Most rigged tournament ive ever witnessed...

The following is a letter similar to that , that I am in the process of sending to the UKA. It details what I faced, along with what I witnessed in attending this tournament.
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July 30, 2005 Missouri Open at Gym Quarters in St. Louis, Missouri.

After having attending, competing, and spectating in may competitions, I do see a lot of what goes on, but was disgusted by today’s ordeal. There were uncontrolled kids running and jumping about the gym, and countless safety hazards from left-out gymnastic equipment. Firstly, the only seating area was very small, and had extremely uncomfortable bleacher seating. Something of which, I heard and saw countless numbers of people complaining about and actually exiting out of the building. To make matters worse, it was a very hot day( 90 degrees +), and the air conditioning did not appear to be working at all. I, myself, felt overheated after sitting down for too long upstairs. As far as the competing itself goes, I have also seen countless times the "robbing of points". This is no new concept, and unfortunately what the judge sees is what goes. Although, is there not a rule about having a students personal instructor be the referee of the entire fight? When it came time for me to fight, I not only lost, but lost by 5-0. The guy reffing then has the audacity to tell me I should be fighting better for my rank, and essentially tried shaming me. Now, I couldn’t care less if I actually lost fairly, and at first I even was going along with it. Although I wasnt the only one he gave his "friendly" remarks too, i noticed him saying things from orange belt all the way to 1st black and higher. Then I noticed that the guy I had fought and the referee were wearing the same arm patch, similar uniform, and similar belts. The next time my opponent was up, the same thing happened. I saw him get pummeled one time after another by a different competitor, and whenever a break would be called, the referee would always either award a point to his student or not give anything to the other one. It looked like in the intermediate level there were 2 or 3 of his students. All of which seemed to get favor in points and would win. At the very end when the days "grandmaster" contest was going on, the strange thing was, all the students looked exactly the same. Same patches, same uniforms, no belts...And that is no exaggeration. Out of all the wrigged tournaments I have witnessed, I have never seen someone successfully award every trophy and point to their own students. I actually saw other instructors go up to him, and seemingly argue(And they were spectators not the kid's own judges even). As far as my fight goes he also had a late scoring call, in which a point was awarded to his student again. Furthermore, it was evident that it was not only myself, but all who were not related to their school. On my way out of the building, I also saw a competitor wearing no uniform. In fact he was wearing a regular t-shirt and baggy camouflage pants(when sparring). Clearly violating the rule that an opponent must wear a traditional uniform at all times. At a prior tournament when I did not have my Gi Top, I was told I couldn’t compete, and was forced to buy one while there. After spending $30.00 and $35.00 and $5.00 , not including the price of shirts and souvenirs, tournament after tournament, I am tired of it. Many others are with me on this, and according to them will never come back, or volunteer ever again. I only ask that this matter is looked into , and the instructor brought to whatever penalty results from his violations of conduct.

 

I think if you're going to actually send this as a letter then I'd put it in a proper letter format. That means that you're going to want to go through it and spell check it and make sure the punctuation is correct.

As well... don't just let the whole thing run on sentence after sentence. Throw some paragraph breaks in there. Otherwise people have a tendency to just see it as way too much type and and skim it and then bin it.

Not to sound like Grandmother Goose or anything... but if you actually want anyone to take it seriously then you have to look professional. Especially when you are calling them on the carpet in regards to their professional standards.

After you've set it up in proper letter format and it's been spell checked and given paragraph breaks - make sure it gets stuffed in an evenvelope that is printed out and not hand written. Make sure the letter is hand signed preferably with a foutain pen... not a ratty old ball point and especially not a felt tip pen or anything in red. Again you want to come off as direct and professional as possible.

You need to promp them for reply. Otherwise if you just leave it up to them with no directive then it'll end up in the bin.

It could end up there very well anyhow... but that might be out of your control at any rate.

Good luck and hope you can get some resolution.

 

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I sincerely appreciate your commentary and suggestions on this. Although, this was a "similar" copy as stated in my first post that I just paraphrased for the sake of this fourm. The actual copy contained names and actual places, and for personal and security reasons I didn't feel comfortable posting those. The actual letter is about twice as long and quite a bit different. Although, I felt this summed up the lot of it.

kind regards

 

i would suggest you get to the meat and potatoes of your complaint instead of crying about hard seats and that it was too hot.

 

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thx for the comment thai, as I did consider cutting that out as well. Here is why i did not though... The flyers were false advertising. It advertised a "large warm up area" when there was virtually no warm up area, and stadium seating with plenty of room. Now "stadium seating" is techinally bleachers, but usually they have come backings to them. In this case they were not even up against the wall. Now I am no nancy boy or anything here, but when there are elderly people and young children in an atheltetic situation in a poorly ventilated area, injuries happen and did happen.

 

McTrophy anyone?

I hope you manage to resolve this matter. It might help if you were to contact others in attendence from different schools to follow your example.

 

I think you should have beaten down the ref.

 

Problem is, don't know if it will ever stop. But we need more people willing to even just write letters. Good luck. Once it's cleaned up, it should be very good.

 

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I would have liked to have done that to the ref but violence truly doesnt solve anything :bang: and the UKA who santcioned the tournament, would only have looked down on me. I have considered that idea and am considering taking a written petition from school to school for the improvement of the organization. If not at the very lease, enforce stricter governing rules.

 

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Above all the fun has been taken out of tournaments. They should at least be enjoyable to watch and compete in despite if you lose. Don't get me wrong there are many refs and judges who are excelent and truly good people, just not around me it seems They have a complex that their "bought" blackbelt, makes them better than everyone else, same rank or not. I plan to take this matter all the way to the top and higher. Including a poll on these boards, and the contacting of all possible studios and agencies.

 

I've seen it happen in both karate and TKD tournaments and I think as long as BB's are allowed to ref their own students its going to happen unfortunately. I've seen refereeing that was absolutely embarrassingly biased to the point where the fans were laughing at how badly the sparring was going. Good luck and let us know if you get a response.

 

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How right you are . I am in the process of trying to submit a written revision of the rules in which the judges must be verfied to judge certain sparring matches. The standing rule also is that no coaching is allowed, and points may be deducted if any occurs. :bang: With some hope , success may be possible. Thankfully, I know a couple big-wigs in the martial arts and movie industry, and am hoping publicity from them helps as well. That "tip" from him really ticked me off. I personally trained for years and in many martial arts without ranking and only shortly requested it not too long ago. I made the request to start formally and on record being ranked, so that one day in the near future I would be able to open up a legitimate MA school. At this particular tournament I was wearing a purple belt and fighting in the intermediate category. He actually had the nerve to suggest that I should be fighting better and like is aid insulted me. To my current knowledge arguing with a ref gets you nothing but disqualification and no ref can be "fired" without a majority vote from the other refs. Many were all friends, however, with teh same attitude complex, so it was a lose/lose complex. As the saying goes, walk away today,come back and fight tommorow. Sad thing is i dont think the instructor realized that this was a "sporting event". In the actual street when someone hits the other person, they typically dont stop or throw high kicks or anything of the sort. Our battle has just begun and will in time i prey come to an end. "Our" reffering to the entire martial arts community. I, personally if need be, will distribute fliers at all tournaments explaining to spectators to closely watch fights and question who the judges are. There is no technical rule against doing this, but as with all things, AWARENESS is the key. Too many people just go along with what the judges say simply because they are "seniors". The only "seniority" i see them having is senority in scamming. Afterall the more trophies and people in attendence they have in their school, the more money and clientel they get. Should I ever soon open a school, tournaments will be encouraged only for fun and leisure, and never a source of conning students. The "all equipment must be purchased at my studio or you cant learn" policy, wont exist with me either. I am planning to open up a retail section along with it, but it is not required by any means and will be fair prices(not inflated). Some of you are possibly agreeing with me right now, that all of the above would be a dream come true, but you question the object of money. The profit would be made mainly by the lessons, and maintained through another one of my buisness ventures. Schools not doing any of this are sometimes questionble, and often run by people of character of some of these judges. There will yet be justice in the world of tournament conspiracy.

 

I think it is an embarrassment that a BB would cheat somebody out of something they deserve. Sometimes I have to ref students from my school, and if their opponents are out fighting them, I have no problem sending them home with a 5-0 lost.

Also, point robbing can get a person seriously injured. I remember when I was a green belt and my opponent couldn't stop my hook kick. I wasn't trying to hurt the guy so everything I threw was controlled. Will the center judge was an affiliate of my opponent's school, and never was a point awarded to me so I lost 2-0. It was a double elimination tournament. The next we met I threw a spinning hook kick and landed, with malice aforethought, right on his cheek. The guy was out for about 2-3 mins. Rightfully so I got DQed for it and I never would do it again. But it just goes to show you when you try to rob a young, competitive and cocky SOB like I use to be.

 

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lol, intersting post tulsatkd but sadly its true. Something i have not yet mentioned is this instructors students were using little control and infact kicked somebody in the back pretty hard(not me), and never was a break called. I felt the same way fighting this guy, but the problem was he was literally half the size i was, and it wasnt his fault his instructor was a moron. I did throw a bit harder and he did get drilled a couple times but i did my best to control my frustration. Something else im not sure i mentioned was, iw as the only person who lost once that got to fight only once.

 

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I will soon be posting , as long as its ok with mods, the website address where you guys can go to find out more info about the progress

 

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A very rough sketch of the site is up!!

http://savekarate.homestead.com/

 

This sort of thing happens a lot at tournies. I have my student go to few nowadays and we are very selective.

 

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yes, it happens far too much . Hopefully my work on the matter will help things along. My studio is actually, having an in-studio tournament they are so fed up with this B.S. Alot of what goes on is just so wrong.

 

I think tournaments should be looked at as simply a way to judge your own skills regardless of what the refs decide. Some are simply a way for the organizers to make money off of kids. I think if you go in thinking the judges are going to be fair your going to be disappointed.

 

Good luck with the endeavor ... certainly is quite a controversy to tackle but with the help of the rest of the martial arts community you may make some bit of differance if only to get the word out on these "rigged" tournaments.

Might I point out that the address of the UKA which appears on the site is not entirely viewable. You may want to adjust the underscore on the town/state.

I agree with Kwaj. You've heard & seen the jokes regarding refs/judges?

Question: Why are referees buried 12 feet deep when they die instead of
the normal six feet? Answer: Because, deep down, they really are fair and
impartial.

I could go on & on !