On August 4, 2020, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history tore through the Port of Beirut. Our academy sat close enough to the port to see it from our own windows — and close enough that the blast wave went straight through our gym.
Everyone at Praetorians — coaches, staff, the students training that day — walked away safe. Our home did not.
Before
This was our training hall: mats down, the ring up, "Success is not final, failure is not fatal" painted across the ceiling above the floor where every class started and ended.
The same room, the same ceiling. The quote survived; almost nothing else in the frame did.
What the Blast Left Behind
The ring we had built and branded as our own was torn apart, its ropes and corner pads left hanging off a cracked pillar. Bags that hung ready for the next round were left swinging over broken glass and collapsed panelling. Air conditioning units, signage, ceiling grids — all of it came down in minutes. Outside, the building's façade, with our name and shield still bolted to it, was blown open floor by floor.
What We Couldn't Rebuild
We want to be honest about how this story goes, because too many accounts of that day get smoothed into something tidier than what actually happened. We tried to rebuild in that space. The cost of doing it — on top of everything else Lebanon was going through at the time — was more than the academy could recover from financially. In the end, we had to leave the building that had been home to Praetorians for years.
Kru Jad and the coaches who had built this place with him held the community together through that, even without a gym to hold it in. Losing the walls didn't mean losing the people who trained inside them.
Where We Are Today
Praetorians didn't stay closed. We're training today out of a new, smaller space — not the gym in these photos, but a home all the same, built by the same coaches and the same students who refused to let August 4 be the end of the story.
To everyone who kept training, kept showing up, and kept this academy alive after we lost everything — thank you. This is still standing because of you.