Standardized Tournaments And Ratings System

The first national newsstand editor of Inside Kung-Fu magazine, Paul Maslak created the STAR (Standardized Tournaments And Ratings) System in 1980 initially as a mechanism for pressing tournament karate directors to adopt the same minimal safety procedures. With the help of colleague John Corcoran, a former PKA events coordinator and then editor of KICK Illustrated, Maslak expanded the STAR ratings into professional kickboxing in response to the organizational partisanship of the contender rankings generated by the sport’s major sanctioning bodies. 

He also wrote the first Official Rules of the World Karate Association in 1980 as well as the revised Official Rules of the World Kickboxing Association: Third Edition, in 1987. After leaving Inside Kung-fu in late 1981, he discontinued the STAR tournament ratings.

Focusing thereafter on the professional ring, the STAR System became the premier rating service for international kickboxing throughout the 1980s, syndicated in some 15 martial arts and sports magazines across the world. Maslak served as ratings commissioner and the STAR System ratings were recognized as the official ratings source for two of the sport’s three major sanctioning bodies, the WKA and KICK. 

Concurrently with the STAR System, Paul Maslak began to work in the motion picture industry first as casting director for New World Pictures’ No Retreat, No Surrender, in connection with which he helped give industry entrée to Jean-Claude Van Damme, Cynthia Rothrock, Kurt McKinney and Ernie Reyes, Jr. While rising through the ranks of low-budget filmmaking, he co-wrote six produced screenplays and subsequently produced a dozen motion pictures for cable television, including: The Right Temptation starring Kiefer Sutherland and Rebecca DeMornay, Kiss Toledo Goodbye starring Christopher Walken, Red Sun Rising starring Don “The Dragon” Wilson and Sworn to Justice starring Cynthia Rothrock.

Maslak dissolved the STAR System World Ratings for Professional Kickboxing in early 1989 when his business and family obligations became too demanding of his time. He authored two books, Strategy in Unarmed Combat and What The Masters Know (Unique Publications, 1980), based on a statistical study he undertook of professional boxing, full-contact karate (early kickboxing) and Japanese kick-boxing. Having competed in high school wrestling and amateur boxing, while attending college he also studied judo, taekwondo, isshin-ryu, bando, northern shaolin and shorin-ryu. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelor of Science in business administration, followed by film school at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).