First World Professional Karate Championships 1968 – 22-year old Joe Lewis Post Fight Interview

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In February​ 1968, Kansas-based Jim Harrison produced the first of many tourneys which would carry the name, “World Professional Karate Championships.”

It was a closed-card event featuring eight of America’s best point fighters.

Fighters: Joe Lewis, David Moon, Pat Burleson, Bob Wall, Fred Wren, Skipper Mullins

Referees: Bob Trias, Allen Steen, and Louis Angel.

Harrison’s concept was to film the proceedings on videotape for use as a pilot for a regular weekly or monthly series. The legendary Joe Lewis of Hollywood won first place, and became karate’s first paid professional when Harrison awarded him with the token sum of one dollar!

Harrison later lost the videotape on a plane trip to Dallas and it was returned to him several years later by Braniff Airlines. Had fate not interfered, the concept may have sold, and possibly could dramatically have altered the course of the professional sport.

In 1999, Harrison sent the film to John Graden who restored it into a retrospective documentary that he co-hosted with Joe Lewis.