Karate Combat - The First Official Pro Sport of Web3 - TOKEN2049 Dubai 2024

bass maybe we should be in the middle for these guys to not start the fight before tomorrow right next to they're professionals they can do it all right right it's a good stage here yeah I think we're waiting for a video um but we we can start without it so let let's get going good afternoon guys this is definitely definitely going to be the most violent speech that you get here today token 2049 so we got some introductions now that everyone's out here you can see where they are so these two guys in the middle are fighting tomorrow night Luke rockold Joe Schilling two former World middleweight Champions we'll see who's the best striker in the karate combat rule set bass rutin MMA OG and GSP who needs no introduction go of MMA so little bit about karate combat karate combat let good great so karate combat was created from the ground up for the next generation of sports fans starting with starting with viewership so when you look at how younger people view sports today they watch sports on their phone they watch sports via social media they're not sitting around and watching a long TV program we built a league for those fans as a result at Katey combat we have absolutely zero pay wall you can watch Katey Combat on TV in 100 countries but at the same time you can watch it online you can watch on YouTube Instagram Facebook kate.com you name it more recently we've been partnering with the world's biggest streamers we allow them to show karate Combat on their channels in their languages the way that they like to present to Their audience the other thing interesting about karate combat is we built the rule set from the ground up to be fastpaced and entertaining if you're a casual UFC or MMA fan the way I would describe it is UFC with no wrestling but more specifically we have shorter rounds we remove the grappling and then we put together a rule set that favors ex favors aggression quite frankly I think it's undeniably the most exciting rule set in Combat Sports today the second thing about Katey combat is we want every single production to look like real life Mortal Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter we do this using one of two formats first as you can see we have in our event in front of a fully rendered 3DX VFX background we do this using Unreal Engine and precise remote camera tracking the second format that we have is this we have events in exotic locations this was a 5,000 person Ampitheater and C Deo oh I forgot about this one actually this is uh yeah this is an interesting story so our president awesome he was making some amazing content um and I was at his mom's house so what did we do this is Kate combat Kickback one we had 2,000 people in a residential neighborhood filmed it to a 100 countries worldwide all from Awesome's mom's house so the last thing about karate combat is we're the first sports League governed by a token when when you look at the landscape of fans today um and when you look at K combat we feel that there was a huge opportunity to give the fans more control so what we so what we did was two years ago my partner and I sold the assets of karate combat to an offshore Foundation the foundation still holds those assets we structured the foundation in such a way that can fully govern the lead karate comat has unbelievable awareness in just 7 years we have over 6 million followers but our viewership is really impressive we have hundreds of millions of organic views per month the problem is how do you take that incredible awareness and convert those fans into super fans we think we have a shortcut offering them a little bit of a little Financial incentive so if you actually pull our target audience you'll you'll see that 50% of them are only likely to watch a sporing event if they have a beted on it so our dream was how do we offer Financial upside to every single one of our token holders for every single fight the answer is web three so two years ago we started building out a web three platform we branded it as up only gaming we leveraged the latest defi tools to allow our token holders to pick a group of Fighters before every single fight if your fighter wins you win too by getting additional tokens we set aside a prize pool of c tokens which we did in advance so it's already in our FTV we say we say site a prize pool for the winners for every single event so what's going to happen over time is that the most active users are going to govern the league more taking away from the unactive users Additionally the fighters get 10% of every prize pull so they become involved as well so far the the we've definitely had had amazing returns and engagement from our users because of this as far as our mobile app very simple straightforward um easy uiux our front end is in Android and iOS you can go download the app you get your you get 88 karate tokens and you can use them to vote on Fighters for our next event after this one coming up which is in Austin Texas next month at consensus so how has it been working and now La last month we had 62 62,000 users play the game more impressively we have 50% growth month over month we're on track to become the biggest game in web 3 this year but more importantly when you look at these numbers they're a fraction of our real fan base and they're a fraction of what a traditional Sports League gets so we think we're just scraping the surface in terms of taking the normies and converting them into web 3 and a very simple way that they might not even know is web three so now for the fun part um I'm going to turn it over to our panelists first I have a I have a question for boss and then uh he he's going to ask the other guy some questions so boss my first question for you you're chairman at karate combat you know we already had a great thing going you know we were one of the hottest properties in Combat Sports and then now we've gone head first into web 3 what are your thoughts been about this experience it's been really amazing I mean uh I started with karate then I went to Tha boxing then I did Taekwondo then I started competing in Tai boxing Taekwondo Tai boxing to mix martial arts and mix martial arts suddenly they called me five years ago they say hey you want to be part of a new Full contact karate organization I sure sign me up because that brings me right back to where I started and the way you guys have been doing it with the web three I mean you're taking something old like karate for instance now first of all Fighting has been around for ages and we all know Combat Sports and a lot of people love Combat Sports 86 years ago Funakoshi kishin he decided to start karate karate means empty hand that means you have no weapon in your hand it's all about the person in front front of you the style the persistence the heart determination it's all about that who is the better fighter then we go fast forward in 2013 web 3 came along I think they got coined by Kevin Wood in 2014 and that started taking storm now five years ago karate combat start bringing New Life to to karate with a full contact organization and here we are now we have something old 86 years old so to say bringing New Life in it together with something that is new and fresh and that's why I think it's a made an haveit okay great do you have any uh questions for the the panel of course we have questions for the fighters tomorrow so uh first of all I need to say that both these Fighters are pretty much identical in size in reach I think Luke has one and a half inch reach Advantage Joe will be 10 months older but for the rest everything is the same so that means that it's all about the style which style is going to win we got the aloa style of Luke rockold and we got Joe Shilling who just wants to murder people that's what he does and that's why they call him Stitch him up because he let a lot of people you have stitches then again the chicks dig stitches right that's what they say so Luke for a guy who is stas Neils as I just said you know did you bring in mu thai fighters who could mimic him for your training camp I was actually here in Dubai filming a show and uh this popped on my plate about three weeks ago and I feel like it was meant to be it was First supposed to be Jo Ray Souza a rematch with an old fo of mine but uh he declined and I got this name of Joe Shilling I'm familiar with Joe I've I've been around Joe in the game for quite a while we worked together a couple times but uh you know I think some fights are just meant to be I was meant to be here in Dubai and me and Joe I you know meant to test our medals all right and Joe you already fought Mak martial arts and a lot of people are but does that have it to do with anything well boxing is very close together kickboxing is a little bit further together and uh away from each other and the fighters in mixed martial arts stand further away because there'll be takedowns now karate combat what you might not know yet has also takedown so you can take somebody down and ground and pound him until he's either out or he can lock you up and then the referee will reset you on the feet so you were used to that distance same question kind of for you did you bring in people who were as as elusive as LC is because it's a complete different style well I was in the same situation that Luke was where this kind of fell on my played 3 weeks ago and uh I probably ordinarily wouldn't have taken the fight on such short notice but like Luke said we haven't known each other for a long time I have a lot of respect for Luke it was an exciting fight and uh karate combat the the format of it is exciting it's my kind of style of fight and uh I think it's going to be a really exciting fight you know um Luke and I match up really well together we're both very similar style so it's going to be you know it's going to be a good one and uh Luke what do you do you think is the biggest difference between your and his style um not giving away I I think movement I think movement I think obviously I I have I have pretty vicious ground and pound when I want to use it I think I have different power than he's ever felt kick wise especially at 195 pounds I'm not taking any weight away I'm going to be bringing like I know Joe's fought some of the best guys in the world but I guarantee he hasn't felt power like mine and and there's going to be a movement that he's never he's not prepared for and and obviously there's an element of takedowns got a Joe's got an he's got power in his hands but I got to take that out of it and I got to open up my game I got a lot of avenues to win this fight it's my fight to win it's my fight to lose he's the former WBC muai light heavyweight champion right interim Champion so he knows how to fight okay same question for you um Joe do what do you think is the biggest difference with your fighting style and do you maybe want to hurt him a little bit more because let's face he's he's a male model as well right let's everybody knows I mean Luke tried his hand at modeling don't don't act like he didn't get your face in there I know you in I might have modeled a little but not at the level that he did and I mean who doesn't want to punch this guy in the face right now you know uh stylistically it's a it's a like I said it's a very similar fight Luke has much more uh experience in grappling and wrestling and and mixed martial arts I was more of a kickboxer that was kind of forced into mixed martial arts I never really developed that that side of my game at least not not to the level that Luke did and yeah it's going to be if Luke can Implement his game I personally don't think he can but I'm you know I'm sure he feels the same way about me implenting mine um but yeah I think I'm a little faster I think I hit a little harder I think I have a little better movement I think I've been in there with a little better uh Strikers Luke's been in there with the best MMA fighters in the world has a great I'm sure he has very good ground and pound and I hope that I can shut that down all right so last question for both of you how's this fight going end and be precise let's see if you can say it's going to be a right high kick it's going to be a left hook and uppercut and and in what round and if you really want to be what minute well I think on three weeks notice neither one of us wanted to go five rounds and uh you know I think um if I Implement my game corre my game plan correctly I think it's a first round knockout for me and I'm sure he probably feels the same way for him counter you know I uh no he's not going to sh I'm not I'm not rushing things but I'm going to take my time I think I I could definitely I could take him out in the first round I think I could I think my left kick is is a danger on all levels for him and then proceeding that you know maybe I could hurt him finish him on the ground I like that I like it you know one to the one to the next B bass if I may I'm so excited for the the final tomorrow on the one side you have arguably the best American to have ever compete in kickboxing mu Tha and on the other side you you have former Strike Force and UFC champion they both going to fight in a different environment that I that they never competed before first you don't guard the same way in with small glove than you do with big gloves and also you're the the the the surface on which they're fighting is different it's in a pit so it changes everything the environment I'm so excited for for this uh for this Main Event um it gives me Goosebump I have a question for you guys what are your goals in by coming in karate combat what what are you looking for uh outside of of course winning the fight what what what would be your long-term goals honestly the uh with the excuse me with the uh pandemic and Co coming coming in it really shut down my career and uh kind of I almost retired I'm kind of retired for the last five years and uh you know when I was in my my peak in kickboxing uh my my children were pretty small and they know what dad's done his whole life but they Haven get to experience it to the level that uh they do now you know and uh I've really took this fight because I want to show my little boy over there who his dad is and who his dad's always been and if this is my last one I'm going to I'm going to go out with no regrets that's why I'm here okay um I'm looking to stitch him up I mean I'm looking to win this fight and put on I want to fight in Dubai I want to put this man down so I'm here to perform for Dubai I think it's an awesome opportunity to be here in Dubai and I mean that's got that's a big nose it's a big Target I'm I'm going to aim for it and before we got to do a we got to do a stown actually a shirtless staredown ladies so you you away but uh George a long time ago like uh I would say three years ago they asked me oh we want him uh to be maybe on the show and I said no don't get that guy he's a hard guy to deal with I said why don't you get George Shier he said we can't get a hold of him and I said let me text him so George hey what's up hey uh I got a question by karate combat 20 seconds later my phone rings George and goes dude I'm watching the show for the last two years I would love to be a they don't even have to pay me he even shouted and and now he's here and and what do you feel George what do you think of karate combat bass I'm so I'm so trilled to be here because my first St of combat that I've learned is karate I start karate because I was bullied at school so I start karate as a self-defense then it develop into a passion it changes changes me from the inside out and then that's how later on I earn a living with you know so karate for me is everything and we don't realize it but karate is probably the the one of the sty or probably the the combat the combat sport the most popular because there's different style of karate and what karate combat brings is it brings a different option for karate fighter to go pro and karate combat is a mix we we have different rules that that forces it doesn't favor any particular style of karate but it make them fight under the same roof with a a specific set of rules of course it's with small gloves it's on in a pit there is throws allowed 5 Second while they're they're on the ground so I think it's very interesting and it has a bigger reach for the audience that's why it's so exciting all right great well our time's up so right before the uh before the face off I'd like to say let's do a face off oh yes oh yeah you guys can see how passionate these icons of Combat Sports are about kateed combat you know the traditional fans we're really taking off and we're going head first into web 3 and I think this is a perfect opportunity for token holders to have a part of something that's that's really blowing up right now so no fur take their shirts [Laughter] off music yeah you're Mike all right the big the big final guys tomorrow Joe Shilling against Luke Rock [Music] nice oh some seriousness here going on all right thanks everyone we G to go do that again Robert Bryan what a thing you have made congratulations on Karate combat fantastic boys you ready no I'm not throwing down with these boys that would be a very bad idea I'll wish you both luck tomorrow night all right thank you great Cong yeah you're done all right thank you very much