From UG-Tools’ snack-fueled award sweep to Rick Dunkerley’s full-circle Hall of Fame moment, this year’s show didn’t disappoint.

Each BLADE Show has more than its share of entertaining adventures, and the 2025 version was no exception. Two of the more memorable happenings from this year’s event were as follows:

UG Tools Tiny & Twinkies®

1: UG-Tools won both Imported Fixed Blade and Overall Knife Of The Year® for the TiNy Drop Point. Among the more notable features of the award winner is its light weight and the ability to be used for heavy-duty jobs and a variety of different applications, including hunting, fishing, hiking, law enforcement and EDC.

It was the knife’s lightweight/heavy-duty nature the UG folks chose to highlight at the show, doing so by putting the knife in the hands of patrons visiting the company’s booth.

“You could literally see their brains working to figure out why it was so darn light,” UG’s Jan Gierse wrote of the patrons’ reactions and the TiNy. The UG team would then take the knife and baton it through an 8×8 post, the sounds of hammering echoing through the exhibit hall.

Also known as Fixed Knives International and with the UG standing for (Philipp) Utsch and (Jan) Gierse, the German-based company began operations in 2020. BLADE Show ’25 was its first “trade fair” as an exhibitor and the firm’s brain trust had been contemplating how to best convey the low weight of their knives. The solution: say the knife is lighter than two Twinkies® and give away the famed Hostess snack cakes in large quantities to booth visitors. The idea went down well with young and old show-goers alike, and UG quickly became referred to as “the Twinkie guys,” even partaking of a few of the cream-filled treats themselves.

“The sugar was driving our brains to peak performance,” Jan wrote, “[and] we came up with an idea: If we won an award, [one of us would have] to get a tattoo of a Twinkie or a knife. Since we won the Overall award, each of us will get a tattoo. What it will be remains to be seen.”

Jan added that the results can probably be seen at next year’s show.

Rick Dunkerley’s Wild Ride to the Top

At the 1996 BLADE Show, Rick Dunkerley commanded notice for more than just his handforged folders. Late one night after the show he and fellow bladesmith Barry Gallagher mooned The Pit, the beloved sunken lounge in the lobby of the Renaissance Atlanta Waverly, from one of the hotel’s see-through glass elevators. As Rick stepped to the podium to be formally inducted into the BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-of-Fame® the Saturday morning of this year’s show, he began his comments by referring to the now-legendary “elevator exposé.”

“So it was 29 years ago that I was in the elevator and mooned The Pit,” he said to a round of laughter from the induction ceremony audience, “so my advice is that if you want to get into the Hall of Fame, don’t get in the elevator and moon The Pit. I got home from that episode and an ABS master smith called and told me they were going to kick me out of the ABS, and I said, well, if they’re going to kick me out of the ABS for that I don’t want to be in the ABS. But I passed my master smith test the next year, so I guess they didn’t hold it against me. My career has skyrocketed since,” he summarized to even more laughs.

Meanwhile, the induction ceremony was this writer’s first in my new role as Cutlery Hall-of-Fame chairman. In one of my first unofficial acts as chairman, I informed Rick and the audience that while the Cutlery Hall-of-Fame had a “little-known rule” banning anyone from membership if he or she mooned The Pit, the statute of limitations on the rule is—wait for it—28 years, and in his instance had run out. My lame joke aside, on behalf of BLADE®, the BLADE Show and the Hall of Fame, it’s my honor to help welcome Rick and the rest of his fellow inductees to the Hall.

See BLADE Show Award Winners:

• 2025 Custom Knife Award Winners
• 2025 BLADE Show Texas Custom Knife Award Winners
• 2025 BLADE Show Texas Factory Knife Award Winners
• 2024 BLADE Show West Custom Knife Award Winners
• 2024 BLADE Show West Factory Knife Award Winners