3 on 3 Karate Showcase Event – Aberavon Hotel December 5th
Sunday 5th December saw the final event of the Welsh Bushi-Kai’s 30th Anniversary celebrations – A Karate show case, featuring some of the top kumite competitors in Britain. Along with the Welsh Bushi Kai, 3 other associations, Western Karate Union, Vale of Glamorgan and Welsh Karate Kai were present, with a host of National and International Champions.
2 events ran in one exciting evening of top class karate, a Senior Male Team event and senior ladies individuals. These 2 events ran side by side, with the men split into 2 pools of 3, with every team fighting the other 2 in the pool with the team with the most wins progressing to the final. Due to an injury to one of the competitors in the ladies event, dropping the number of competitors to 5, the format for the ladies became a league – with each girl fighting the other 4.
The evening started with introduction of the officials (all World, European or British qualified) and the competitors to the 300 strong audience. The opening bout was from Pool A of the mens event with our own “A” team vs. Welsh Karate Kai. With a large and vociferous support for the Welsh Bushi Kai this was a great start to proceedings, which saw the Bushi-Kai “A” team come from 1-0 down to win 2-1. Next up were the ladies, with Welsh Bushi Kai’s Holly Carey taking on Welsh Karate Kai’s Ffion Morgan, another great result for Bushi Kai with Holly winning the bout by 8 clear points. Next up saw Bushi Kai’s Jess Forse, suffer a defeat at the hands of Multiple British Champion and seasoned international competitor Sammi Scott (Welsh Karate Kai). The next mens event, which was a Pool 2 encounter between the Welsh Bushi Kai “B” team take on Vale – despite winning the 1st fight Bushi-Kai suffered a 2-1 defeat at the hands of our friends from Barry.
Welsh Bushi Kai “A” won Pool A with Victory over Western Karate Union “B”, they would need to wait for the results of Pool B – which went to the final match between Western Karate Union “A” and Vale. Vale needing to win 2-1 (due to a much superior points difference), came very close to beating one of Britains top teams and the current English Champions, the result 1 win and a draw for each team. The final was decided – Welsh Bushi-Kai “A” vs Western Karate Union “A”.
The girls were still competing, with Sarah Clarke (Western Karate Union) and Sammi Scott showing their class – the 2 were due to meet in the final round robin match, both had a 100% record going into this fight, which meant it was a winner takes all fight. Sarah seemed to be in control of the fight, holding a 4-1 lead with just 10 seconds left, however Sammi was not defeated yet pulling out a head kick to level the scores with just 6 seconds remaining. As the fight looked like it was heading to an extension Sarah scored another point on the bell to take a narrow and hard fought victory and the £100 prize.
At this point in the evenings event we had a short break, where Sensei Chico Mbakwe, 7th Dan Shotokan and BKF Cheif Referee gave an emotional speech in tribute to Shihan Ritchie Noblett and announced the Induction of Shihan Noblett into the WKGB Welsh Karate Hall of Fame. Ritchies wife , Liz , was presented with the Roll of Honour certificate on Ritchies behalf. A well recieved and fitting tribute to Ritchie – Welsh Karates finest and most inspirational exponent. Then it was back to the action !!
The final fight of the night saw Welsh Bushi Kai and Welsh Karate Union renew their rivalry. The winners of this bout would win £300. Fight one saw Rhys Edwards (WBK) vs Darren Haynes (WKU), both of these are international competitors and have won multiple Individual and Team National titles. This was expected to be a tight fight, Darren took the early lead, but Rhys soon came to life scoring a head kick which raised the noise in the crowd and gave Rhys the lead. This seemed to increased Rhys’s confidence as he fought his way to a 10-2 victory with just seconds of the 4 minute fight remaining. Fight two saw 2 of Britain’s top fighters of the past decade meet, with David Godfrey (WBK), the 3 times Commonwealth Champion and 2 time European Bronze medalist, taking on Rory Daniels (WKU) who is also a 3 time Commonwealth Champion and a former World Open-weight Champion. Both fighters had been on top form comfortably winning both of their pool matches and another tight contest was anticipated, however, this was not to be as Rory raced to an 8-0 victory. With the match tied at 1 fight each and the scores level at 10-10, the final bout would decide which team walked away as champions and £300 richer. Representing Welsh Bushi Kai was Jordan Harris, the youngest competitor in the entire event at just 16, although only recently moving into the seniors he has a wealth of experience, winning Open competitions all over Europe, being British and Welsh Champion and placing in the top 7 in the World Championships and top 5 in the European championships. Opposite him was Shaun Langston, a former England Junior International and an English and British champion. The fight started at a frantic pace, with Jordan showing he had made the transition to senior competitions, by taking a 5-2 lead – at this point the crowd were at their loudest, Shaun was giving everything to get back into the fight, unfortunately his enthusiasm saw him pick up repeated warnings for continuing after yame and he was disqualified. This gave Bushi Kai a 2-1 win and £300.
The event was only possible due to all of the hard work of Nigel, Mark and Liz, and they would like to thank Rob Copeland and his Vale Squad, Paul Scott and his Welsh Karate Kai Squad and Alan Flook, Andy Gunton and their WKU squad for supporting the event and helping make it a brilliant night of top quality karate. A big thanks also has to go out to the officials in attendance who are amongst the best in Britain. Finally we would also like to thank the spectators for the amazing support they gave to all of the competitors on the night, the atmosphere was brilliant throughout.
We have had nothing but positive feedback and have been asked “Are you doing this again next year?” and “When’s the next one?”. Well, we can’t answer exactly as we don’t know ourselves, but we hope to run another event in early December next year.