Karate Combat – Building A Fighting League on Hedera

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October 29th. Backlog of University, Orlando, Florida, sorry, combat’s back. SKS versus Suza. Edgar Shrivers is a monster. The lightweight division should be very, very afraid. He wears down his opponents. He, he annihilates people.

 

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I’m the greatest fighter ever. It feels right. The diamond champion.

 

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But the greats fail too. The first championing karate combat to be deep road.

 

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I’m gonna come back even. And Shonda, you’re Gonna see me coming for Hunting. This brutal kid is such a complete martial artist, pretty much raised by the Machida family. He’s been an LFA champion victorious in his debut.

 

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I’m coming to take over. We all make mistakes, but I know I can beat everybody. He never faced nothing like me. It doesn’t matter. He man in the lion.

 

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All right, I’m here with Rob, the founder of Karate Combat, and I just want to ask him a few questions to kick this thing off. So Rob, what made you want to start this league?

 

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Well, I’ve always been a huge fan of combat sports. Mm-Hmm., and I think a lot of people saw what the UFC did and they tried to copy. From my perspective, I’ve always been more interested in standup, buying, striking fast action. Yeah. and you know, to tell you the truth, karate was going to the Olympics, but it was just point, point fighting version of the sport. Okay. So we wanted to create an all-inclusive striking league to bring the best strikers from all disciplines. And the best rule set for that is actually the karate rule set. It’s, it’s very flexible. Mm-Hmm.. And when we developed the league four years ago, we went all the way out. So our, our viewers are, you know, generally younger and we built everything from the ground up for them. So that’s how you see in our virtual background. You know, we shoot this in on real engine and everything we add just really makes it an exciting new and sport that’s basically built for the younger generation. And that’s why we’ve had such explosive growth over the past four years. Well, as a fight fan who’s been watching fights from the 1990s, it really does make sense. And I watched some of your flights and I think they’re incredible. So can you tell us about this karate token?

 

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So, I’ve always been a big fan of crypto. And obviously I run a sports league and, you know, I’ve always been thinking of ways to combine the two mm-hmm., and we finally feel like we found the killer obligation that’s gonna revolutionize sports. Mm-Hmm.. So what, what we do the best ways to describe the process. So we have a huge base of fans, and they might not even know this is all powered on crypto rails. So what happens is we send a link to one of our fans claim 1000 Karate Totales. They then go on an app, they download the app, and it’s very simple. They say, Hey, look, there’s a a fight coming up and I can pick different fires to win. So they can vote on the fighter. They think they’re gonna win, or, or their favorite fire. If he wins, they get more tokens. If he loses, they don’t lose anything. Okay. So it’s not regularly gaming, but it, but he, but he allows our fans to have a real vest vested interest in the outcome of the client. So we’re really excited about that and we think it’ll accelerate our growth

 

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Even further. All right. That’s fantastic from a gamification of your quite standpoint, but tell us about the governance. Tell us about your Dows.

 

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So when you, when, when you look at a number of the DAOs, I think a big problem that they have is participation is pretty low. Mm-Hmm., you know, a lot, a lot of, a lot of parts of it work, but the question is what, what is a good application? We, solidated didn’t gain fine. We said, Hey, look, this is pretty good. But a lot of what the doubt allows you to do applies more to sports. You know, do people really want to vote on stake protocols? It’s hard to get people as involved mm-hmm., but I can promise you our fans, I actually, I absolutely rabid about voting on who’s gonna fight, who, you know, they care a lot about, you know, what fighters we’re gonna stop. So the DAO is a perfect community to allow them to have, to allow them to, to help with those decisions. Sure, Makes complete sense. You’re launching that in December of this year, Right? Yep, early December.

 

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Okay, sounds good. I want to talk to Boss Rudin, he’s an MMA legend and we’ll get to him next. Alright. Right. Well first of all, boss, thank you so much for talking to me. I really appreciate you taking some time. I guess the main thing that I want to ask you about, I’ve watched some of these fights, it’s really exciting. What do you think about this rule set for making entertaining fights?

 

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I, I, I think it’s everything, you know, and especially I started ASEs karate as I mentioned there, and then I go all the way back to, so what they called me if I wanted to be a vault in this, you know, as an ambassador, I go, sign me up. This is, brings me back to karate. Sure. And the style that they chose is we have Olympic level karate, right? Mm-Hmm., and they’re fighting here full contact because people down inside, they wanna five full contact, they wanna knock people out. Yeah. So now the rule set that we have here, it’s also super exciting. We have the pit, of course the pit with the 45 degree angle walls. Yeah. But you get, you get used to your vendors, you get used to escape your portage get used to run up and make flying kicks, flying knees, because knees are allowed now as well. That’s great. The fighting styles in such a way that they allow kicks but only below the knees. Mm-Hmm., and then of course not to the, to the ties to the body and the rest everywhere else. And they do that because it, the fight is a little bit of the more of the distance and it shows the people at home Yeah. The beautiful techniques of Karate. Sure, sure. So now of course, karate is the main focus, but there’s, there’s kickboxers here. Can other strikers have success in this bike game?

 

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Oh, for sure. You know, I think right now what they focus on is like having karate guys with karate backgrounds, like real black belts. So we haven’t been here, but I believe believe that they already was talking about like in the future, they will open it up and then anybody kickbox is type box or whatever. As long as they play by these rules, sure. Can come in and fight these great guys here. All right. Well thank you so much again for taking some time. I appreciate it.

 

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Boom. God speed. Oh, okay guys. Okay. Okay. Darren, you’re serious, dude. There. All right. Everybody can have your attention. Listen up. Karate Combat is the new striking league taking over combat sports, real fights, real stories, real knocks. And boy, it is upcoming December. Karate Combat is giving the whole league to its fans. Karate Combat is issuing a token that will govern the league. Yes, I know, of course you’ve seen these tokens, but trust me, this is completely different because Karate Combat will have no owners, no hidden strings, nothing. Just the karate token. Oh, come on man. Not you again. Go here. Ooh, get that hat. Stay down people. But wait, there’s more. Check out our new app. Pick a fighter. And if that fighter wins, you win more tokens, meaning more of the league goes to you. Well, what y’all think Ride My Work is done here. Go to karate.com/airdrop for more information.

 

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All right. Hey everyone. I’m Robert Brian, founder of Karate Combat. Got Samuel Erickson, one of our top fires bringing from H Bar. Yeah. So follow me. We’re gonna show you how it works behind the scenes. So, so this is our camera setup. We’ve got techno crane, the matches are shot with cinematic cameras. We’re the first shoot to use seven cameras live with camera tracking. You can, as we walk into the set, you guys can see, you know, we have practical set elements over here. This is where everyone watches to fight. And we have it mixed in with the virtual world. So you can see the big screen in the back that’s done all through on real engine. The screen is actually, the screen actually changes and is rendered live depending on which camera that we’re using at the time shooting. This is our karate combat pit. Probably seen in this online before in a lot of our highlights. We’ve got some of the fighters right now testing it out, getting ready for their fights tomorrow. I’ll open it up to, to you guys for any, any questions. Sure. And Samuel Samuel here is gonna tell us about what it’s like fighting the pit and how the rule set is different from some of the other rule sets they’ve seen out there. MMA and boxing.

 

(07:57):

Yeah. I would say the, the biggest difference is of course the, the arena. Mm-Hmm. like the setup of it because like as everyone knows a cage, there is a, there is a cage mm-hmm.. And there is at some point you can’t go any further, like when you get stopped at the, at the cage wall. So here you see that is they are declined declining here. That means that you can use these walls, you can run on these walls, you can jump up on them. And the, the biggest difference is also as long as your back is against the, the decline wall, you’ll count as standing. Okay. So the fight keeps going. Right? Yeah. So it’s just one of these things that I know a lot of people that comes from mma I wouldn’t say struggle with, but it’s it may not seem as a big difference, but it is Yeah, for sure. I’ll just ask the, a few guys that came from the MMA world and they said, yeah, it’s big because they’re, they’re used to kind of lean back on the cage. Sure. And from there, there they can do something. Here, they can’t really do that because if they lean too much, they will slip down. Yeah. And then they’re on the ground and that’s not, that’s not good. And if they keep themselves on this on the wall, they just keep being, you know, kicked and punched and whatever. Yeah. So that’s the biggest difference. I would say.

 

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That’s a spectator. It’s dope. Cause there’s no bad seats in the house. That’s What I was saying. And also the, the fight, the fight keeps, keeps going. Right. The fight keeps going around and round round. So wherever, doesn’t matter if they’re in that corner or that corner, they will need to keep on fighting. And that guy with the back, with his back on the decline wall, he needs to do something otherwise he won’t wish to be tkd or, you know, get knocked out. So that would be the biggest difference I would say from MMA and boxing in Muta as well, because the ring, they also get like stopped. They can’t, you know, or you know, stay in the ropes and, and just wait for, for how Long. Yeah. It’s a real disadvantage when you get on that Sure. Creates different techniques. I mean Yeah. There’s no rope environment. Yeah. Well the new environment, you have to adapt. So you’re gonna create techniques. Yeah. Specifically for this type of environment, which is cool. Cuz like, I remember the first time I ever saw anything like this was Frank Shamrock did a, a event years back called Shoebox. And I think he only did like one event and it was like this recess pit like that. Then after that you saw it in World Combat League, but it was a bold, but it was still recessed. Right. And then now you get to see it here and it’s like an evolution, I think of a rank. It’s really dope. It is. I mean, bouncing off a cage, you know, like you might accidentally get a toe caught in that bad boy, you know, that doesn’t feel good. But here you can bounce off anywhere you want. Yeah. I would also say why this is a good thing for this, for this for this organization. It’s also since they, like in mma it’s a lot of like jiujitsu and, and wrestling that you can use against the cage. Mm-Hmm., if you’re a grappler, if you’re a wrestler and you feel that your standup game isn’t, you know, isn’t good, you get beat up a lot. Mm-Hmm., you can’t push him against the cage. And from there you can kind of get him stuck. You can take him down, you can hold him against the case. In Karate Columbia rules, we don’t do that. So you can, you can slip people, you can throw people, but on the ground it’s five second rule. So you can punch. But if you don’t, you know, if you don’t knock this guy out, the judge just stand, stand you up again. So, yeah. So again, the fight keeps going. So that for me personally, that’s what I like to do and that’s what I like to watch because it’s, it’s not that you, if you’re on the ground can do upticks and stuff, but mainly, most of the times if you don’t get knocked down, it’s not that big of a risk. You get knocked, knocked out from a guy that is ground and pounding you if you are fully aware of what’s happening. I can have a question for you though. So how do you prepare to fight in something like this? Like during your training camp or whatnot? Like, you know, it’s not like you just have one of these laying around, you know, I mean, some people actually, I’ve seen some fighters, they build this oh. Like in their at home or in their gym. I don’t <laugh>. But I mean, it’s very hard to kind of get this, but I mean if, if you have the, the, the skills to build one, if you know people that can, I mean that’s great for you, but I think the majority of fighters doesn’t, they just train in a cage or in a, on a flat floor or in a ring. And then when you’re here, like, like these guys are doing now, just trying to get a sense of how it feels to be inside in the distance. Like I said, I’ve asked some people, they are like surprised how Oh, it’s, it’s how it feels to just be not laying down. Yeah. And not standing up. Yeah. But still be able to fight. How is that mean?

 

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Well, I’ll say it, it looks like it’s designed for sport, right? Mm-Hmm.. Yeah. Where it’s not a gimmick. No. The cage is a gimmick. Yeah. Right. Let’s, let’s not kid ourselves, but this is designed for a sport. Yeah. Right. A boxing ring was designed what, 150 years ago or whatever it was. Yeah. Right. So it hasn’t really evolved since then. So it’s an innovation.

 

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I actually think that jujitsu will probably start taking over with stuff like this from like a recess pit. Mm-Hmm.. Because a lot of times now it’s either like on the floor, which isn’t bad, but then you have a hard time seeing through people. Mm-Hmm. And then, or it’s like in a cage or it’s on a elevated platform. Yeah. But then it can be still difficult to see. I mean, the only thing that would make this even better, which I know is not possible, it made me one day as if it was just SunEd down all the way into the floor. <Laugh> then like an old, it’s like an old, you know, which is kind of what, how everything’s set up here with like, kind of like if you’re sitting up here as a spectator, you can see directly down it’s very coliseum. Yeah. What it feels like. Very Cos Oh, that makes sense. Yeah.

 

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Didn’t you have one of the first event you had a, wasn’t it in where, where you had like people up on the balcony in like a big

 

(13:39):

We did one in South Beach. We did some one in South Beach with containers. We’ve done Yeah. Top floor of the World Trades Center. We had an event, we had the crock list in the Greece. We had event. Yeah. That one. And yeah, even with all the exotic locations, it seems like the fans prefer the virtual world more. Mm-Hmm.. So we’ve kind of come back to this and, and this is probably what we’ll do for the most part coming forward, but we have a few exotic locations next year again. So it should be exciting. We got any hints, any hints?

 

(14:06):

Probably in some islands. We’ll good

 

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At that. Oh, snap.

 

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Okay.

 

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Get some some water views.

 

(14:09):

What made you want to start all of this? I mean, this is a big production. I mean, like that wall alone probably costs more than probably 18. If I had built 18 of my own houses, that wall right there is <laugh>, you know? Well,

 

(14:22):

I, I, I think a big difference is, you know, people are so overwhelmed with all the MMA act action that you have right now. You know, there’s a fire in every night. You’ve got local promotions, you know, you’ve got the UFC that’s probably gonna win, or rare tapes all market. And then you’ve got another sort of leads with the exact same set with photos that essentially aren’t as good. What we wanted to do was do something that was completely new, something fresh and more exciting in terms of the, the action and visually as well. And I think that’s what we’ve accomplished. A lot of longtime MMA fans, they said, man, this re reminds me of, you know, UFC one. Mm-Hmm. when two guys walked out and it was like blood squished. You had no idea what was gonna happen. You didn’t even know if it was real or not. You know. And I think that’s what we’ve created. You know, the fans get right up to the action, they can enjoy it. And it’s just, just more exciting mm-hmm.. And in addition to that, you know, we definitely want to create something you know, with a, with a different cultural background. You know, we’re, we’re a lot about respect. And everything we do kind of goes into that look and feel. You know, it’s sort of a classroom environment where it’s still exciting, but you know, the respect between everyone. Yeah. As, as a fighter, sorry if I interrupt you, but I, I don’t know if you saw after the waves, the stare downs, they gathered all the fighters up the stage and they did like a full what you say, full picture of everyone, the blue fighters and the red fighters. I mean, could you do that with, with a, on an MMA event or a, you can’t do that because people would start, you know, this is as a, as a fighter that is working with them and, and you know, got to know them. I need, I feel that for me, this is like he said, you know, with the, it’s all about respect. It’s all about, you know, the, I remember my last fight last year after the fight, I went for lunch with Alberto after Yeah. Me and my coach went the lunch in the restaurant with him and his coach.

 

(16:12):

Yeah. And I’m not saying it can’t happen in, in, in other sports. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying this is how I feel Product combat is overall. People are nice. People show respect. It’s all about, you know, the, the journey as a martial artist. And that’s why we, we fight as a martial artist as fighters, but we also know where everyone comes from. We know how much work we put in the training, you know, the grad, you know, all the, for taking black belt only. That is something that I need to respect anyone, even if I’m not fighting him or if I’m fighting him, I’ll respect someone that, you know, made that journey.

 

(16:43):

So it does something else too. It puts a lot more emphasis on the fight instead of the show. Like, instead of like, well, in order for me to be successful, I have to like be a, i I can’t cuss on you <laugh>, but you know, there’s a lot of fighters that are making their entire career off of their personalities, even if they’re crappy fighters. Like, I’m sure they could all beat me up, but at the end of the day, I think that the, the eyeball should be on the fight. Mm-Hmm.. I don’t think the, the eyeball should be on the side show of who threw the promotion side, who’s doing what drug, who got in trouble with what cop, like, I mean, watch the fight. That’s what we came to see. I wanna see somebody get beat up <laugh>. That’s my point about respect. I think that’s why it’s a really good fit with the H Bar Foundation and Hedera. Because the reason why I came into that space is because the, the professionalism that they exuded. And I think that’s exactly what we see here with that culture of respect. Yeah. In my point of view. That’s the thing why I really love the organization. The every, the fighters, you know, I’m not fighting now I’m a guest, but you know, everyone is, you know, even if they’re fighting, I’m not, they’re not, you know, I’m just, I feel close with everyone. They are. Everyone is nice to me. I’m nice to them. Yeah. They are nervous for their fights. Obviously. They need to cut weight earlier in the week, but everyone takes the time to just, you know, take a second to say hi, talk a little bit and, and, and all that. So there’s one thing in here that I absolutely love that you guys do is like, if, if it’s a Rob, do another round. I love it. It’s my favorite thing. It’s like there’s, there’s no will I feel like I got robbed? No, no, no, no. Get it back in there. Do it again. <Laugh>. Because like the, who was it? It was man, who was it? There was a fight last time I was here and I can’t remember the name, but I remember both guys just trying to crawl up the wall as tired as they were, and it was dead even. And they were like one more round. And both guys, they weren’t upset about it. It was almost like a relief. Like, I know by the time we leave here, we will know who, who won. And I think that that’s something that’s every sport should do. Mm-Hmm.. They should never be like, well, I guess someone won. Kind of like, no man, get back in there. Do it again. That’s dope. Mm-Hmm.

 

(18:49):

All right guys. Well let’s carry on here. We’ll show you some of our production stuff and how we make this happen. So we, so everyone, this is, this is how the magic happens. We call this the Matrix. It’s the largest l e d volume in Florida. We have almost a thousand LEDs all chain linked. They’re the highest quality. And the camera that you’re seeing is actually shooting into the led. So it’s called virtual production. It’s the same way they did the Mandalorian. So it allows the audience to also see the virtual background rather than a green screen where you’d insert it real time or later on.

 

(19:22):

Whose idea was this?

 

(19:24):

We so, so to accomplish this credit combat, we actually had to start our own production company, move to Budapest and do this in a different form. We used to use a green screen and we used to use movie technology unreal Engine as they, as it got cut up. We’re actually doing this one on Unreal five, I believe. As Unreal engine cut up, we could do it real time with their graphics package, which is, which allows a lot more sophistication. It allows us to render it live much more easily. So once we had the experience doing the show in Budapest in sort of more cinematic VFX fashion we, when we moved to Orlando and we went live, we changed over and now we’re using the setup. That’s cool. All right guys, guys, we’ll go out here. We’ll, we’ll check out the truck real quick.

 

(20:11):

Live. Sure. So this is production. This is where our directors, tds graphics, everyone that really run and drive the show, all the producers Christian, our executive producer is in here. And this is where we can see all the cameras, see all the replay angles, see all the graphics, everything that we have in the truck that works, cohesion, melts together in this room. And the technicians in here are the ones, like at the, the production switcher with all the buttons are actually cutting cameras, physically pressing the buttons, entering physically pressing everything that you see that goes on air. So whether it’s replays or, or graphics or scoring or anything that you have, it all is some a manual button that has to be pressed and the whole team is working every, there’s about 15 people talking simultaneously together to make that happen. So it’s kind of a, a dance that everybody does.

 

(21:03):

So this is kind of where the magic happens in that room back there is where replay happens. So all your slowmo replays like you see in football or anything like that. So if someone gets knocked out in a fight, you know, they’re going down, that’s where we can back that up replay at a slow speed and get those real nice slowmo angles. And the room back behind there is all of our engineering rooms. So it’s, it’s, it’s just gear, if you know what, just big gear rooms all like plugs. Yeah. Yep, yep. Have somebody just mess with you and just pull like one in there if if they really don’t like you and want you to have a bad day. Yes. You can’t do that day on the show <laugh>. And then in that back far room is audio and you’ll see the big audio console and that’s where we mix everything. We have all the comms, we talk to our announcers where all of those come in and, and get mixed together for one live here. So everything that you mentioned, the audio here, here that is happening live as well as the event runs.

(22:00):

Oh, sh yeah. So imagine everybody in here that’s basically, if you were like, we kind of make the equation to the switcher if you’re typing a book live Yeah. And you cannot mess up. Yeah. Don’t misspell.

 

(22:11):

That’s what I thought. Maybe what happens if someone like is out of sync or not listening, not focused that would be no pressure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we’re all freelancers, right? So you’re only as good as your last show. Yeah. So you’re only as, you gotta be perfect every single time. Sure. And so that’s the, that’s the pressure to live broadcast. Yeah. Yeah. But it take, it takes all that and then all the cameras that are out there and all the gear. So if you look, when you guys leave out of the back of this truck, there’s a looks like a little, little mini tent on the back of the, of the truck. Stick your head back there and you’ll see all of our integrated wires. So all of that has to go into the house and integrate with cameras, comms mics, everything that’s, that’s in the house. And to make all that technically work takes a lot of really skilled technicians and a lot of really good troubleshooting mm-hmm.

 

(22:58):

Because there’s, we do it all from scratch, right? Three days ago, this was just an empty lot. So all that has to be built and faxed it, make sure that it works in, and just a, a couple days. Awesome. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a big lift. And you guys were in the a a different building before too? Yes. Like last time I was here. So how long did it take? You said three days total? Yeah, so we had about five days to do construction of the set to get the lighting grid up, to get, all of that has to be focused and just perfect and like to make all of that happen simultaneously. This show is, is a, it’s a, it’s a big lift. So at any given time, you had 80 people in there going around in forklifts and, and scissor lifts and, and people doing construction and cutting wood and building cameras, running cables, cleaning fibers. So you had like really brute grunt work going on along real technical finesse work and trying to make all that happen was, was definitely the biggest challenge with the show. But once it’s all up and running, then we get to sit back and, and make art at that point and, and try to cover the show the best that, that we possibly can in a live environment.

 

(24:10):

Wow.

 

(24:12):

Somebody way smarter than me is able to do that job.

 

(24:17):

All right guys, well that, that concludes our tour. You want to come back? You’re gonna have to buy a ticket. So look forward to seeing everyone here. Our next year is December 17th. Here I’m in Universal Studios Orlando. Look forward to seeing you guys there. Thank you so much. 

(24:46):

 

Today. Karate Combat is announcing the largest fan giveaway in the history of sports. We’re not giving away tickets or t-shirts, and we’re never giving away the pick. This December Karate Combat is giving away the keys to the actual league. We’ve been working for gears to build a platform that gives our fighters and our fans control of karate combat. A lead controlled by the locker room and the living room, not the boardroom. To do this, karate Combat is issuing its own karate token, and over time, the league will give away half of them for free to our athletes and fans. 

 

(25:28):

All the fans get these Karate Combat tokens and they can actually influence the league. If they place their tokens on the fighter they think is gonna win and they win, they get more tokens. If not, they have to try again next time.

 

(25:38):

This isn’t a monkey pick or a dog queen. We’re talking real transparency and control. And there’s more. With our mobile app, you can boost your favorite fighter’s, bonus pools, and when they win, you’ll pick a winning fighter and earn more tokens. All without ever risking your steak. Don’t forget to let us know where to send your token supply. Itchy. Go Itchy.