The legendary Fullcontact & Sport Karate Magazine
This project with digitalizing old issues of Professional Karate magazine have taken a new turn. Instead of publishing scans of old images as pdf files, we are now able to publish full texts and images from the legendary publication on Backkicks com website. An entire category is available here together with articles from other historic places.
Please, visit here to find the newest updates and publications:
https://www.backkicks.com/category/professional-karate-magazine
Richard Tirshell and Chuck Norris illustrate a professional karate fighting combination with a blow by blow description in this textbook sparring session from 1973. More infos about how to become a champion.
While Mike Stone couldn’t make it – as many others who were snowed in on that weekend – to be the head referee for the US National Blackbelt Championships Bill “Superfoot” Wallace wrote history for American sport karate. He won over both, Fred Wren and Byong Yu to capture his first major Grand Championship title featured on a national magazine in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Yu had beaten lightweight champion Al Dacascos in his first match and there were a lot more action packed fights taking place.
Over decades Al Dacascos tought his Wun Hop Kuen Do style of Kung Fu in Germany and around the World. This archived article from the Summer edition 1972 of Professional Karate takes us back to one of his early articles he published about the martial arts that showcased his philosophy and approach to teaching Kung Fu all around the globe. BTW, Al Dacascos is the father of Mark Dacascos, a leading martial arts movie star.
The legendary American karate hero and movie star published a textbook article in the fall edition of 1975: How to become a champion. In his article Chuck Norris describes the physical and mental demands on karate competitors. He concludes the piece by showing two fighting combinations for scoring points in tournaments.
One of the first top fighters in America was Mike Stone. His legacy ruled parallel to the reign of greats like Fred Wren, Bill Wallace, Joe Lewis and Chuck Norris. He privately trained many celebrities including Priscilla Presley. The premier issue of Professional Karate of Summer 1972 featured a candid interview with Mike Stone about karate, his past and visions for the future. One of his hobbies was archery and he designed watch bands for women – unusual for a martial artist. An Interesting read about the grand master from Hawaii who made his Blackbelt in just 6 months while winning the biggest tournaments in the country. At the end there is a blow-by-blow fighting combination with Bob Wall being left without defense and kicked in the gut.
The AKA Nationals 72 was a prestigious Chicago Karate tournament held inside the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Report published by Professional Karate in its inaugural edition. The image shows the winners left to right: Bill Josaitis, Ken Knudson, Flem Evans, Steve Kijewski and Ken Jakubzak .
Professional Karate Magazine was a print magazine published in the USA from summer 1973 until fall 1975 by publlisher Mike Anderson. It featured the starts of sport karate and fullcontact like Joe Lewis, Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, Howard Jackson, Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, etc. Anderson has been one of the pioneers of martial arts in the Western World.
Professional Karate 