By Gene Ching
Just a few weeks after I was at San Diego Comic-con, I was at another fan gathering on my home turf, GalaxyCon San Jose. On August 15-17, 2025, GalaxyCon San Jose held its sophomore outing at the San Jose’s McEnery Convention Center, the same venue where we held the 2025 Tiger Claw Elite Championships earlier this year. As San Jose’s premiere venue, the McEnery has been home to a succession of fan gatherings; the first one that I covered for KungFuMagazine.com here was back in 2015 when I was chasing down an interview with Ray Park for our July+August cover story. Consequently, I’ve covered every successive con in that house ever since.
GalaxyCon oversees over a dozen cons across the nation, but last year was the first for San Jose (see The Kung Fu of Comic Cons – GalaxyCon San Jose 2024: Plus Michael Dorn on Klingon Martial Arts). For me personally, that was a bold launch. Being a lifelong trekkie, it was an honor to chat with Dorn. I’m very grateful to GalaxyCon for providing me with that opportunity. After all, GalaxyCon aims to service fans, and I am a fan of many genres, not just martial arts.
GalaxyCon San Jose 2025 followed up its debut nicely, demonstrating that the success of their first outing here in the heart of the Silicon Valley wasn’t beginner’s luck. This year’s event attracted a solid line-up of guest stars: William Shatner, Barry Bostwick, Lou Ferrigno, Soleil Moon Frye, Dolph Lundgren, Ron Perlman, my old Man at Arms cast mate, Danny Trejo, and many more. Danny was extremely busy attending to his line of fans, and I spoke to him last year, so I opted not to interrupt his flow with another interview. GalaxyCon is for the fans, and Danny has a lot of fans.