Summary
The field is wide open for the BLADE Show World Championship Cutting Competition.

BladeSports International Executive Director Jose Diaz cuts the water-filled jug during the BLADE Show 2009 World Championship Cutting Competition. His knife is the “Cane Toad,” sporting a blade of CPM-M4 tool steel and a horse-trailer-mat-rubber handle. Weight: 32 ounces. (competition photo by Cameron Eggly)

Some of the world’s best competition knives and the men who use them will be on display when BladeSports International’s top-ranked cutters return to Atlanta June 5 for the 8th Annual BLADE Show World Championship Cutting Competition.

Conducted by Bladesports International (BSI), the championship once again will be held in “The Courtyard” of the show’s host hotel, the Renaissance Waverly, beginning at 4:15 p.m. The action-packed event is a crowd favorite, with qualifying competitors putting their knives to the test over a tough array of cutting challenges.

The contestants each take turns going through a course that includes cutting through 2x4s, hanging ropes, hardwood dowels, paper tubes, water bottles and a couple of surprise cuts they cannot prepare for in advance. In addition they are timed, so they must make each cut as precisely and as quickly as possible to earn the most points.
To qualify for the BLADE Show World Championship, a U.S. cutter must compete in at least four BSI competitions during the season, with the four best scores in each counting toward qualification. Ten cutters are invited to the championship—eight from the USA and two from abroad.

All cutters are required to attend a cutting school and be certified by BSI in order to compete in the cutting events. Cutters are in two classes—red level for the more experienced and white level for those with less experience—but all must negotiate the same course. A cutter from either class can be the overall winner in a competition.

The cutting competitions and BSI have been growing in popularity over the past few years. Last year BSI added a U.K. affiliate and this year about 20 new members in the Netherlands joined (see sidebar on page 53). “We have about 10 people in Australia interested and we’ve heard from people in South America who are interested, too,” said Jose Diaz, BSI executive director. Steve Singer has been making videos of the competitions and posting them on the internet where they are receiving attention worldwide.

Among the favorites coming into this year’s BLADE Show World Championship Cutting Competition, past champ Gary Bond shows his form with a Warren Osborne clip-point blade during last year’s title cut. Bond’s current knife is the “Bruiser,” an Osborne model with a 10-inch sheepfoot blade of 3/8-inch CPM-M4 and a Rockwell hardness of 62 Rc. Weight: 1 pound, 11 ounces. Overall length: 15 inches. (competition photo by Cameron Eggly)

Knives & Top Cutters

Such veteran competitors as Singer, Warren Osborne and Gayle Bradley make some of the knives used in the event, though several contestants, including Diaz, Ted Ott, Donavon Phillips and others, make their own knives.

Each maker constantly experiments with assorted steels and designs. “A few thousandths of an inch in the right places can make a huge difference,” Singer noted. For most, CPM-M4 tool steel remains the blade material of choice for competition knives because it can be ground thinner and still hold up to the demands of the course events.

Ott has returned to competition with a vengeance this year after taking some time off due to a shoulder injury. At press time, he was the points leader in the BSI’s red level and had reclaimed two world records from Bradley: cleaving 20 bottles in the water-filled plastic bottle cut and 15 bundled 1-inch ropes in the rope cut. He also holds the record for the 2x4 speed cut in 1.8 seconds. He has two overall and two red level wins in BSI competitions this year. He was once ranked in the top five worldwide in arm wrestling, and reclaimed two of his cutting world records just eight months after having eight anchors surgically attached to his shoulder to repair a torn rotator cuff.
Ott makes his competition knife from CPM-M4 stock almost .5-inch thick. Competition knives must have a blade 10 inches long and 2 inches wide, and an overall length of 15 inches. There is no limit on thickness or weight, though Ted points out that the design is a balancing act.

“If you go too thick and heavy you may not be able to negotiate the finesse cuts, like the paper cuts and straw cuts,” he advised. “I keep shifting the weight further toward the tip of the [blade], and I keep making the knife heavier.” His current competition model is a 1-pound, 11-ounce cane-cutter type with a blunt, squared-off end. The blade is almost .5-inch thick at the spine toward the tip but tapers back to about .25 inch at the balance point. He said moving the weight forward produces more power in the stroke, though he wants to cut right at the balance point of the knife and not the tip. He added that success in the competition is based about 60 percent on the ability of the cutter and around 40 percent on the quality of the knife.

Past world champ Gary Bond is back and very much in the running for another BSI season championship, just 10 points behind Ott at press time. Like Ott, Bond also has two overall and two red level wins this year.  He uses a CPM-M4 competition knife made by Osborne. It is also a cane-cutter-type knife, the same weight as Ott’s and about 2 ounces heavier than the Osborne knife Bond used last year. While most competition knives are full tang, Bond’s knife has a hidden tang that helps move the weight forward and provides more shock absorption in the handle.

“This last year [the competitions have] grown by leaps and bounds in the U.S. and with the guys overseas,” Bond observed. “Some of these new guys that are coming in are really making it tough on some of us that have been around for a while. The [cutting] schools are making [the cutters] think and it’s making them better. I just try to stay consistent.”

At press time, defending BLADE Show World Champion Shawn Scott was 7th in points, with one overall and two red level  2nd place finishes in competitions this season. Scott uses a knife made by Singer. Ian Allen-Rowlandson is expected to return, representing the BSI U.K. chapter after debuting as the event’s first-ever international contestant last year.

The Ones To Watch

There are the perennial favorites like Ott, Bond and Phillips, but you never know when someone will step out of the shadows and have a great performance like Scott did last year.

The up-and-comers include Dan Kefler, a beefy football player who can chop through a 2x4 in four strokes. Singer said he thinks Kefler is going to be the one to beat in the not-too-distant future. Another one to watch is Michael Rader who, according to Ott, “is so fast that he looks like Gayle Bradley made over.” Bud Robbins, who Ott has trained, also has been coming on strong. At press time, Singer, brothers Chris and Doug Baker, John Czagas, Lars Rosenblad and Brian Wagner all were mathematically eligible to qualify for the world championship.

“There are just too many good cutters this year to count anybody out,” said Diaz, who was in 11th place and still in contention at press time. “This year’s championship is wide open with any of a dozen cutters capable of winning.”

“The Lone Star competition [held this past December] was the most competitive cut I have ever seen,” Ott said. “If you can imagine negotiating 15 or 16 cuts, with three 2x4 cuts, in under one minute—and the time that separated the top three people was two seconds! It’s like Jim Crowell once said at a competition, ‘I have beaten every man here and every man here has beaten me.’”

BSI is a non-profit organization and its staff members volunteer their time to run the organization and stage the cutting competitions. For more information, contact www.bladesports.org.

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