Kumite in Tennessee: The Revival

Part 12 – Closing Thoughts and Outlook for 2009

            The past year was a great year for me, the Tennessee fighting game scene, and for the fighting game community in general. Some great games were released – SSBB, SC4, MK vs. DC, SFHD Remix, BlazBlue, and Tekken 6. I was able to attend the most tournaments I’ve ever been to in a one year period and each one was worth it. Going to tournaments as a weekend instead of as a day is a much better way to do it for me, makes everything much more enjoyable. Thankfully, my job (and my wife) allows for this. I really hope 2009 will be an even better year. We already know we have Street Fighter 4 and Tekken 6 on the way, two games I have high hopes for.

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Part 11 – December – Northeast Championship 9 – Philadelphia, PA

            There wasn’t any TN representation at this tournament other than Charlie and me. I had hoped Josh, Mick, Terrelle, or Cody could have made it, but it didn’t end up happening, but this was still a really fun tournament. I met up with old school Tennessee KiT member Taz (who lives in Philly now) at the airport and he took me and Chuck to the hotel where the tournament was. I thought it wasn’t a great venue for a tournament, mostly because it had 15 floors and the slowest elevator ever. We were on floor 12 and seriously, if you had to go back to the room to get something there goes at least 15 minutes. So it was either stay in the room or stay where the tournament was, not too much running back and forth. On Friday night me, Taz, and Charlie played some MK vs. DC and some Soul Calibur 4. Taz dominated me in MK but me and Charlie both beat him in SC4. He thought Vader could actually handle Cassandra and Sophitia. Dark side of the force? Please.

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Part 10 – November – KiT:R Farewell and Tekken 6 – Antioch, TN

            With two KiT mainstays leaving us – Mick and jio – we decided to throw a Tekken DR/Soul Calibur 4 tournament. Josh ended up having to stay in TN for personal reasons (although I hear he’s moving to ATL now), but with Mick on his way to Afghanistan, we had to give him one last tournament. A stroke of luck fell upon us, and Dreamtr was happening to open an arcade on the very same day the tournament was already scheduled. And on top of that, he was going to have a Tekken 6 arcade machine ready to play! We ended up getting ATL, Dalton, Memphis, Knoxville, KY, and Dallas players to come. The day of the tournament everyone was crowded around the T6 machine before the Soul Calibur and Tekken DR tournaments were to start. Anakin from ATL was straight dominating the machine, I think he was on it for an hour and a half before he finally lost. He was using Bob the whole time, apparently Bob is pretty good in the game. Wing Zero finally beat him off with Nina. The only matches I played the entire day were against Sluch (KY player) in DR. He was pretty good, I didn’t manage to beat him once in six games, although I didn’t get the feeling he was elite, most of the matches were close (and I’m nowhere near elite).

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Part 9 – October – Season’s Beatings 3 – Columbus, OH

            Let’s just get this out of the way. SB3 was a great time for me (which I’ll try to focus on), but it was the most poorly managed tournament I’ve ever been to. We couldn’t even enter the venue until after 1PM (online they announced signups to start at 11). When we did get in, the signups and bracket making was completely disorganized and there were also a ton of people who were there which added to the chaos, so everything got started really late. There were only 5 TVs combined for Tekken and Soul Calibur and there were 80 entrants for Tekken and 100 for Soul Calibur. Soul Calibur ended up lasting until 5 am with dumb bracket shit going on late that cost RTD his shot at the tournament. Plus they were playing really late so I doubt many people were on their game. The most screwed over community though was Guilty Gear. They had 100 people enter, and the tournament was canceled due to the guy running the bracket not filling things out right and then just quitting later on. What’s dumb is apparently this guy (Marn) was known to be a flake in the community, but was put in charge anyway. If I were the tournament organizer I’d be embarrassed about this. During the tournament there was a MvC2 money match that was apparently a big deal, and all the tournaments were halted for this event even thought it was already running late. Just another turrrble decision. Incidentally, all the Marvel players thought this was the best tournament ever, go figure. They were apparently in over their heads and made bad decisions. If they decide to hold tournaments in the future I hope they learn from this. As it is, if there is another SB next year I most likely won’t be going, especially since I want to go other places.

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Part 8 – August – Soul Calibur 4 – PS3

            Soul Calibur 4 was another great fighting game that came out in 2008. I had originally started playing Soul Calibur 2 when I had gotten tired of Tekken 4. In SC2 I used Xianghua, Ivy, and Taki before I found my main character for the rest of the series, Sophitia. Soul Calibur 3 came out during the Tekken 5 days (I keep time in terms of what Tekken game is currently out), and I really liked that game too, especially top tier Sophitia in one of the best outfits for a fighting game character ever (the blue and white one). Unfortunately SC3 never took off in the competitive community and in little time very few were playing it. Since it had no online, I basically stopped playing it myself (until I randomly beat Andrew at the Memphis tourney). So I was very excited when Soul Calibur 4 was coming out with next generation graphics and new gameplay. I was let down a bit when SC4 didn’t come out in time for KiT, I had really wanted that to be a part of the tournament.

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Part 7 – July – KiT: The Revival continued – Nashville, TN

            The actual day of the tournament was no less hectic for me and Chuck than the last two. I got up with very little sleep to go buy drinks and get to the hotel to set up the tvs. Gene was the only guy who ended up helping me carry them in, so I appreciate him for that. At 10:00 or so a few Smash players are already there to sign up even though registration didn’t start til 11. A couple of the them are with their mothers. Let me say that again – they are early…and with their mothers. Just a microcosm of the huge difference between the Smash community and the Tekken community. Anyway, we manage to start brawl doubles on time, which is the first tournament scheduled to start. So far so good, except one big issue – the room itself is not cooling at all – it is very hot. When I first looked at the room originally it was very cool and the AC was blowing very well. I failed to take into account the summer heat and the fact the door would be opened regularly. To me this was a downer, but lesson learned.

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Part 6 – July – KiT: The Revival – Nashville, TN

            The time had finally come, Tennessee’s first big tournament since…well, since ever, and the first KiT tournament of any sort since 2005. Hell, a lot of the new players in TN probably didn’t even know what KiT was. Charlie and I had planned out the details of this tournament for the past few months, ensuring that it would be a success. We bought TVs for cheap off of craigs list, ensured we would have enough game systems, and even drew out a detailed map of where everything would go (Charlie got a little out of control with his diagram skills). We had arranged for people to stay in our apartments and even bought a couple hotel rooms for guests. The preparations had been made, and all we had to do now was execute it. On Thursday night before the tournament, Knoxville players Mike, Trung, Cordy, jio, and eugene all arrived in Nashville early to get games in and hang out. DevilJim from TX also arrived Thursday night. We ended up having a big gaming gathering of SSBB and Tekken at my place. Trung had gotten to the point in SSBB that he completely dominated the Knoxville scene, and Charlie and I had him as our darkhorse to win the tournament on Saturday. The gaming lasted late into the night, and it was just the start of the madness to come.

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Part 5 – May – Inevitable 2008 – Memphis, TN

            Inevitable was a tournament set up by Cortez in Memphis, TN. Me, Charlie, Mick, and Cody all went down for this. I had to convince Charlie to go, but as usual I jedi mind-tricked him into coming. It was a pretty fun tournament. I entered SSBB, T5DR, and SC3. I actually won a couple games in each tournament I entered, something I definitely didn’t expect, and may have gotten little help from Mick letting me win some games. I beat Gene’s hwoarang in Tekken after he had recently been dominating me in different tournaments we both entered and in casuals, and I beat Andrew in SC3 after I hadn’t played the game in who knows how long. SC3 Sophie is too strong. I guess I owned the brothers on that day. I felt kind of bad for Andrew because he really took SC3 seriously, and he got a little emo after he lost to me. Well, he did beat Cody before he beat me, but ended up losing to Cody in the loser’s bracket. Mick of course dominated and won the tournament. I miraculously got 2nd.

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Part 4 – May – S.L.U.T.S. – St. Louis, MO

            The St. Louis Underground Tournament of Shenanigans (SLUTS), what a great tournament this was. Great players, old school names, Tennessee dominance, and strippers. St. Louis has always been one of those places that was known for great Tekken players but never actually had a tournament of their own because they were too lazy (the STL way). When Slips announced there would finally be a STL tourney, it was a must to attend. So TN rolled pretty hard for this one – me, Charlie, Cody, big jio, lil majin, and the Memphis Guilty Gear crew. Mick had just gotten back from Korea and really wanted to go, but unfortunately it didn’t work out for him. Not only was he with us in spirit, he was on the phone with us constantly to give tips on how to beat people. A lot of New York players came to this – Exalted, Spero, Realyst, Blood Hawk and Liquid. Jinmaster and RyRy came from Virginia and we also hung out with some WI people (mateogalvan and some others).  Of course the STL crew was great – Slips, Unconkable, Hatman, STL Badboy, Tekkenomics, Grunt, and the rest were all there. It’s not often you get to see a lot of the old school Tekken Tag players.

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Part 3 – April, May – KiT Planning and Hype Tour – Memphis and Knoxville, TN      

            Part 3 is sort of a 3-in-1, basically three different things I want to talk about but aren’t big enough to have their own part. The first mini-part if you will is the planning for KiT. As I said, after Final Round I got the itch to run another tournament in Tennessee and get as many people as I could to come. The first step was getting Charlie on board because no way was I gonna try to run one on my own. I approached him on the subject one day over at his apartment and surprisingly he was up for it. For those of you who don’t know, Charlie was hardcore into WoW and had fallen off the face of the fighting game world completely. No one had seen him in like 2 years. People would randomly say they saw him or talked to him and I wouldn’t believe it. We searched around for a while for a venue before we finally settled on one we thought was big enough and affordable. After we finally get a date and a venue, I decide it’s time to go travel to make sure our tournament is a success. At the time I thought it would be something of a last hurrah for me, so I wanted to make it big. What’s funny to me is I convinced Charlie to go to on every single trip with me. Each time he would say he’s not going, but I would get him to go at the last minute. That’s really one of the most amazing accomplishments of my life.

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