Three ISU graduates set out to bring kickboxing to Des Moines, and that’s just what they did.

The Kumite is a kickboxing circuit, which is an event similar to MMA or UFC, but Kumite is strictly stand up fighting — kicking, striking, kneeing and elbowing with no ground component in the fighting.

“[Kumite] is an opportunity for local fighters here to come and display their talents when it comes to stand-up striking,” said former ISU offensive tackle Vince Kelly, who started The Kumite in Des Moines. “It’s a kickboxing show, but it’s not limited to one style. If you are a person who does karate, if you are a person who does muay thai, kickboxing or taekwondo, you are more than welcome to come fight.”

Leslee Kelly, Vince’s wife, was raised into martial arts. Her father owned several martial arts schools in central Illinois, and Leslee has trained with him since she was a child.

When Leslee came to Iowa State, she started a karate club in 1998 just by word-of-mouth. She wanted to keep the basic components of karate and did not want to commercialize her teaching. Leslee has continued training throughout her whole life.

Vince played football at Iowa State and said he was always a competitive person and someone who liked physical contact.

“Once I finished playing ball, I wanted to continue to do something to compete and maintain some of that physical contact and have the opportunity to grow and develop talents and skills and stay in shape at the same time, so I started doing karate,” Vince said.

From there, Vince ended up opening a boxing club and trained a number of fighters who went on to regional and national tournaments. After that, he got involved with a number of MMA fighters.

“I really enjoyed working for [MMA fighters.] I really enjoyed working with people who boxed still, and just using all the things that I was able to learn over the years, knowing karate and also knowing boxing,” Vince said. “So I thought it’d be cool to venture into the kickboxing world to see what that’s like.”

Rebecca Casey studied martial arts throughout her whole life and developed a passion for it, but it was not until later that she got involved.

“Leslee Kelly had a black belt in judo karate, so its always been a passion of her’s. I’ve studied it throughout my whole life, so it has been a passion of mine,” Casey said. “Vince has a really good vision, business sense, business knowledge and Leslee and Vince got married. We have always talked, since college, about doing something, and it came around where we were at a point that we decided to look at throwing something like this. We kind of fell across somebody in the MMA world, and that’s why we all partnered together.”

Vince, Leslee and Casey collaborated with Paul Bird, a promoter for MMA and WWFC [World War Fighting Championships] and they all went in together on The Kumite.

“[We] thought a kickboxing circuit would be cool. Then we decided it would be a great business venture,” Vince said.

The Kumite’s first event took place April 5 in Des Moines, and now the three ISU alums and Bird have their sights set on the bigger picture.

“If it fuels from a passion and you have a passion for something you desire, you want to go a little smaller-hand to kind of get used to everything, so everything happens the way that you want on a professional level, on a martial arts level, on a business level,” Casey said. “One day we hope to be international, but for right now we are going to start with the Midwest to the whole United States to someday being international.”

Casey said they have already made connections with people in Australia and what Leslee said makes The Kumite so unique is that they are offering “an all stand up kickboxing show.”

“What people will find when they attend our event, is that we like to keep a good pace with our fighters and we like for them to engage each other,” Leslee said. “For the average fan, it’s easy to understand a kick and a punch, and it’s easy to see a winner and a loser.”