like Marvel fanboys on a pilgrimage to ComicCon. It wasn’t yet the U.S. Open, but it was the first year that ESPN had deigned to cover the hitherto little-seen, little-cared-about world of tournament karate.

Originally, the network had the idea of reviving the anthology series Wide World of Sports and thought televising a few guys in karate uniforms smashing bricks and boards would make a neat little segment to include. Reps had attended the U.S. Open in the past, though mainly to televise the ISKA kickboxing shows that promoter Mike Sawyer staged in conjunction with the tournament. So they contacted Sawyer and asked if his next event would have some sort of breaking competition that they could air. Although the Open had held a breaking contest for a few years, it was little more than an afterthought. But never one to miss out on an opportunity, Sawyer told ESPN that of course he had just the sort of world-class breaking competition they were looking for.