“Beautiful Power Shield!” Vs. “Explosive Superman Punch!”

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“Beautiful Power Shield!” vs.

“Explosive Superman Punch!” A Comparative Analysis of Promotional Metadiscursive Language in eSports and Mixed Martial Arts Sports Commentaries ”Vacker kraftsköld!” vs. ”Explosivt Supermanslag!” En komparativ analys av promotionsbefrämjande metadiskursivt språk i eSport och mixed martial arts sportkommentarer

Anton Gustin

Faculty of Arts & Social Science English English III: Degree Project 15hp Supervisor: Peter Wikström Examiner: Andrea Schalley Fall 2018 Title: “Beautiful Power Shield!” vs. “Explosive Superman Punch!”: A Comparative Analysis of Promotional Metadiscursive Language in eSports and Mixed Martial Arts Sports Commentaries Titel på svenska: “Vacker kraftsköld!” vs. ”Explosivt supermanslag!”: En komparativ analys av promotionsbefrämjande metadiskursivt språk i eSport och mixed martial arts sportkommentarer Author: Anton Gustin Pages: 76

Abstract Sports commentary is an essential part of live broadcasted sports as well as eSports and is a task that requires that the caster be verbally proficient and can maintain a high tempo when speaking, especially in more fast-paced sports. This study aims to analyze this promotional language sportscasters use by approaching it from the linguistic phenomenon of metadiscourse. This will be achieved by utilizing a theoretical framework adapted from previous research on eSports commentaries. By comparing a traditional sport, in this case mixed martial arts, with that of the eSport of Super Smash Bros. Melee, the aim is to see what differences can be found between the two sports’ commentaries and their use of metadiscursive promotional language. After comparing these two sets of commentaries, the results show that there are some differences in how promotional language is used to enhance the understanding and excitement of their respective sports. The major differences found are in how the two sets of commentaries use metaphors as well as that the eSport casters show a pattern of using evaluative adjectives in a more varied and colorful way.

Keywords: metadiscourse, eSports, mixed martial arts, sports, promotional language, commentary, metaphors, evaluative adjectives

Sammanfattning på svenska Sportkommentatorer är en väsentlig del av live-sänd idrott såväl som eSport och är en uppgift som kräver att kommentatorn är muntligt skicklig och kan hålla ett högt tempo när hen talar, särskilt i sporter med högre tempo. Denna studie syftar till att analysera det promotionsbefrämjande språk som sportkommentatorer använder genom att närma sig det från det lingvistiska fenomenet metadiskurs. Detta kommer att uppnås genom att använda sig av ett teoretiskt ramverk som anpassats från tidigare forskning om eSports kommentarer. Genom att jämföra det med en traditionell sport, i detta fall mixed martial arts, med eSporten Super Smash Bros. Melee, är målet att se vilka skillnader som kan hittas mellan dem två sporternas kommentarer och deras användning av metadiskursivt promotionellt språk. Efter att ha jämfört dem två kommentarerna så visar resultaten att det finns vissa skillnader i hur promotionsbefrämjande språk används för att förstärka förståelsen och spänningen i deras respektive sporter. De största skillnaderna som fanns är i hur de två kommentarerna använder metaforer samt att eSports-kommentatorerna visar ett mönster av att använda evaluerande adjektiv i ett mer varierat och färgrikt sätt.

Nyckelord: metadiskurs, eSport, mixed martial arts, promotionsbefrämjande språk, kommentarer, metaforer, evaluerande adjektiv Contents

1. Introduction and aims ...... 1

2. Background ...... 3

2.1 Metadiscourse ...... 3

2.1.1 What is metadiscourse? ...... 3 2.1.2 Previous research on metadiscourse ...... 4 2.1.3 Earlier research with focus on non-academic promotional language ...... 4 2.2 Sports commentary ...... 8

2.2.1 Sportscasters ...... 8 2.2.2 Previous research on sports commentary ...... 8 2.3 eSports ...... 9

2.3.1. What is eSports? ...... 9 2.3.2 Super Smash Bros. Melee (SSBM) ...... 10 2.3.3 Previous research on eSports and Super Smash Bros. Melee ...... 10 2.4 Mixed martial arts (MMA) ...... 12

2.4.1 What is mixed martial arts? ...... 12 2.4.2 Bellator MMA ...... 13 2.4.3 Previous research on mixed martial arts ...... 13 3. Methods and data selection ...... 13

3.1 Data selection ...... 14

3.2 Analytical procedure ...... 16

3.3 Limitations ...... 17

4. Analysis and results ...... 18

4.1 Expressive nouns ...... 18

4.2 Evaluative adjectives and property specifying adjectives ...... 24

4.3 Intensifying adverbs ...... 29

4.4 Other categories ...... 30

5. Conclusion ...... 33

References ...... 36

Appendix 1 ...... 39

Appendix 2 ...... 53

Appendix 3 ...... 58

Appendix 4 ...... 66 1. Introduction and aims

The phenomenon of eSports has for many years been quite a popular spectator sport throughout the world. In countries such as Sweden especially, big tournaments are held every year at events like Dreamhack, and in South Korea eSports tournaments are watched as a national pastime just like any other sport (Lee, 2015). By 2019, eSports had become a big industry with global revenue topping around $1 billion (Russ, 2019). Every game also has its own culture which can vary drastically from each individual game and genre. Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is an established sport which has its roots in other martial arts (Ferraino, 2013) and has as such matured and cultivated a culture that is its own while also remaining accessible and easy to understand even to newcomers to the sport, due to it being similar to other sports. The game Super Smash Bros. Melee on the other hand is still relatively young as an eSport, which did not not really see any major growth until 2004 when it was picked up by, for its time, one of the largest eSports organizations in the world: Major League Gaming, as an officially recognized eSport (East Point Pictures, 2013). By analyzing the commentary from both sports with a focus on what metadiscursive features said sets of commentaries utilize, the present paper aims to see if and how the commentators of Super Smash Bros. Melee differ in their use of promotional language to generate excitement and understanding of what is happening in the game compared to that of MMA.

Super Smash Bros. Melee (henceforth abbreviated as SSBM) is a fast-paced action fighting game where the outcome of a match could be turned in a matter of seconds. This puts an incredible pressure on the commentators of the game to be able to pick up a huge amount of information and convey it to the audience in a manner that is both informative and helpful while they are keeping excitement and engagement levels high. By analyzing the language used by these sportscasters we can determine how the commentary of this eSport differs to that of a more traditional sport which will be represented in this paper by the commentaries from the MMA organization Bellator MMA.

The analysis will be carried out by approaching the two sets of commentaries from the linguistic phenomenon of metadiscourse. Metadiscourse is an area of linguistics that is described as a way to understand how language is used by a writer/speaker to influence how a reader/listener perceives a text or speech. The term was originally coined by Zellig Harris and has then been further developed by various writers such as Williams, Vande Kopple and Crismore (Hyland, 2005, p 3). Metadiscourse as a concept is still fairly unexplored and most

1 of its development lies predominantly in academic writing and ESL writing instruction (Hyland, 2005, pp 5-6). However, metadiscourse is not something that is used exclusively in academic writing. In the context of the present paper, it is also used by sportscasters during matches to influence how the viewer perceives a match. We will explore how sports commentary and metadiscourse relate to one another by focusing on the concept of promotional language.

Promotional language was defined by Maat (2007) in his study as using words that strengthen or intensify a statement in order to cast a company in a good light. Thus, in order to consider something as promotional, one must look more towards what words are used to strengthen the discourse, rather than focusing on the semantics of the content itself. The statements “The fight was good.” and “The fight was totally amazing!”, while roughly meaning the same thing, will most likely be perceived differently, with the latter having more emphasis and excitement behind it. The concept of analyzing this metadiscursive promotional language has then been further explored and applied in the context of sports commentary. Saidian & Jalilifar (2016) investigated and analyzed the use of metadiscursive promotional language in the commentary of the 2014 FIFA world cup semi-final utilizing Maat’s previously established framework to analyze promotional language. This concept of analyzing sportscasters and their use of promotional language was then even further explored by Byrö (2017) in his study of how sportscasters of different experience levels differ in their use of promotional language. Just like Saidian & Jalilifar, Byrö adapted Maat’s framework analyzing flight companies’ use of promotional language in press releases to eSports and how eSports commentators use promotional language, making several adaptations to the framework Maat (2007) created to better suit the needs of his study. Byrö’s (2017) study aimed to expand on the limited research that had been done in this area of linguistics and analyze if a more experienced sportscaster will employ a heavier use of promotional language in their commentaries. The present paper aims to further explore the groundwork that Saidian & Jalilifar (2016) and especially Byrö (2017) have laid out and explore if commentators of different sports, in this case a fighting game eSport and mixed martial arts, will differ in their use of metadiscursive promotional language.

Thus, the paper will address the following research question: How does the language used by Melee sportscasters differ from that of the sportscasters of Bellator MMA fights, in terms of their use of metadiscursive promotional language?

2. Background

This section will start off with a more detailed explanation of metadiscourse and what research has been done previously in this field of linguistics, as well as what research has been done on promotional language. Following that will be a summary of previous research on sports commentary. To conclude this section, a brief explanation of eSports and the game Super Smash Bros. Melee will be provided, as well as what research has previously been done on both subjects.

2.1 Metadiscourse

This section will cover an explanation of what metadiscourse is, some research that has been done on the subject, as well as discuss previous studies on promotional language and the models that have been used to analyze it.

2.1.1 What is metadiscourse? Metadiscourse is a subfield of linguistics that is commonly referred to as “discourse about discourse”. The subject has been explored by many different linguists, such as Vande Kopple (1985), Williams (1981), Crismore (1983) but it wasn’t until Hyland (2005) that a comprehensive definition merged all these slightly differing ideas while adding own ones. The term metadiscourse literally means beyond discourse; and Hyland (2005) defines it as follows:

Essentially metadiscourse embodies the idea that communication is more than just the exchange of communication, goods or services, but also involves the personalities, attitudes and assumptions of those who are communicating (Hyland, 2005, p. 3).

What this means then is that in an academic text, for example, the writer is aware of the reader and will sometimes adapt their use of language in consideration of the reader, in order to offer clarification, elaboration, guidance and interaction (Hyland, 2017). It essentially helps the writer to take something that could be uninteresting and hard to follow and turn it into something that is reader-friendly and engaging (Hyland, 2005). In practice this works by using imperatives, second person pronouns and evaluative commentary in order for the writer to involve themselves in the text so that the reader can be guided and more engaged in the text. An example of this is by using engagement markers such as as you can see in order to engage the reader in the text or to use boosters such as in fact or it’s clear that in order to enforce certainty upon the reader (Hyland, 2017, pp.20-21).

2.1.2 Previous research on metadiscourse Metadiscourse as a phenomenon has been researched from several different linguistic approaches, where a lot of effort has been placed predominantly on academic writing and ESL learning environments. When looking into research on metadiscourse with academic writing as a focus, there has been a fair amount of studies done analyzing metadiscourse used in rhetorical and argumentative writing of ESL students (Crismore & Farnsworth, 1989; Ädel, 2013, 2017; Asghar, 2015; Sešek, 2016; Kashisha & Marandi, 2019). For example, Ädel (2013) compared the use of metadiscourse in written argumentative essays of advanced learners of English and native speakers of British and American English. Similarly, Asghar (2015) analyses the metadiscourse used in written argumentative essays of Pakistani university students, with the aim of pointing out where improvements in ESL learning can be made. Moreover, Sešek (2016) highlights how L2 learners of English use metadiscourse when revising essays, indicating that when a student revises an essay, the amount of metadiscourse used in the essay grows in density, and this also leads to more positive results as a whole.

In 2017, Ädel once again tackled the subject of metadiscourse from an ESL focused perspective by analyzing how teachers use metadiscourse when providing feedback to students. The study found that metadiscourse was a prevalent factor in teachers’ feedback to students and that prototypical metadiscourse is problem/solution oriented. The data used was a corpus of feedback from five different teachers based on one course during one university term. Ädel (2017) came to these findings by searching specifically for first and second pronouns that referred to the discourse participants in the feedback that was given, and the general frequency of metadiscursive features when using the first and second pronoun was remarkably high when compared to other types of academic discourse (Ädel, 2017). Kashisha & Marandi (2019) researched how 40 writers of research articles from two different fields of study (applied linguistics and chemistry) apply metadiscourse in their rhetorical moves in the introduction section of their articles. Kashisha & Marandi (2019) accomplished this by using Hyland’s (2005) interpersonal model of metadiscourse.

2.1.3 Earlier research with focus on non-academic promotional language The most prevalent study in non-academic promotional language which laid the foundation of the theoretical framework that the present study is based on is, as previously mentioned, Maat’s (2007) study on promotional language in press releases and how journalists work with that language when reusing said press releases. Maat posed the questions if corporate press releases contained promotional language of any sort, and if they did, how that promotional language was tackled in journalistic reworkings of said press releases. In order to answer his first question, he did a corpus analysis with a focus on a set of predefined elements of

4 promotional style. The second question he answered by doing a corpus analysis where he compared press releases with the news reports that were done based on the press releases (2007, p. 65).

In order to analyze the corpora, Maat created a model that separates lexical items into 13 different categories of promotional language. The categories that Maat included were premodifiers, adjectives divided into sub-categories, adverbs divided into sub-categories, intensifying quantifiers, time adjuncts, intensifiers of numerals, negations of numerals, modal intensifiers, and connectives. Every category will be described below with examples from each of them: • Premodifiers are described by Maat (2007, p.69) as prefixes that amplify positively evaluated properties to an extreme degree, such as ultramodern and brand new. Premodifiers can also include nominal premodifiers that indicate an exceptional quality, examples of this include top-class athlete and No. 1 low fares airline. Adjectives are sub-divided into 5 different categories, which include intensifying adjectives, evaluative adjectives, property specifying adjectives, intensifying quantifiers and comparative and superlative degrees. • Intensifying adjectives include words such as important, large and strong. • Evaluative adjectives deal with adjectives that refers to positive evaluations without specifying the property this evaluation gives rise to, such as terrific and special. • Property specifying adjectives refer to adjectives that evoke a positive attitude in general, or adjectives that are not necessarily positively evaluated but are positive in the context of a sentence. Examples include reliable, efficient, practical and well- known (such as in well-known architect). • Intensifying quantifiers include quantifiers that precede plural noun phrases, with words such as all, various and many. • C0mparative and superlative degrees deal with superlatives that could easily be replaced by a weaker alternative expression, for example the two most important compared to the two important. Adverb elements are sub-divided into 6 different categories, which include intensifying adverbs, time adjuncts, place, intensifiers of numerals, mitigators of numerals, connectors and modal intensifiers. • Intensifying adverbs includes items such as tremendously, well and strongly. • Time adjuncts include examples such as already, once again and always. Already in the case of the corpus Maat used suggests that a positively evaluated situation takes place earlier than expected. • Place covers items such as internationally and throughout the world. 5

• Intensifiers of numerals deal with lexical items that are used to positively enhance a numeral, for example more than in more than 2 million. • Mitigators of numerals are used to minimize the impact of negatively evaluated numerals, such as using less than in the sentence We bought this company for less than 5 million euros. • Connectors include lexical items such as besides and moreover.

• A modal intensifier deal with items such as of course and simply.

Maat’s (2007, p. 72) study found that indeed, corporate press releases do contain promotional elements in them. When looking at the results in general, he found that copying the sentences outright was the most common practice by journalists. Whenever the sentences would be edited however, it was usually not done as a way of removing the promotional element. Instead of removing the promotional element, it would instead be changed into another promotional element (p. 81). There would also be a difference in the number of promotional elements used depending on what type of media the journalist was writing for. For example, newspapers would more frequently edit out any promotional elements found, especially when paraphrasing, while magazines would keep them more frequently (pp.84-85).

Maat concluded by stating that in general, journalists did not mind reusing promotional elements in their news articles that were based on corporate press releases. Travel magazines and newspaper with travel sections especially reused the promotional elements found in the press releases. Even when editing and paraphrasing a sentence the promotional element would still be used around 50% of the time, and occasionally journalists would even add different promotional elements instead of the one that was used in the press release (pp. 86-87). However, in the second corpus analysis, which focused on news articles in the economic section of daily papers, promotional elements would be deleted whenever encountered. While press releases would not be discarded completely, the promotional elements found in them would be toned down or removed entirely (pp. 90-91).

Saidian & Jalilifar (2016) analyzed the 2014 FIFA world cup semifinal between Brazil and Germany, exploring the sports commentary for a British television channel as well as an Iranian channel and looking at what the promotional metadiscursive elements modify as well as what functions these elements have. Using the commentaries from these two broadcasts, Saidian & Jalilifar organized every occurrence of promotional metadiscourse in the commentary into eight separate categories. These categories were as follows: players/coaches and staff/referees, spectators, competition, institutions, media, venue, weather and miscellaneous features. Most of said categories were also separated into more specific sub-

6 categories. The study found that the commentators of the Iranian and the British channels both used metadiscursive language in a similar way. The function that their promotional elements fell under included illocution markers, attitude markers and commentary.

The most relevant study to this paper which researches a similar subject matter is Byrö’s (2017) study on how eSports casters of differing proficiency (two casters being highly experienced and two casters with less experience at commentary) use metadiscursive features to enhance the excitement and understanding of two different matches in the eSports game “Starcraft 2” and to what degree of success both respective sets of casters achieve that goal. The paper aimed to further expand the research done on metadiscursive promotional language by looking more closely at which metadiscursive elements could be found in the commentary of eSports matches. The research questions were as stated below.

The question is then: can an analysis of this promotional metadiscourse, per a specified model or framework, provide a deeper insight into some specific differences between casters at different levels of casting proficiency? If so, what are these differences, both in terms of qualitative and quantitative aspects, and what may the results imply about casting proficiency? (Byrö, 2017, p. 2)

Byrö transcribed the commentary of two different Starcraft 2 matches, and then compiled the data using Maat’s (2007) model by making a table of all 13 categories. These categories are divided up by what kind of promotional language is used. Byrö then adapted this model to better suit the needs of analyzing sports commentary by including words that could be considered negative. The reasoning behind this is because sportscasters want to promote the match as a whole, and not just highlight the positive things that happen in a match. Furthermore, Byrö also included an entirely new category he called expressive nouns. This addition was added as they further contributed to the variation of the vocabulary and aided in conceptualizing the behavior of the players and action on the field by using metaphors. Moreover, Byrö decided to remove several categories. The categories that were removed include comparative and superlative degrees, place and mitigators of numerals. The categories were removed because they either did not fit the purposes of analyzing eSports commentary, or because they did not yield any results in the analysis. Byrö then placed each word that fit into its corresponding category along with the frequency of each word. Byrö’s adaptation to Maat’s model will be further discussed in section 3.2 where every category will be explained in greater detail.

Byrö then analyzed the data gathered both qualitatively and quantitatively and found that the more highly regarded team of casters used a broader range of promotional language tokens. 7

Not only did the less experienced team of casters use less promotional language throughout the game, they also used fewer types overall compared to the more experienced team. Byrö’s adapted version of Maat’s model will overall work well for the present paper’s aims and will thus be used for the analysis of the MMA and eSports matches.

2.2 Sports commentary

This section will cover a brief explanation on what a sportscaster’s job is as well as what linguistic research has been previously done on sports commentary.

2.2.1 Sportscasters A sportscaster is someone that talks over a game in a sport and describes the events which are taking place in the game. Generally, in traditional sports the system for casting is comprised of two casters, where one takes the role of the “play-by-play”. This is usually the primary speaker that comments on the moves the players are doing and generally what is happening in the match. Being the play-by-play requires high verbal proficiency, in that they are able to talk fast, especially in the case of faster paced sports, and they have a really good understanding of the game that they are commenting on (The Sportscaster: A Brief History & Job Description). The other caster is known as the “color” commentary. This role is usually fulfilled by a veteran competitor who can provide insight into what the competitors are thinking, the decisions they are making in the game, why certain events happened and how this could affect the competitor’s overall strategy (Browne, 2016). This system, as noted by Byrö (2017, p. 3), is generally used the same way in most eSports. SSBM generally uses this system, where they invite either current professional players or retired veterans to serve as color commentary.

2.2.2 Previous research on sports commentary Sports commentary as a linguistic field of study has overall not been explored in great depth, especially when compared to more academically oriented studies, and many studies looking into the play-by-play commentary of sports look at other aspects than the language itself, with examples such as Fu, Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil & Lee (2016) and Bruce (2004) highlighting gender and racial bias from a sociological perspective in sports commentary rather than the linguistic features found within it. Ferguson (1983) explored the linguistic side of sports commentary by examining different syntactic features found in sports commentary and defined sports announcer talk (SAT) as a register of linguistics that is comprised of several different linguistic features (p.168). He came to this conclusion by analyzing radio recordings of American and Japanese baseball and football games. The six syntactic features (simplification, inversions, heavy modifiers, tense usage, result expressions and routine) that were examined were found to be frequently used and also used in a different way from how

8 other registers of spoken English would use them. This concept of SAT as a linguistic register was then explored further by Hoyle (1990) who reported on school-age boys’ use of SAT and compared said boys’ competence to how a professional sportscaster would use this register of linguistics. The study found that children use several of the linguistic features that comprise SAT at a much younger age than what had been initially thought possible when the study was conducted. When compared to an adult sportscaster many similarities can be found with the children’s sportscasting. There are also a few key differences, being that the rate of register- marking utterances are drastically lower and that the most syntactically deviant features have not been conventionalized by the children (Hoyle, 1990). Besides Ferguson (1983) and Hoyle (1990), sports commentary studied from a linguistic perspective has also been explored by Saidian & Jalilifar (2016) and Byrö (2017) where the focus has been put on the metadiscursive features found in sports commentary. These studies are explained in greater detail in section 2.1.3.

2.3 eSports

This section will cover what eSports is and how athletes and teams usually compete in it, followed by a brief explanation of the game Super Smash Bros. Melee. Finally, the last section will discuss some of the research that has previously been done on eSports and Super Smash Bros. Melee.

2.3.1. What is eSports? A simplified description of eSports is playing video games in an organized, competitive setting. Generally, in order for something to be classified as an eSport, either two teams or two individual athletes compete in a multiplayer based video game. Popular ones include “Starcraft 2”, “League of Legends”, “Dota 2”, “Street Fighter”, and “Fortnite” (Willingham, 2018). The format of how these tournaments are played out are different for each game, as the genre and rule sets are different for most of them. But generally, the goal of each team is to outdo the other team by achieving some kind of objective in the game. In First Person Shooters for example, there are several different rules depending on the individual game, but in most cases, the goal is either to eliminate all of the opposing teams’ players, or to complete a given task, usually to capture a ‘point’ or move an object to said ‘point’ before the opposing team can stop you. While eSports have existed for almost as long as video games have (Good, 2012), it wasn’t until the 2000’s and 2010’s that organized competition became a really big part of the video game industry. With the emergence of online streaming services such as Twitch, eSports has seen significant growth globally and is today a billion-dollar industry (Dot Esports Staff, 2014, Russ, 2019).

2.3.2 Super Smash Bros. Melee (SSBM) Super Smash Bros. Melee is a fast-paced platforming fighter game developed by Nintendo and released in 2001. The game contains 21 different characters which all stems from different Nintendo franchises, each one with different moves that change how you play the game, as well as several different “stages” or “levels”, which also influence how you would play the game. The game is played very differently from other fighting games, as most fighting games traditionally have two players battle each other on a flat stage with nothing else disturbing the action, where the goal of the game is to take each other out using different controller inputs in order to get the other player’s health to zero. SSBM on the other hand, does not have a traditional health bar and instead has a percentage number that goes up as the player receives damage. The goal instead is to knock the other player off the platform into what is referred to as the “blast zone”. If the blast zone is reached, the player loses a life. This also adds the factor of platforming (platforming/platformers is a video game genre that requires a player to use movements such as running and jumping to land on platforms and avoid obstacles that are in the way of the player) to the game, because in order for the player to stay alive, they have to make it back to the platform.

2.3.3 Previous research on eSports and Super Smash Bros. Melee Overall, the amount of research that has been done on eSports from a linguistic perspective is still quite small. A paper on a corpus analysis of how commentators would identify that a game changing event has occured was released in 2015, with the corpus being based on broadcasts from the game “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” (Olshefski, 2015). Byrö (2017) conducted a study with focus on metadiscursive promotional language in the commentary of two separate “Starcraft 2” matches. The aim of that paper was to determine how two commentators, a proficient and a novice commentator, would use promotional language, and how that would affect the understanding and excitement of the individual matches. Besides these studies, however, there has not been a lot of linguistic research in the area of eSports.

However, there has been quite a lot of research on eSports in other fields. Among others is a study on how eSports compare to traditional sports in terms of motivational factors that affect consumption time (Lee & Schoenstedt, 2011). The study aimed to see if the behavioral and motivational patterns of consumers of eSports are similar to those of consumers of traditional sports, and if these patterns could determine if advertisers should utilize similar marketing strategies for eSports as they use for traditional sports. With a sample size of 515 students in sport management related courses from 3 different universities as well as athletic events attendees, the study used a regression analysis to determine what motivational factors influenced how much time a consumer would spend on playing eSports games (the

10 motivational factors were social interaction, fantasy, identification with sport, diversion, competition, entertainment, sport knowledge application, arousal, design/graphics, pass time, control, skill building for actual sport, permanence as well as peer pressure (Lee & Schoenstedt, 2011, p. 41). The study found that the main motivation for playing eSports is highly personal and social, with the main factors being competition, peer pressure, and skill building having a significant impact on how much time eSports playing would be spent. Based on this result Lee & Schoenstedt concluded that advertisers should focus their marketing efforts on factors such as the competitiveness of eSports, as well as hone in on the social aspect and peer pressure to reach new players (Lee & Schoenstedt, 2011, p. 41).

Furthermore, there has been a gender study examining the experiences of female gamers in eSports, which is predominantly consumed by males (Ruvalcaba, Shulze, Kim, Berzenski, Otten, 2018). The study examined these experiences by conducting two different studies, where the first study consisted of a survey, outlining the experiences of supportive and critical feedback during online play between male and female participants. The other study examined live streamers and the frequency of sexual harassment statements and evaluative feedback they received from spectators based on gender. The first study found that while there are no significant differences between how male and female players receive criticism, the participants in the study only reported receiving praise from players of the same gender as the participant. The other study found however that sexual harassment was more common towards women than towards men, and that most of the positively evaluated comments towards women usually had to do with their appearance, and not their gameplay.

Finally, in terms of SSBM, there has been no linguistic research on the game at all, and other research has been sparse, with the main areas of research being in video game design studies (Taelman, 2015) and computer science (Parr, Dilipkumar, Liu, 2017). Taelman (2015) analyzed the game SSBM and how its community engages with the game and makes it its own by bending what can generally be categorized as a “party game”, meant for playing with family and friends in a fun, casual (casual in this context meaning something that is easily accessible and easy to get a grasp of) way, into a competitive game with international tournaments and monetary rewards, incentivizing players to play the game professionally. Taelman achieved this by looking at how the player community of SSBM play with the established script of the game. The script is described as what a developer of a product envisions what their product should be and how it should be used. In this case, SSBM is the product and has an intended purpose by developer Masahiro Sakurai to be played as a casual party game. The players of the game (referred to as stakeholders in Taelman’s study) use the product differently from how the developers intended the game to be played, thus fundamentally changing the game itself, and

11 this is what Taelman refers to as “playing with the script”. The case study found that while a developer of a game may have an intention and an idea of how their game should be played, the players also make up rules and decide how they themselves think the game should be played, thus starting negotiations between players and developers on what the game should be.

Finally, Parr, Dilipkumar & Liu (2017) used SSBM in conjunction with neural networking computers to train an “agent” (a deep learning AI with a specific purpose) to learn how to avoid an opponent in the game for as long as possible. They used different deep learning algorithms to see which would be the most effective in accomplishing this task. They trained their agent by exposing it to SSBM’s internal AI system on different levels of difficulty for a full month and in the end managed to produce an agent that could avoid the highest level AI without getting hit for a full minute 74.6% of the time.

2.4 Mixed martial arts (MMA)

This section will explore what the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA) is, as well as give a more in-depth explanation of what the organization Bellator MMA is. Finally, the section will conclude by looking at what research has been done in the past with MMA as a focus.

2.4.1 What is mixed martial arts? Mixed martial arts (henceforth MMA) is a sport that uses different methods of full-contact combat and fighting techniques. The basic concept of the sport is that two fighters fight each other using different fighting styles which involves punching, kicking, gripping, chopping, et cetera, to either knock out or make an opponent submit to the other opponent. The sport has its origins in the ancient Olympic games held in Greece during the seventh century BCE where the sport was known as pankration (Ferraino, 2019). However, it wasn’t until 1960s and subsequently the 1970s that the MMA we know today would take shape, where it was popularized by famous actor and martial artist Bruce Lee. In 1993 the first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was televised and caused an explosion in popularity and UFC is today the biggest promoter of MMA in the world. The reasoning for choosing MMA as the sport to compare with the eSport of SSBM is due to both the game SSBM and the sport of MMA being focused on fighting in a one versus one scenario being one of the most common ways of practicing both respective sports. Furthermore, with SSBM being a game that can offer a very personalized way of playing by playing the same characters in vastly different ways, the same can be said for athletes in MMA. Since many different styles of fighting are allowed, each athlete can really specialize themselves in different strengths which will either give them an

12 advantage or a disadvantage in their fights depending on the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses (Ferraino, 2019).

2.4.2 Bellator MMA Bellator MMA is an American MMA promoter founded in 2008 by Bjorn Rebney and has since its inception become one of the largest promoters of MMA in the world. With viewership going up as high as over 2.9 million (Bellator, 2018, p. 2) in 2015, one can safely consider them to be a big actor in the mixed martial arts industry. Bellator MMA’s job as a promoter is to host MMA fights. These events are comprised of one match between two fighters, located in different parts of the world. The promoter focuses primarily on smaller tournaments but has in the past been the host of larger scale tournaments as well (Hunt, 2014).

2.4.3 Previous research on mixed martial arts Since mixed martial arts is a physical combat sport, naturally, most research that could be found was focused around physical education. However, there was one study found that dealt with linguistics and used MMA in its data pool, which was Jones’ (2012) study which analyzed the difficulties of translating and creating subtitles from English to Swedish. The data used was an American documentary on mixed martial arts which went into the science and physics behind MMA fighters’ moves and techniques. The aim of the paper was to analyze the process of creating subtitles and how factors such as terminology, source text mistakes and omissions due to formatting constraints affect the difficulty of this process. The study found that the reason translators omit information in their translation is to condense a program’s dialogue to fit the constraints that the subtitling’s format demands. Terminology played a big factor as well when facing issues related to translating subtitles. To solve this problem Jones (2012) used parallel text comparison in order to find the appropriate Swedish equivalent word both when translating MMA specific terminology as well as the scientific terminology that was used in the original source text. Finally, whenever there were mistakes in the source text, there were several ways of tackling this problem. For example, one could either decide to translate the mistake as is, or translate it using the correct word instead. Jones concluded that while there are a lot of difficulties with translating text for subtitles, by using some of the methods covered in the paper and drawing from personal experiences, one can make a translation which is accurate and fit the constraints of the format.

3. Methods and data selection

In section 3.1, the paper will cover what data was selected for analysis and which criteria were used for selection. In section 3.2, Maat’s model for promotional language analysis will be 13 detailed and how Byrö (2017) adapted that model, which the present paper has adopted. In the final section, the limitations of the present paper will be outlined.

3.1 Data selection

In order to compare and contrast the metadiscursive promotional language between Bellator MMA and SSBM, the commentary selected will have to be deemed as highly regarded in order to get the best possible data collection possible. The reasoning behind this is because if the commentators of SSBM are less proficient than those of the Bellator MMA commentators, their use of metadiscursive promotional language will also be of lesser quality. As Byrö (2017) found in his study, a less proficient sports commentator will use less metadiscursive promotional language in their commentaries (pp. 15-25). Therefore, two separate commentaries from SSBM were selected, both were from the 2018 edition of EVO. EVO is the biggest fighting game tournament in the world that is entirely community funded with a total prize pool of up to $200,000 (Khan, 2018, Evolution Championship Series, 2018). The fact that the tournament is community funded was also a major criterion when selecting the commentary, as any tournament hosted by Nintendo (the owner of the Super Smash Bros. intellectual property) or any other associated company could have specific guidelines for what the casters can and cannot say which might skew the results in the end. These things could be for example to not mention any other intellectual properties not associated with Nintendo or its subsidiaries as well as talk about the personal relationships between players.

It was also important that the sportscasters in both the Bellator MMA and SSBM commentaries were deemed as professionals in their respective sports in order to get the best possible data to work with. Therefore, the SSBM commentaries decided upon were the grand finals1 of EVO 2018 between players Leffen and HungryBox, and the final losers’ bracket match2 between players Armada and HungryBox. The commentators in both matches were Bobby “Scar” Scarnewman and Kris “Toph” Aldenderfer. Both casters have a long history of commentating in high level SSBM tournaments, in many cases as a duo. The two SSBM matches and the two MMA matches also had to be roughly the same length in order to get a similar amount of data to work with. It was also important that the data were not too extensive, in order to delimit the scope of the project. The losers’ finals match, which was the final game played before the grand finals, was not chosen for this reason. The overall length of the losers’ finals match was

1 EVO 2018 – SSBM – [A]rmada vs TSM Leffen – Grand Finals: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/293578434 2 EVO 2018 – SSBM – [A]rmada vs LiquidHungrybox – Top 8: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/293579548 14 substantially shorter than the grand finals and the Bellator MMA fights. Therefore, the last losers’ bracket match before the losers’ finals was chosen instead, as it better matched the other matches in length.

When deciding on which MMA commentaries would be used, the same criteria as for the set of SSBM commentaries applied. Bellator MMA is one of the largest (in terms of overall viewership) MMA promoters in the world with a large worldwide reach and with most matches bringing in over a million viewers (Bellator, 2018). Therefore, basing the analysis on commentaries from this organization’s matches was deemed appropriate. The sportscasters of both Bellator matches were Mauro Ranallo and Jimmy Smith. Both casters have a long history serving as sportscasters, with Mauro Ranallo having done play-by-play for several promoters since 1986 (Ranallo, 2018). Jimmy Smith has also done color commentary for Bellator MMA, and as of 2017 serves as color commentator for the UFC (Doyle 2018, Marrocco 2017), which is ranked as the biggest promoter of MMA fights in the world (ScoreCardMMA, 2018). When choosing the commentary for the Bellator MMA fights, the same limitations to what fight it could be applied. The fights had to be roughly the same length as the SSBM matches which were around 17 and 18 minutes long, and preferably would be commentated by the same sportscasting team as well. Thus, the Bellator MMA fight between Derek Campos and Brandon Girtz3 as well as the fight between Roy Nelson and Javy Ayala4 were chosen. Of course, when choosing which MMA commentaries would be used, consideration was given to if the promoter would forbid the commentators to not talk about certain topics, as that was a concern for picking SSBM commentaries. However, this was not as big of a concern with MMA as it was with SSBM. As SSBM is an intellectual property owned by Nintendo, there is a higher likelihood that they as owners of said intellectual property would want to restrict the commentators.

All four commentaries were retrieved via Youtube and Twitch respectively. EVO’s Video on Demand service provided an official source of the set of SSBM commentaries, and Bellator MMA uploads full fights on their official Youtube channel. The two sets of commentaries were all transcribed using a free online transcription tool called oTranscribe. Once both sets of commentaries had been fully transcribed and converted into a Microsoft Word document, the analysis on each commentary begun. The transcriptions were analyzed by doing separate readthroughs of all the transcriptions one at a time, and whenever an item was found that fitted one of the categories, it was added to a table in a separate document. This was done 3-4 times per transcription in order to get as definitive results as possible. The items were also cross-

3 Derek Campos vs Brandon Girtz 3 FULL FIGHT:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFqCrfJUFDg 4 Roy Nelson vs Javy Ayala – FULL FIGHT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYxCfB_xQ5U&t 15 referenced with Byrö’s (2017) and Maat’s (2007) analyses to make sure that all types were properly categorized. Based on the types that both Byrö and Maat found were more common, a separate search was also done to see if there were any of those types missed in the present paper’s two sets of commentaries. As the aim of the present paper is to compare the usage of metadiscursive promotional language between the sports commentaries of SSBM when cross- referenced with the set of commentaries of Bellator MMA, a qualitative approach to the analysis was used. The types were then analyzed per category to determine how they were used in the two sets of commentaries and if they differed from each other.

3.2 Analytical procedure

Maat’s (2007) model of analyzing promotional language is based on 13 different categories of lexical items. The categories are pre-modifiers, adjectives that have been divided into subcategories (intensifying adjectives, evaluative adjectives, intensifying quantifiers as well as comparative and superlative degrees), adverb elements divided into subcategories (intensifying adverbs, time adjuncts, place and intensifiers of numerals) and connectors. However, since Maat’s model is used to analyze press releases, some adaptations must be considered in order to make analysis of sports commentary with this model suitable. According to Maat (2007), press releases are used by companies to self-promote themselves. Therefore, it is uncommon to find intensifying lexis which highlight negative aspects of a company. In press releases, positive intensifiers such as strong, practical, special, and extensive are used to strengthen a company’s news to be perceived as something positive. However, promotional language is also used to weaken negative statements as well. This is done by using quantity mitigators, such as less than and only (Maat, 2007, p. 68, 70). As noted by Byrö (2017), the motives of a sportscaster are different. Instead of promoting an individual player, the motives of a sportscaster are to promote the match as a whole, which would include whenever a player performs poorly as well (p. 13). Therefore, including negative intensifiers and evaluations when sportscasting can be seen as positive for the audience.

As a result, negative evaluations of a player, their strategy, their mistakes, etc., can be said to potentially have a positive impact on the audience’s perception of the match, even though the audience’s perception of the player may be negatively affected. This is because negative evaluations intensify the rivalry, conflict, and competition between the players. (Byrö, 2017, p. 13)

Byrö (2017 p. 13) also made other changes to Maat’s original model, one of them being the addition of a category for nouns that are especially expressive or are image-generating. These expressive nouns are used either in a metaphorical context or as a way to make something sound extra impactful. Furthermore, some categories were removed from the analysis as well,

16 as they were deemed unnecessary or unclear in their definition (Byrö, 2017, p. 14). These categories include comparative and superlative degrees, place and mitigators of numerals. The present paper deems these categories to be not necessary for the data pool collected either. Furthermore, the categories intensifying numerals and connectives were removed simply because there were no instances of that category being utilized in the commentary.

Thus, the categories that will be analyzed in this commentary will be evaluative adjectives, property specifying adjectives, expressive nouns, pre-modifiers, intensifying quantifiers, intensifying adverbs, time adjuncts and modal intensifiers. The categories were then individually analyzed to see how the two data sets differ from each other. This was achieved by making separate tables for each category of promotional language and then analyzing each category separately using an appropriate method of analysis. For example, the category for expressive nouns was analyzed using Maslen & Cameron’s (2010) metaphor analysis. This method is used to see how the two sets of commentaries use metaphors to enhance the understanding and excitement of the matches. Similarly, the evaluative adjectives category was analyzed using Aikhenvald & Dixon’s (2006) framework in order to further break down the adjectives to see what type of adjective the two data sets would tend to use more. For the remaining categories, no specific framework was used. Instead, they were analyzed by comparing the two sets of data and looking at how they differ and in what situations the promotional elements were used.

3.3 Limitations

Similar to Byrö (2017), this paper is limited by the fact that metadiscourse is an area of linguistics that still requires more development and defined parameters, especially within the context of non-academic research. Since most research on metadiscourse has been focused around academic research, there are no models that really apply to the area which the present paper covers. Byrö (2017) solved this problem by adapting Maat’s (2007) model of analyzing the promotional language in press releases to suit the needs of sports commentary. This has of course been a tremendous help to the present paper but having more possibilities and methods of analysis could lead to more comprehensive results.

Furthermore, having such a small data pool to base this study on makes it difficult to make any strong assertions on the results that were found, as there is indeed a high risk that the differences that were found in the two sets of casters’ use of promotional language are a product of the casters having different biases in what promotional elements to use in different situations, and if a similar study was made with different casters, the results might look completely different. If this study was conducted with more than just one researcher analyzing

17 a bigger data pool, it would be easier to determine if the results found here can be generalized, but as it stands, no hard claims can be made.

4. Analysis and results

This section will cover the analysis of the transcriptions and what the findings were for each category. The categories will be qualitatively analyzed in separate subsections. The categories that will be covered as separate subsections are expressive nouns, evaluative and property specifying adjectives, intensifying adverbs and other categories. The “other” category includes modal intensifiers, time adjuncts, intensifying quantifiers, and premodifiers and postmodifiers. The reason for one category being labeled as a generic “other” is because there were cases of these promotional elements being used in the two sets of commentaries, but they were not common enough to warrant a section of their own, therefore all of them will be discussed in that subsection as a whole. The section will then be concluded with a general discussion of the results.

4.1 Expressive nouns

This section will cover the analysis of expressive nouns, which Byrö (2017) describes as nouns that could be considered image-generating or especially expressive. Each occurrence of an expressive noun was collected and is displayed in table 1. The table is separated into five different columns, with the left-most column being a description of expressive nouns. The two sports’ respective sets of commentaries were separated into two different columns with each occurrence of expressive nouns being marked by their frequency in a column to the right. Table 1: Expressive nouns in SSBM and Bellator MMA commentaries, an asterisk indicates words that are overlapping. Description SSBM EVO Frequency Bellator MMA Frequency This category describes arms race 3 power 3 nouns that are image- damage 3 fence 2 generating, used for eras 3 heavyweights 2 tightrope 3 one hit wonder 2 their metaphorical ice 2 action 1 value or to add extra premonition 2 adamantium 1 impact. Using these shades 2 bells 1 nouns creates an easy story 2 butcher 1 understanding of what splash 2 camp 1 is going on in the timelines 2 canvas 1 players’ minds or anti-hero 1 dentist and carpenter 1 what’s happening in Avatar state 1 delight 1 bank 1 determination 1 the match itself. These branching 1 dominance 1 18

include items such as bride 1 edge 1 arms race, anti-hero, bridesmaid 1 episode of Dexter 1 and nightmare. cheese 1 fireworks 1 champion 1 fortitude 1 class 1 guts 1 death 1 hammer and tong 1 disgrace 1 Hit ‘em up 1 distortion 1 Jackson Polloc painting 1 energy 1 lightning bolt 1 fighter jets 1 mask 1 grains of sand 1 milk carton 1 heart 1 nightmare 1 hero 1 one hitter quitters 1 jaws of defeat 1 pillars of punishment 1 machinery 1 red bone 1 mangle 1 red wedding 1 man possessed 1 resiliency 1 pressure 1 rivalry 1 protractor 1 Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots 1 seams 1 shine 1 Spiderman 1 tooth and nail 1 state of affairs 1 Zeus 1 storyline 1 soul 1 tale 1 turnaround 1 Venom 1 Totals 55 43 Totals per 1000 words 8.45 9.95

When comparing the two sets of commentaries’ uses of expressive nouns in table 1, the SSBM commentaries seem to use more expressive nouns compared to the Bellator MMA commentaries. However, when counting how many occurrences of expressive nouns there are for every 1000 words, the numbers start to look a little different. This was done by dividing the total number of words from the two sets of commentaries by 1000, and then dividing the total amount of expressive nouns by that number. Therefore, in the case of SSBM, there were 6508 words in the commentaries in total, which was divided by 1000 which gives us 6.508. I then divided the SSBM set of commentaries’ expressive nouns (55 in total) with 6.508 which gave me 8.45 expressive nouns per 1000 words. Using the same algorithm on the Bellator MMA set of commentaries gave me 9.95 expressive nouns per 1000 words. Therefore, while not by a majorly significant margin, the commentators of Bellator MMA uses expressive nouns more frequently than the commentators of SSBM. However, in order to get a full understanding of how the two sets of commentaries differ, a deeper look into their individual use of metaphors is necessary. In order to get a good understanding of how these nouns are utilized, these types will be analyzed within the framework of conceptual metaphor theory, which will get a brief 19 explanation before moving forward with the analysis. Conceptual metaphor theory is defined by Maslen and Cameron (2010) as metaphor that operates at the level of thinking, and states that they function by linking two different conceptual domains (p. 44). These domains are a ‘source’ domain and a ‘target’ domain, with the source domain being something that is usually physically experienced and the target domain being more abstract (Maslen & Cameron, 2010, pp. 44-45).

When looking at how SSBM use expressive nouns and metaphor to enhance the understanding of the game to the listener, words such as tightrope and arms race are good examples of how the casters both manage to add impactful commentary while also making it easier for the listener to understand what the casters are talking about. The sentence “He’s not walking the tightrope!” followed by “He’s trying to run across it, you cannot run across a tightrope!” refers to the source domain of the player Armada. To make the action that player Armada is doing, – trying to do things out of order in order to prematurely rush a result instead of being patient and following the proper steps – easy to understand, the casters pull from the target domain of walking across a tightrope, which is a feat that requires concentration and patience, and is something you cannot just run across or else you will fall. By applying that act which requires patience to the target domain, player Armada is shown as being impatient and trying to rush a result and is risking losing the entire tournament by doing so. The casters successfully enhance the understanding of the game to the listener as well as making the statement more impactful, as saying “He’s trying to rush the situation!” would arguably not be as impactful and not fully describe the risk he is taking by playing in an impatient manner. Similarly, the casters use the word arms race to talk about how players Armada and HungryBox have been changing their playing styles for several tournaments in order to counteract the other player’s strategy. To clarify, SSBM is a game which allows players to use different strategies in order to outmatch their opponents. These strategies can involve everything from which character you are playing as and also how you play said character. In this case, player Armada struggled against player HungryBox in tournament matches and consistently lost against HungryBox for a long time. In order to counteract this and beat HungryBox, Armada started changing his strategy by playing another character when facing HungryBox in tournament, which helped him start winning again. HungryBox subsequently did the same thing and changed his character choice to beat Armada’s strategy and this was something that went on for several tournaments. By pulling from the target domain of two nations competing to increase their capacity to wage war, i.e an arms race, the casters map that target domain to the source domain of how the players’ rivalries and strategies against each other have evolved over time. Using this metaphor helps the casters summarize the discussion and makes it easy for the listener to understand how the players’ rivalries have evolved while adding impact to the commentary.

Bellator MMA uses metaphors to enhance the excitement and understanding of the match in a similar way to that of SSBM. A good example of how they do this is with the words adamantium used by the caster to talk about one of the fighter’s chin, as well as the sentence “Expect them to go together like a dentist and a carpenter, no less than tooth and nail, hammer and tong type action…”. First, let’s look at the use of the use of the word adamantium. The target domain adamantium in this case refers to a fictional metal alloy from the Marvel universe which is known for its toughness. The source domain in this case is one of the fighters who receives a strike to his chin without getting staggered from it. By utilizing this kind of metaphor, the caster generates more excitement in the listeners as adamantium in this case can be considered more impactful than just saying that the fighter has a tough chin. The second example is actually three different metaphors pulling from a similar target domain stringed together into a single sentence. The source domain in this case is the fighters, and the target domain pulls from two different idioms, those being go at it hammer and tongs which means “to do something, especially to argue, with a lot of energy or violence” (BE/GO AT IT HAMMER AND TONGS, n.d) and the idiom fight tooth and nail which means “to try very hard to get something you want” (Fight tooth and nail, n.d). Finally, the casters also use the words “go together like carpenter and dentist” which is not a known idiom, but is instead used by the caster to string together the two following idioms (tooth and nail, hammer and tongs) into a coherent target domain which would be to go at each other in a ferocious and violent manner to achieve something you want. By using this target domain and connecting it to the source domain, which is the fighters, the casters lets the listener know that the fighters are fighting each other violently and with a lot of ferocity.

A lot of the metaphors used also serve as references to other types of media, franchises, fictional beings as well as historical figures. Examples of these are the ancient Greek god Zeus, rapper Tupac Shakur (referenced in the sentence “These two guys hit harder than Tupacs "Hit ‘em up"”), artist Jackson Polloc and fictional characters such as Venom and Spiderman. This method of referencing is something that Bellator MMA utilizes a lot more than SSBM. However, it is difficult to determine, due to the limited data pool collected for this study, if this is how Bellator MMA commentary is in general or if it is just this specific duo of commentators that use a lot of references. These references are also used to describe what is currently going on in the game itself or how the players are performing. By using metaphors such as guests at the Red Wedding in the sentence “And these two treating each other like guests at the Red Wedding!” from the Bellator MMA commentary, the viewer will immediately understand what the commentators mean by that. In this case the casters take the source domain, which is that the two fighters are beating each other bloody and significantly damaging each other, and

21 connect them to the target domain of the Red Wedding which is an event in popular book series “A Song of Ice and Fire” and the TV-show “Game of Thrones”, portraying a massacre which occurs during a wedding (Game of Thrones Wiki, 2020). In the show and the books, it is described as very gory so being a guest at the Red Wedding in this case would equate to being covered in blood and wounds. However, the use of metaphors like these can be a double-edged sword because if the viewer is unaware of what the Red Wedding is, the metaphor will be lost on them and will thus lose its effectiveness.

The SSBM commentary makes a reference like this too in the sentence “You know, you could be in the Avatar state, but HungryBox is like you know...” where the “Avatar state” is a reference to the cartoon “Avatar: The Last Airbender”. In the cartoon series, the Avatar state is a power the main character Aang can unlock when his life is in significant danger or when he is under high emotional stress. This power allows him to use his abilities to his fullest extent but he is unconscious while utilizing it (Avatar Wiki, 2020). Most likely, the SSBM commentators use the concept of the Avatar state here to compare it to the psychological phenomenon of flow. Flow, or the flow state is a term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1996) to describe what happens when a person partakes in an activity and reaches such a high level of concentration that your consciousness stops paying attention to what is happening around you. You lose your sense of time and sense of self and the only thing that matters to you is the activity you have in front of you (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p.96). By pulling from the target domain of a popular cartoon series, the casters can apply what the players are feeling and what state of mind they are in in a way which is easy for the listener to understand, as the concept of flow-states might be foreign to the listener, and maybe even the casters themselves, who might be unaware that it is indeed a psychological phenomenon.

Furthermore, when discussing the individual players’ performances and rivalries, the SSBM commentators tend to use words such as tale and storyline and describe the players as heroes and villains. In the sentence “Dude 2018, it's a new day, a new script, a new storyline, new players, with new strengths and new weaknesses.” describes the situation almost as a new story-arc in a work of fiction. There are also comparisons drawn between “Venom”, a famous villain and at times anti-hero from Marvel comic books and the player Leffen. Another example of this is “But he does have the characteristic heart...of the champion you know.” where once again the source domain, one of the players is being depicted as a hero. This use of the word champion would pull from the target domain of fairy tales and fantasy stories. These types of comparisons paint a picture of SSBM being something more than just an eSport to the game’s community and could be considered to be different from how the Bellator MMA commentators

22 use metaphors and expressive nouns, which is more focused on the fighters performances in the current match.

Overall, Bellator MMA tends to use metaphors more frequently, with examples being the previously mentioned “Expect them to go together like a dentist and a carpenter, no less than tooth and nail, hammer and tong type action…” and guests at the Red Wedding, as well as other examples such as Jackson Polloc painting, Zeus, Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, Episode of Dexter, Red Bone and Hit ‘em up. What all of these metaphors have in common is that the source domain is focused on the fighters, and usually that they are causing significant damage to each other. Consider the sentence “Opening round featuring more blood than an episode of Dexter as we go to round two!” and “The canvas, resembling a Jackson Polloc painting now Jimmy; with all the plasma being spilled courtesy of that gash on the forehead of Brandon Girtz!”. Both of these sentences pull from different target domains, one being the TV show Dexter, which features a serial killer as the main character, and the other being artist Jackson Polloc’s abstract style of splattering paint over a canvas, which could arguably look like blood splattered on a canvas. The source domains, however, are the same, which is the damage that the fighters inflict upon each other. Similarly, the sentences “Like Zeus, Nelson and Ayala known for throwing lightning bolt right hands…” and “This is like Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, both guys there to be hit...not scared to unload.” both draw from vastly different target domains. In these cases, the target domains are the ancient Greek god Zeus, and Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, a toy featuring two boxing robots, but both sentences’ source domains are still similar, being the fighters. Meanwhile, the SSBM casters use far less metaphors in their commentaries, with the most prevalent being the previously mentioned Avatar state, arms race, tightrope, storyline, and anti-hero. While the SSBM set of commentaries use expressive nouns more frequently, they are most commonly used for adding impact or are image- generating without being necessarily metaphorical.

Based on these findings, a conclusion can be drawn that while a lot of the expressive nouns and metaphors used in both sets of commentaries are both quite similar in how they are utilized, the Bellator MMA casters use metaphors more frequently overall in their commentary which heavily rely on references to other media, historical people and franchises. The primary source domains are the fighters, their performance and the violence they display. The SSBM casters use less metaphors in their commentaries and tend to comment more on the state of their eSports community, the individual players’ careers and the rivalries between players, and paint the picture of the players being characters in a story.

4.2 Evaluative adjectives and property specifying adjectives

This section will cover the analysis of the evaluative adjectives and property specifying adjectives. Each occurrence of an evaluative adjective and property specifying adjective found in the transcription was noted and collected in table 2. The table is separated into 5 separate columns, with the left-most column being a description of the adjectives purpose. The other columns represent each respective set of commentaries’ data, with each type being organized in terms of frequency, and then in alphabetical order. The analysis uses a framework by Aikhenvald & Dixon (2006) to further break down what different types of adjectives are used by the casters. Table 2: Evaluative and property specifying adjectives in SSBM and Bellator MMA commentaries. First row represents evaluative adjectives and second row represents property specifying adjectives. An asterisk indicates words that are overlapping. Description SSBM EVO Frequency Bellator MMA Frequency Evaluative Adjectives: good* 10 great* 8 These adjectives refer best* 9 beautiful* 6 to positive and big* 9 big* 6 clean 4 fantastic 5 negative evaluations. fast* 4 bad 3 Examples are great* 4 nice 3 beautiful, good, hard 4 old-school 3 beloved, fast, perfect 4 tough 3 unrelenting, slow, and slow 4 athletic 2 scary. weird 3 harder 2 crazy 2 slowing 2 difficult 2 awful 1 disrespectful 2 best* 1 hot 2 bloody 1 huge 2 bold 1 invincible 2 crucial 1 scary 2 desperate 1 shaky 2 edgy 1 sickest 2 entertaining 1 unreal 2 exciting 1 awesome 1 explosive* 1 beloved 1 fast* 1 beautiful* 1 fortuitous 1 calm 1 full* 1 confident 1 fun 1 craziest 1 frenetic 1 easiest 1 good 1 easy 1 greatest 1 effective 1 heavy 1 emergent 1 hurt 1 explosive* 1 ignominious 1 faster 1 important 1 fiery 1 legendary 1 funny 1 light* 1

full* 1 longer 1 hardest 1 quick 1 heartbreaking 1 scared 1 historic 1 shocked 1 hungry 1 smart 1 inertial 1 strong* 1 late 1 stunning 1 legendary 1 successful 1 light* 1 tailormade 1 little 1 titanic 1 literal 1 total 1 love 1 unbelievable 1 major 1 wide 1 masterful 1 older 1 one-sided 1 painful 1 poor 1 powerful 1 prized 1 questionable 1 rattled 1 upgraded 1 sharp 1 sick 1 slower 1 simple 1 straight 1 strong* 1 tight 1 tricky 1 unrelenting 1 wispy 1 Totals 122 90 Totals per 1000 words 18.74 2.,9 Property Specifying dark 1 acknowledgable 1 Adjectives: final 1 anti-climactic 1 Some of these insane 1 crimson 1 uncharacteristic 1 massive 1 adjectives may evoke a positive attitude in general, such as innovative. Most of them however refer to properties that are not innately positive, and are sometimes negative, but have a positive impact. E.g. insane, though

negative, positively impacts the viewers’ perception of the match. Totals 4 4 Totals per 1000 words 0.61 0.92

When comparing the data of the two sets of commentaries in table 2, there are some patterns that emerge in what kinds of adjectives are utilized. Both sets of commentaries tend to lean towards adjectives that are image-generating in their nature. Adjectives such as historic, titanic, explosive and masterful all add impactful and colorful explanations to what is going on in the games, whether it be actions from the players/fighters or the general mood the commentators get from the match. When looking at the total amount of evaluative and property specifying adjectives used, the commentators of SSBM uses about 2 evaluative adjectives less per 1000 words than the commentators of Bellator MMA and 0.31 property specifying adjectives less per 1000 words. There are also adjectives that overlap between the two sets of commentaries, most commonly being common adjectives such as good, great, best, beautiful and big. When looking at how they use them in the commentaries, they are generally used quite similarly, such as in the sentence “Great play from Armada!” from the SSBM sentence and “Javy Ayala came out throwing great strikes!” from Bellator MMA. They are generally used for intensifying a noun or verb and signify positive results from one of the players’/fighters’ actions. Before moving on to a deeper analysis of the evaluative adjectives, based on these findings, there is no major difference in how the casters of SSBM and Bellator MMA use property specifying adjectives. Both casters use as noted a relatively low amount of property specifying adjectives and use them mainly metaphorically, such as dark in the sentence “Those were the dark days!” where the adjective dark is used to signify that the time period referred to is seen in a negative light. Similarly, Bellator MMA use the target domain massive to intensify the following noun heavyweights, which signifies that the source domain, which is the two fighters, are bigger than most other fighters that also belong to the heavyweight ranking.

In order to further narrow down what types of adjectives are used by the commentators of each sport, Aikhenvald and Dixon’s (2006) categories for specifying adjective types will be utilized in order to determine if the SSBM and Bellator MMA commentaries have different preferences when it comes to using adjectives. Aikhenvald and Dixon categorize adjectives into four core semantic types, as well as some peripheral semantic types. The four core semantic types are dimension, age, value and color.

“There are four core semantic types, which are typically associated with both large and small adjective classes. 1. DIMENSION — 'big', 'small', 'long', 'tall', short', 'wide', 'deep', etc. 2. AGE—'new', 'young', 'old', etc. 3. VALUE—good', 'bad', 'lovely', 'atrocious', 'perfect', 'proper(/real)', etc. (And also words such as 'odd', 'strange', curious', 'necessary', 'crucial', 'important','lucky'.) 4. COLOUR—'black', 'white', 'red', etc.” - (Aikhenvald & Dixon, 2006, pp. 3-4)

Some of the peripheral semantic types are physical property, human propensity and speed. Physical property covers adjectives that relate to physical stimuli, such as hard, soft, rough, strong, and hot. Human propensity refers to adjectives that cover human emotion. Words in this category include jealous, happy and cruel, among others. Finally, the category speed includes adjectives that define the pace of something, such as fast, slow and rapid (Aikhenvald & Dixon, 2006, p. 4). There are more categories than these, however, for the purpose of keeping the explanation brief they will not be delved into further unless deemed necessary for the study. The adjectives have all been categorized in the table below based on these criteria. The core semantic type ‘color’, however, is not present as there were no instances of adjectives describing color besides the property specifying adjective crimson. Table 3: Evaluative Adjectives separated into different categories. The first row contains SSBM adjectives, the second Bellator MMA adjectives. Dimension: Age: Value: Physical property: Human propensity: Speed: big* historic awesome emergent beloved fast huge late beautiful explosive calm faster little older beloved fiery confident slow best full funny slower clean hard heartbreaking crazy hardest hungry craziest hot painful difficult inertial rattled disrespectful invincible scary easy light shaky easiest poor effective powerful good sharp great straight perfect strong weird tight sickest wispy legendary literal major masterful one-sided

poor questionable sick simple tricky prized unreal upgraded unrelenting big awful athletic desperate fast full bad bloody hurt quick longer beautiful bold scared slowing titanic best edgy shocked wide crucial harder smart entertaining heavy exciting light explosive strong fantastic tough fortuitous frenetic fun good great greatest ignominious important legendary nice old-school stunning successful tailormade total unbelievable

Based on these results, a conclusion can be drawn that both the commentators of Bellator MMA and SSBM mainly draw from adjectives in the value and physical property category. However, the choice of adjectives in the physical property category is quite different, with Bellator MMA utilizing adjectives such as athletic, bloody and tough. These adjectives refer specifically to the physical state of the fighters in the match, while SSBM tends to use more general adjectives, referring to the actions of the players instead and the match as a whole. Examples of adjectives the SSBM commentators use in these cases are words such as fiery, sharp, emergent and tight. When taking a closer look at how the value category differs between the two sets of commentaries, there are not too many differences. Both sets of commentaries use adjectives from the value category to give more impact to the delivery of the commentary, such as awesome, beautiful, awful and explosive. However, one pattern that emerges based on the

28 data of table 3 is that overall, the SSBM casters display a more varied and colorful use of evaluative adjectives compared to the casters of Bellator MMA. There is overall a higher number of adjectives used by the SSBM casters which would assist the understanding and excitement of the game.

In conclusion, the SSBM casters have, based on the data gathered for the study, a more varied and colorful usage of promotional language when it comes to evaluative adjectives than the Bellator MMA casters, who instead more effectively use metaphors and expressive nouns to add color to their commentary.

4.3 Intensifying adverbs

This section will cover the analysis of intensifying adverbs. These adverbs are often used to intensify a statement or to add varying degrees of certainty to what the casters are saying, such as perfectly in the statement “…cause they're just hitting everything so perfectly…”, in this case referring to the SSBM players executing their actions in an excellent manner, or badly in the sentence “Look at the left...left eye of Campos he is blinking badly!” which intensifies the action of blinking from fighter Derek Campos in a negative way, but serves as a good way to add impact to the caster’s commentary. Each occurrence of an intensifying adverb was added to table 4, organized in terms of frequency and then alphabetically. Table 4: Intensifying Adverbs in SSBM and Bellator MMA commentaries. An asterisk indicates an overlap. Description SSBM EVO Frequency Bellator MMA Frequency This category covers so* 19 much 6 adverbs that are used much 8 really* 4 to positively enhance last 5 well 3 probably 3 certainly 2 the following verb, easily 2 generally 2 clause, or adverb. This perfectly 2 legitimately 2 includes items such as very* 2 so* 2 tremendously, actually 2 very* 2 considerably, well, completely 1 badly 1 historically, really, essentially 1 continually 1 more, and exactly such historically 1 defensively 1 as in exactly on time. literally 1 early 1 mostly 1 hardly 1 really* 1 immediately 1 relatively 1 more 1 reliably 1 quite 1 solidly 1 soundly 1 totally 1 tactically 1 thankfully 1 unhurriedly 1 wildly 1

Totals 53 36 Totals per 1000 words 8.14 8.36

When analyzing the two sets of commentaries’ uses of intensifying adverbs, their overall use seems to be similar, both in terms of how they use them as well in their frequency. The commentators of both Bellator MMA and SSBM use intensifying adverbs generally when discussing the match itself, or when describing concepts around the sport. The commentators do not tend to use intensifying adverbs when doing the general play-by-play, however. For example, the adverbs historically and tactically are both used when describing the general performance of the players/fighters in the past, or what mindset and strategy they should utilize. Overall, the casters of Bellator MMA seem to have a more varied use of intensifying adverbs, with the most frequently used type being much, which is mainly used when talking about the individual fighters in the match, such as “Roy Nelson not showing much offense yet, only takes one.”. On the other hand, the casters of SSBM’s most frequently used type is so, which is generally used to intensify a statement, and is frequently followed by another intensifying adverb or an evaluative adjective. The words that overlap between the two sets of commentaries are the words so, very and really and are used in generally the same way. Based on the data gathered for the study there is a strong indication that the casters of Bellator MMA are more varied in their use of intensifying adverbs. In conclusion, while both casters of SSBM and Bellator MMA use intensifying adverbs in a similar way, the casters of Bellator MMA has shown an indication of being more colorful and varied in their use of this type of metadiscursive promotional language. The question is if this would still be the case if a larger data sample would be analyzed or if this is just a case of these individual games and these individual casters showing this pattern.

4.4 Other categories

The final section of the analysis will cover the different categories of promotional elements that did not have enough types in each category to warrant a section of their own. Thus, each category will instead be analyzed in this section. The categories this section will cover are modal intensifiers, time adjuncts, intensifying quantifiers and premodifiers and postmodifiers. The data that will be analyzed can be found in the table below and each row represents a different category. Table 5: Categories that did not have enough types to warrant a section of their own. An asterisk indicates an overlap. Category Description SSBM EVO Frequency Bellator Frequency MMA Modal This category definitely 3 of course 4 Intensifiers includes adverbs that obviously 1

serve to emphasise or control the attitude towards the contents of the entire clause, such as of course, obviously, and simply Totals 4 4 Totals per 1000 0.61 0.92 words Time Adjuncts This category again* 6 again* 10 includes items such always* 1 already 1 as already, which is always* 1

used to suggest that a

positively evaluated situation starts to hold earlier than was expected or has been holding longer than was expected. Totals 7 12 Totals per 1000 1.07 2.7 words Intensifying This category all* 17 all* 13 Quantifiers includes quantifiers a little bit* 2 many 2 used in conjunction multiple 1 a little bit* 1 only 1 a lot 1 with singular and a ton 1 plural noun phrases, such as all, various, entire, several, millions, and many, as well as elements indicating quantities beyond some expectation Totals 21 18 Totals per 1000 3.22 4.18 words Premodifiers and These tokens are top 8 champion 1 postmodifiers used to amplify textbook 1 champ* 1 something in order to champ* 1 indicate an extreme degree of evaluated properties, these include super and

brand new. They are also used as nominal premodifiers to indicate remarkable quality, such as textbook and champion Totals 10 2 Totals per 1000 1.53 0.46 words

When looking at the data of table 5, the types of each individual category do not differ too much between the two sets of commentaries in their usage, and the differences that can be found are so minor that they do not necessarily indicate that the casters of SSBM’s use of metadiscursive promotional language is different from that of Bellator MMA. When looking at how the SSBM commentators utilize the few instances of modal intensifiers, for the most part they are mainly used in instances of one of the players being in a bad situation or when an opportunity arises for the player. An example of this is when one of the commentators use the modal intensifier definitely in the sentence “Armada’s definitely looking for it”. The context here is that the player Armada is looking for an opportunity to get in close to his opponent in an attempt to get the upper hand. Another example of using the word definitely in a similar context is in the sentence “He definitely does need to ice him out…” in which one of the players is in an overall tough situation and the commentators state what they believe to be the best course of action for the player to get out of it. On the other hand, whenever Bellator MMA utilized modal intensifiers, it is always done as a way to segue into another topic or a short anecdote. The expression that is utilized in every instance of this was the word of course. However, it should be noted that the instances of these tokens are far too few to establish if this is a pattern in the individual commentators’ language, or if it is nothing more than a mere coincidence.

When looking at time adjuncts, premodifiers and intensifying quantifiers, they are used generally the same way between both sets of commentaries. Time adjuncts mainly reiterate something that has been said before, or they indicate if what is going on in the match is similar to what has happened earlier in the match. Finally, the premodifiers and postmodifiers were all used when talking generally about the players and what they were ranked as, either in worldwide rankings or in specific tournaments. The most common type top was utilized either to suggest that someone was a top player, or it was used whenever talking about the top 8 players in the tournament.

To conclude this section, there are no obvious patterns that emerged from these other categories that were less utilized overall. The major difference found was in the two sets of commentaries’ use of modal intensifiers, but due to the small data set this is not sufficient enough to deem the SSBM casters being different in their use of promotional language. However, if the data pool was increased and this pattern would still be present, one could establish it as being different.

5. Conclusion

In conclusion, this paper has compared the use of metadiscursive promotional language in the eSport of Super Smash Bros. Melee to the more traditional sport of mixed martial arts. The aim of this was to see if, and how, the SSBM’s sports commentary differs from that of mixed martial arts promoter Bellator MMA’s commentary. This has been done by comparing the two sets of commentaries using Byrö’s (2017) adapted version of Maat’s (2007) theoretical framework for analyzing metadiscursive promotional language. The study found that, based on the data gathered, there are differences between how the two sets of commentaries use metadiscursive promotional language, especially in their use of expressive nouns and evaluative adjectives. The casters of Bellator MMA showed a tendency to rely more heavily on expressive nouns and metaphors to add color and impact to the commentary, where the metaphors were targeted towards the fighters and the match that was taking place. The SSBM casters on the other hand used metaphors far less and when they were used, the source domain of the metaphors were on the community of the sport, the individual players’ careers and the rivalries between them. The study also found that the casters of SSBM tended to use nouns that generate an imagery of heroes and villains, and described the players’ careers and successes/losses in terms of storylines. The Bellator MMA casters tended to use metaphors which reference other franchises and other types of media as well as historical and fictional figures. The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that yes, there are differences in how SSBM and Bellator MMA uses expressive nouns, specifically when the two respective sets of casters decide to use metaphors. However, the purpose of their usage are still fundamentally the same, which is to assist the listener in understanding the state of the match, as well as generate excitement with the help of metaphors and other image-generating nouns, which might not be metaphorical in their nature.

The analysis of evaluative adjectives gave evidence that the casters of SSBM use evaluative adjectives far more often than the Bellator MMA casters did, and that they were also more colorful and diverse in their use of them. By using Aikhenvald & Dixon’s (2006) framework for

33 categorizing different adjective types, the results showed that both sets of casters had a tendency to rely on the physical property and value category of adjectives the most. These adjectives are often image-generating in their nature and assists the casters in adding impact to what is happening in the game. By maintaining a more varied use of evaluative adjectives, the SSBM casters ensure that the commentary does not feel repetitive and monotonous. When it came to the casters’ usage of intensifying adverbs, the Bellator MMA casters showed a more varied use of intensifying adverbs instead, where the SSBM casters instead relied on the adverb so to intensify their statements most of the time. However, when looking at how the two sets of commentaries used intensifying adverbs, the results are largely the same. Finally, section 4.4 which covered categories which had a very small data pool gave fairly inconclusive results. The one thing that was found as different was how the two sets of commentaries use modal intensifiers, where the SSBM casters used them whenever a player was in a bad situation or if an opportunity was found, while the Bellator MMA casters used them to segue into another topic of discussion. However, as the data pool was so small for this category, it was deemed difficult to establish if this is a pattern or not.

Based on these results, the biggest difference is that while the casters of SSBM and Bellator MMA use promotional elements in their respective sets of commentaries in the same way, they differ in what they choose to promote. This is similar to what Saidian & Jalilifar (2016 p.16) found, where the casters of the English broadcast and the Iranian broadcast would use the same promotional elements, but what was being promoted was different. This gives evidence that while the promotional elements casters use is overall the same between sports and even between languages, there is a difference in what these casters choose to promote. This should be considered a good thing as it makes it easier for newcomers to understand what is going on, since the way the casters use promotional language is similar. Instead, where difficulty would arise for SSBM in particular is the technical jargon that comes with it. Jargon refers to the technical terms used by specific professions, organizations or groups of people (Ungvarsky, 2018). For example, a caster for a soccer game would use terms such as passing and off-side, to describe different actions, rules and concepts within the realm of soccer. Similarly, the casters of SSBM use terms such as up-air, wavedashing, shine, recovery and counterpick to describe actions, rules and concepts found within the game. This is, of course, inherent to all kinds of sports and professions, but what sets SSBM apart from Bellator MMA for example is that even among fighting games, SSBM is quite different in how the game is played. Bellator MMA stems from other martial arts and even I, who was quite unfamiliar with mixed martial arts as a sport before working on this paper, could still understand most of what the commentators were talking about, even when using their own technical jargon. This gives SSBM a higher point of entry for anyone unfamiliar with the sport and demands that the player

34 is familiar with these terms in order to fully appreciate what is going on in the match. Therefore, the fact that the SSBM casters otherwise use promotional language which is similar to more traditional sports should be considered a good thing.

This study does in no way provide a comprehensive enough analysis to confidently say that the commentators of Super Smash Bros. Melee use metadiscursive promotional language differently from those of more traditional sports. Based on the data pool that was gathered for the study, there are indeed some differences in how they use promotional language, but even if they are different, they still serve the core purpose of enhancing the understanding and excitement of the sport. It would be interesting to see if these differences would remain the same if a bigger data pool with different casters would be used.

The present paper set out to further expand on the research that was done by Byrö (2017) by analyzing the metadiscursive promotional language of sports commentary from a different angle than what had already been done. By adding on to the research in this relatively unexplored field of study, hopefully more people will further develop this area of linguistics.

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Appendix 1

Table 6. Abbreviations of annotations of promotional categories PM Premodifiers & Postmodifiers INTAV Intensifying Adverbs EVAJ Evaluative Adjectives TA Time Adjuncts INTAJ Intensifying Adjectives MI Modal Intensifiers PSAJ Property Specifying Adjectives CON Connectors INTQ Intensifying Quantifiers EN Expressive Nouns INTNUM Intensifying Numerals

Bobby Scar=BS Toph=To

00:00 BS: Balance of...you know, this is true of every game...um...there are just timings that...the fastestINTAJ timing requires that the player waits until, you know, the actionable frames. 00:16 BS: And... what I feel is that when someone is playing the way that Leffen was playing, he's just playing soINTAV fastEVAJ and soINTAV hotEVAJ. 00:23 To: Yeah. 00:23 BS: It almost...incepts a sense of... 00:27 To: Like distortionEN. 00:28 BS: It distorts...yes! 00:30 BS: Like in this crazy way that's what I feel the pressureEN is from the best players like...they're just moving soINTAV fastEVAJ cause they're just hitting everything soINTAV perfectlyINTAV that like...I as a player and I know others who I've talked to, you feel like you need to speed up! 00:42 To: Like for what it's worth, Plup has done that exact same thing to Leffen before. 00:45 BS: Right. 00:45 To: We're not..you know..not to write Plup off and like, Plup literallyINTAV does that often. 00:47 BS: It's a space time...right. 00:50 BS: Oh yeah, cause Plup is one of the fastest players in the game. 00:52 To: And a set is a set right? 00:54 To: Like...yeah, Plup could easilyINTAV take this from losers’, but... 01:00 To: Leffen's got something else to say about it, but before that! 01:02 BS: HungryBox soaking in the crowd, Armada with the headset on. 01:05 To: Yeah.

01:07 BS: Here we go, Fox-Puff...for the second time today! 01:13 BS: Oh my... 01:14 To: Yeah and Armada...I mean this is uh, the lastINTAV time these guys played...Armada lost a heartbreakingEVAJ 3-2 but at Smash Summit, Armada beat him really uh, you know, prettyINTAJ solidlyINTAV and I think Armada is up this year. 01:24 BS: 3-1 this year in 2018, HungryBox won the lastINTAV one though at Low Tier City. 01:28 To: Won the lastINTAV set, but it was close...for sure. 01:31 BS: Yeah. 01:32 BS: But these guys have played soINTAV many times or actually 31-19 lifetime. 01:36 To: For Armada, right? 01:39 To: I would imagine. 01:40 BS: My guy didn't tell me, but I think so. 01:42 To: Yeah, I have to- I have to assume so. 01:43 BS: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah... 01:47 BS: But they...there have been air...like, this match up...yeah. 01:48 To: Jeez, Armada's ground pressure right now. 01:51 BS: This matchup has had literal...eh, you know, there are erasEN in... and... kind of like...championship reigns in the hall of Melee, this match up in and of itself has had erasEN. 02:02 To: Yeah. 02:02 BS: You know, this has evolved from uh...you know, Peach-Puff, to Young Link-Puff, to a weirdEVAJ Ness counterpick to really...you know, hardEVAJ counter Young Link, that was the most...literallyINTAV the most questionableEVAJ decisions...I still have yet to talk to HungryBox about this but I'm... someday I wanna ask him like "Okay hey man...you had to beat Young Link and your answer was uh...was Ness, right?" 02:07 To: Young Link, Puff. 02:13 To: Yeah, those were the darkPSAJ days! 02:25 BS: Like uh... 02:27 To: But in any case, even within the, the Fox-Puff like side of things right, they've had soINTAV many erasEN where like they would like adapt to each other and kind of develop new tech. 02:30 BS: And then the...they, right, then the Fox started coming out. 02:35 BS: Yeah it's an arms ra...this has been an arms raceEN. 02:37 To: This has been an arms raceEN, yeah. 02:38 BS: And even in... you know in the new, it's more of a staple Fox-Puff seems to be where it's netting out. 02:43 To: Right. 02:43 BS: There have been you know...arms racesEN within this match up.

02:46 To: Yeah. 02:46 BS: Uh...boom! 02:50 BS: But HungryBox pulling ahead! 02:54 To: Yeah, cleanEVAJ one stock lead! 02:56 BS: Oh! 02:56 To: Look at that up air...he's soINTAV...soINTAV goodEVAJ at catching people coming off the platform, see he misses the rest...with the lead it's not too painfulEVAJ but still that could've been the game. 03:05 BS: Mhm. 03:05 To: If he hits the rest and now it's like "Eh...". 03:08 To: Armada's got him at deathEN percent if he evens it up, you know we've got a match againTA. 03:11 To: He could've up smashed him, wow. 03:13 To: Armada actuallyINTAV could've up smashed him there. 03:16 BS: Well, regardless HungryBox dodging allINTQ those grab attempts, you know? 03:20 BS: So he's gotta...he stays alive. 03:24 BS: Armada's definitelyMI looking for it. 03:28 BS: And let's see how HungryBox tries to get in or if Armada's just content keeping him out or if Armada's gonna try to get in. 03:34 BS: My sense...ohhh, bobbing and weaving as Armada...beautifulEVAJ grab! 03:37 Yeah but… 03:38 BS: But yeah then...got... 03:40 To: And HBox kind of laughing it off...in the player cam. 03:45 To: Ooohh, greatEVAJ wait from HungryBox, storing off the timing. 03:48 To: He sees when Armada puts down that shield. 03:50 To: Cause the problem is when you're shielding like that you can't cover the siderolls...HBox just a little bit on top of things right now. 03:55 BS: Yeah. 03:57 BS: That's not...you know...when I've seen Foxes beat Puff the answer is not...uh...generally...Fox forces the issue. 04:05 To: Yeah. 04:05 BS: Uh, what Armada just did, and I get what he's doing right, he got in, he put the jab pressure on...and then he waited...two or three beats actually, and then up smashed. 04:15 BS: But HungryBox didn't take the bait! 04:16 To: Yeah, he wasn't... 04:17 BS: I mean it looked like HungryBox was gonna a full half a second.

04:20 To: Yeah there were seven or eight or nine beats before HungryBox was ready right now. 04:23 BS: He was ready for something...ohhhh! 04:24 To: Before he took...that might've been a turnaroundEN jab! 04:26 BS: It was turnaroundEN jab for sure but foretell (?) comes out. 04:29 To: Yeah. 04:29 BS: TurnaroundEN jab is the game! 04:30 BS: Ohhhh, would up sm... up smash wouldn't kill there, I guess. 04:34 To: Yeah like for what it's worth, this isn't actually... this doesn't actually feel like HBox firing at fullEVAJ cylindersEN. 04:40 To: This also...Armada is lateEVAJ to these up throw up airs, he has been slow... 04:45 To: Like... 04:46 BS: Yeaah. 04:45 To: He is actually doing the uh, JMan, where he's JManning it and not getting up there fastEVAJ enough... 04:51 BS: Check that...check that video out, that one was a heart...that was majorEVAJ beefEN. 04:53 To: Yeah that JMan is...that was...that was a throwbackEN, right? 04:57 To: Yeah that was beefEN, Jman was...upset about that. 04:57 BS: That was New England versus Tristate back in the day. 04:59 BS: Yeah and... yeah... Armada has not for sure... Armada has not looked like Armada this weekend. 05:07 To: No. 05:08 BS: Uhh... 05:08 To: Losers’ Armada, like...I don't know man. 05:12 BS: But he does have the characteristicEVAJ heartEN...of the championEN you know, the fight to the deathEN... 05:18 To: He really does! 05:19 BS: UnrelentingEVAJ spiritEN, you know and that's something that I think... 05:23 To: Defines him? 05:23 BS: Yeah. 05:24 To: Yeah, I agree with that, but I think we're gonna have to see with the set in games two and three if Armada wants to take this. 05:28 BS: That's right yeah. 05:29 To: I think this...this game one just might be a little too little, too late, you know? 05:34 To: Or he plays perfectEVAJ for...the next, 50 seconds, we'll see! 05:38 To: We'll see. 05:40 To: Ohhh, bigEVAJ back air!

05:40 BS: Well...that's how it starts! 05:43 To: You could alwaysTA just never get hit but...I... think it's over. 05:44 BS: Wooow, mhm. 05:49 To: Going into a game two. 05:49 BS: Ehhh...an invincibleEVAJ Puff, you know...imagine if 'Gief was invincibleEVAJ. 05:55 To: Pfff, yeah. 05:56 BS: You know what I mean? 05:57 To: I do know what you mean. 05:58 BS: I mean...he got in the...it's like you know, you're either gonna grab or you're gonna do something else and... 06:03 To: Yeah. 06:03 BS: You're not gonna win them allINTQ, so that time HungryBox lands right in front of Armada, Armada shields and... just gets read, and that's that. 06:08 To: Yeah, that, you're there, you're not. 06:08 BS: That's that! 06:13 BS: Pokémon stadium, game two, this is once more a two out of three. 06:18 BS: Armada either wins here and we go to a game three or we've got our topPM 3 and Armada is out of here at fourth. 06:30 To: Armada fourth… 06:32 To: But that was the result he had at his EVO, EVO 2013. 06:33 BS: Mhm, mhm. 06:36 BS: Oh… 06:36 To: So we'd be allINTQ the way back. 06:38 To: BigEVAJ damage but yeah.. 06:39 BS: Not quite it, yeah...like one or two percent away. 06:45 To: Ohhh, Armada maybe could've gotten a grab there. 06:49 To: Wow, and he opts (?) ok f airs him off the stage, sets up for the edge guard and he gets it! 06:52 BS: Yeah. 06:55 BS: HungryBox chased him allINTQ the way off, just wha...just opened him up, opened him up and that was it. 07:00 To: Yeah. 07:00 BS: That's what Puff can do. 07:01 To: That could've maybe been an up air conversion, but like he landed on the edge of the platform and he might have needed more of a running start. 07:09 To: If he doesn't running up (?) like, Armada with the k- like his Fox's playing... 07:15 BS: You don't like it, slowEVAJ.

07:16 To: How do I put this? 07:17 To: This is the most like, Fox secondary...he's making Fox secondary mistakes, he's playing like a Peach main. 07:20 BS: Mmmm, right, right. 07:23 To: He's just, the timings and the most simpleEVAJ things, every you know, like, net play Fox hits that up smash. 07:28 BS: Right, yeah. 07:29 To: Every net play like gold or above Fox like knows the timing on up throw, up air, it's like... 07:33 BS: I, I do think that that's like the best way to put it. 07:35 To: He's making the... 07:36 BS: Uh, secondary, he's looking like a secondary. 07:38 To: A secondary, like he's, he's playing like a topPM player, he's really good, Armada is still one of the bestEVAJ players in the world to do it, and he could take the term (?), but he's making mistakes that a Fox main shouldn't make. 07:50 BS: He's like not in a Fox state of mindEN. 07:51 To: Exactly, yeah. 07:53 BS: It's almost like that one time when uh, Hugo's mafia. 07:56 To: Hahahahaha! 07:56 BS: And he just could not act like town. 07:58 To: It is almost like that! 07:59 BS: As muchINTAV as he tried, his identity was Mafia, is a curse of...knowledge, just couldn't act like Town. 08:04 To: It's hardEVAJ, yeah. 08:05 BS: So Armada's just like, he's gotta convince himself that he's a Fox, he had it for… 08:08 To: He's gotta convince himself he's a Fox dude! 08:10 BS: That's the only way, ask Habib. 08:13 BS: Gotta convince yourself. 08:15 To: Where are the down t... Armada used to have these sickEVAJ, the sickestEVAJ down tilts to catch HBox getting down. 08:18 BS: Yes, yes. 08:20 To: He doesn't even, he hasn't even been going for it, I mean like... 08:21 BS: No I haven't seen...yeah. 08:24 BS: Yeah, and uh, what I'd said before about um...okay well. 08:30 To: Wow, HBox...Hbox's pressure is such that he could just...land next to your shield and then walk away. 08:36 To: And that's HBox pressure.

08:38 To: His DI right now oh my god. 08:40 BS: Dude, and Armada like struggling to KO somebody, how many times have you seen that? 08:45 BS: Like I said in the Armada S2J uh...set, you know I feel like Armada's playstyle is kind of just like "I am gonna master this." and that's I think why it's soINTAV...weirdEVAJ...to see Armada not playing in a masterfulEVAJ...you know, way. 08:59 To: He's not, he's not walking the tightropeEN! 09:01 BS: He's not walking the tightropeEN, yeah. 09:02 To: He's trying to run! 09:03 To: He's trying to run across it, you can't run across a tightropeEN! 09:06 BS: Then againTA, right this, this is, this is... 09:07 To: You're gonna fall! 09:08 BS: So this is Armada and you know Armada was able to come back from the jawEN, he clutched victory from the literalEVAJ...his leg was in...I think he lost a leg in the jaws of defeatEN versus Mew2King, you know...there is not a world where you're down two stocks to one versus HungryBox and you just come alive and you know...HungryBox is not there to iceEN you out. 09:31 To: Right. 09:32 BS: You know, you could be in the Avatar stateEN, but HungryBox is like you know...yeah. 09:37 BS: You gotta start and finish in that state. 09:40 BS: So... if you're Armada, if you're an Armada fan...he's gotta make something happen. 09:45 To: Yeah, now is the moment to give him your energyEN, for sure. 09:50 To: But I like the patience he's exhibited in that lean of the last 20 seconds or so, he's been...you know not forcing the issue on the stage transformation. 09:57 To: Ooh! 09:58 BS: Okay! 09:58 To: And this could be bigEVAJ, he gets the regrab, and the up throw, up air, but HBox actually smash DI's out the top. 10:03 BS: Yeah. 10:04 To: That would've been the turnaroundEN Armada needed. 10:06 BS: Yeah. 10:07 To: But the game feels, you know, doable againTA right? 10:10 To: And the trade! 10:11 To: A brilliantEVAJ trade and Armada making it back I actually don't know why he... 10:15 BS: Yeah that was very scaryEVAJ to forward B up there.

10:17 To: There was a little, side gap whatever...scaryEVAJ! 10:18 BS: Cause you have more ver- horizontal momentum before you side B than after so it was just like...yeah... 10:24 To: Yeah. 10:26 To: BigEVAJ forward throw. 10:28 To: Could easilyINTAV be the stock. 10:29 To: HBox's whole style of edge guard and like, Puff really makes it...good...like a good way to set up your, you know kind of your MO, as when you're edge guarding is like you stand there, threaten the side B! 10:42 To: Okay he's out, and then essentiallyINTAV when they think they have to up B, you go out there and HBox is just...you know, basically doing that every time. 10:49 To: He burns him! 10:50 BS: Yeah, yeah. 10:53 BS: How Fox has some control over the angle like on stadium, you can't go too grated in. 10:57 To: Right. 10:58 BS: Uh, cause you'll go under but... 11:00 To: More on Battlefield! 11:00 BS: I guess that slight mix up in timing like had HungryBox forward smashed him too late...I kind of think he could have forward smashed earlier but...maybe he was thinking of FD or whatever. 11:11 To: Yeah. 11:11 BS: Cause FD is way more control, way more flexible timings. 11:17 BS: Okay! 11:17 To: Oh, ohhh! 11:19 To: BigEVAJ Up air, doesn't quite KO! 11:20 BS: Mhm. 11:21 BS: And, and even the lightEVAJ back air to kind of like, get the nick...oh here's, here's the Armada uhh, you know...anti...anti uhh, anti jump around off the stage tactic. 11:31 To: Yeah anti ledge stall, it's actually even harder to do right there because of the little, there's a little lip on the stage transformation so you can't even run all the way up to the ledge, somehow, some way though he actually finds that up smash with HungryBox using most of his jumps...running out of air, has to come back down and Armada's waiting for him. 11:47 BS: Armada with a slight, with a slight lead now. 11:49 BS: Um, and definitelyMI playing more...like he has a plan, I think. 11:54 To: Yeah, playing slowerEVAJ, playing more, you know, confidentEVAJ and like calmEVAJ . 11:56 BS: Yeah...

11:58 BS: But HungryBox has gotten literallyINTAV I think every single edge guard versus Armada. 12:02 BS: This is gonna come down to like one hit from HungryBox or... 12:05 To: Except for that bird. 12:05 BS: GreatEVAJ play from Armada! 12:07 To: Yeah. 12:07 BS: Armada is one touch away from fourth place. 12:13 BS: Let's see what he can do. 12:15 BS: HungryBox is in! 12:16 BS: Oh, a pound! 12:17 To: GreatEVAJ punish, oh he tries to forward air him on the platform, goodEVAJ idea! 12:17 BS: Forward air! 12:20 To: But he gets to reverse it so it doesn't set him forward. 12:21 BS: Okay, we'll reset...HungryBox is trying to get in! 12:23 To: Ohh! *Laughs* 12:25 BS: No, punish on pound. 12:25 To: HBox... *laughs* 12:27 BS: Could've wavedashed down. 12:28 To: Yeah...it's trickyEVAJ. 12:30 BS: Okay. 12:30 To: Puff has more drift than it looks. 12:32 BS: I believe you. 12:33 To: People have been trying to punish pound, you know, reliablyINTAV for years and... 12:34 BS: That is, completelyINTAV true. 12:40 BS: One hit, but he's not...Armada not committing enough to get opened up. 12:44 BS: But as soon, I think his crouch cancels almost over right? 12:46 To: Yeah. 12:47 BS: And once he gets knocked down that's the start of the uhh...of the hungryEVAJ vortexEN, you know? 12:51 BS: The place you don't wanna be. 12:52 To: Yeah that's...HBox didn't turn around for the grab there, oh my gooood. 12:55 BS: Knocked down! 12:56 To: This grab, but this is a good place to be for Armada, that cliff is gonna keep him safe, even if he gets [unintelligible] 13:01 BS: He ran across the stage and up smashed! 13:04 To: Oh! 13:05 BS: He did it againTA!

13:06 To: There, that time it made sense! 13:08 To: Oh, he's trying to heh...trying to hit him with something, trying to box him out. 13:11 To: Armada yeah like you said, he's...historicallyINTAV good at these sorts of situations and I think if you're Armada you like...probably wait? 13:13 BS: Heart rate up! 13:18 To: My god, it's 70-79, 79 percent to 79 percent going to the final minute of the match on Pokémon Stadium. 13:22 BS: Yeah 54 seconds left, the clock is starting...and especially on Stadium, the clocks an issue. 13:27 To: Scar, if we see a time out I'm gonna lose my mind. 13:32 BS: Prepare yourself Toph. 13:33 To: I think he's playing for it, I think he's playing the timer. 13:36 BS: Which one's he, there is two he's? 13:37 To: Armada. 13:40 To: He gets it! 13:40 BS: There it is, splashEN! 13:42 BS: SplashEN. 13:44 To: He threatens...I feel like right there he threatens playing the timer like "Hey you gotta get a hit HBox there's only 30 seconds left" and just when like...HBox kind of is convinced "Yeah okay."...Armada goes and gets the craziestEVAJ...cause like, HBox doesn't have to land there. 13:59 To: He's got...he's got plenty of double jumps on dab(?) that his double is the word...the multipleINTQ uh...aerial jumps on deck right? 14:06 To: He can just drift away, but I mean if he's drifting away for...five more seconds...and Armada's got the lead...so he comes down. 14:12 BS: Yeah...you might get lasered more right? 14:15 BS: You're gonna start losing ground on this new win condition, it's an emergentEVAJ win condition. 14:18 To: Yeah, exactly. 14:21 To: That is a good way to put it...that is a good way to put it! 14:23 BS: It just flowed from my, from my brain. 14:25 To: And then Armada says "No, just kidding the win condition was the same allINTQ along it was the up smash!" 14:30 BS: And here we are on Battlefield! 14:31 To: Game three on Battlefield! 14:33 BS: So... someone didn't wanna go to Fountain and um...

14:36 To: HBox said are you cool if I go back to Battlefield and uh, HBox said that and Armada said "Yeah okay sure, cool". 14:42 BS: Let's do it. 14:42 To: Let's do it. 14:42 BS: Here we go game three uh, now...this is the, this is the finals of EVO 2016. 14:49 To: Yep. 14:50 BS: For fourth place at 2018, uh... uncharacteristicPSAJ Armada before but... 14:54 To: Oh my god! 14:56 To: The confirm, and the lack of DI away from HBox, why don't you DI out there, I don't get it?! 15:02 BS: Yeah, I don't know. 15:03 To: There's exactly one way you can die! 15:06 BS: You know...it's probably a RAM thing. 15:09 To: That's probably right, I think you're right. 15:09 BS: Or you know Arma...uh...Hungry, hungry- Ohhh my! 15:13 BS: HungryBox has soINTAV muchINTAV probablyINTAV going on in his mind like, you know... 15:17 BS: He's such an insanePSAJ player, it's like soINTAV hardEVAJ to know what he's, is doing that it's probablyINTAV, he's not doing...he's not even thinking about the stuff that we're thinking about. 15:24 To: True, very true, that being said I-I do think that HBox's... 15:27 BS: HBox just threw a hell of a right DI... 15:29 To: Well, it should, one, it should just be instinct and two, like, I think HBox is like the best player in managing his stat, right? 15:35 BS: You probablyINTAV are correct, yes. 15:36 To: Isn't he just... 15:37 BS: So who knows he maybe is making a decision there? 15:38 To: Oh, yeah, could be. 15:40 To: He'd but...yeah I mean like, what...what are the odds that HBox, the bestEVAJ player in the world knows something that I don't right? 15:45 BS: High. 15:46 To: Pretty high. 15:48 BS: But then againTA... 15:48 To: But then againTA... 15:49 BS: We're pretty smart Toph... 15:50 To: Haha! 15:51 BS: If I do say so myself.

15:52 To: One way or the other, oh no HBox don't DI away there, I didn't mean it there! 15:55 BS: Yeah, that one was not goodEVAJ HungryBox, that was actually important! 15:58 To: Alright look I was just gonna say he's had poorEVAJ DI in this game. 15:58 BS: You should've managed that separately, I think. 16:01 To: I can't, can't cut the cheeseEN any differently Bobby. 16:01 BS: Alright I'm convinced. 16:05 To: He's gotta DI better if he wants to win game three and not place fourth. 16:08 BS: Oh! 16:09 BS: Armada jumping away. 16:10 To: And Armada playing awesomeEVAJ. 16:11 BS: Oh! 16:11 To: Oh, he misses the tech but HBox gives him soINTAV muchINTAV credit! 16:13 BS: Uh yeah HungryBox... 16:15 BS: No yeah... 16:15 To: He says "you're not a Pool (?), you're not a net play Fox, you're Armada, you're gonna tech away, you're not gonna miss this!" 16:20 BS: That was, uh, Armada DI'd in such a way that...like you can feel it, when you get to a high enough level like, I can feel that that was a very techable hit, you know? 16:28 BS: You expect Armada to tech it, so the fact that he didn't I think is like, you know...that was a mix up. 16:33 To: Yeah. 16:34 BS: Oh that shine! 16:35 To: What, the heck? 16:36 BS: I can't believe that HungryBox lived but did he shine a beat...approaching forward air or n air? 16:41 To: He did it, he comboed it directly into up smash, no like jab reset situation. 16:45 BS: Alright. 16:45 To: Alright, I... 16:47 BS: Yeah that one's a little bitINTQ too muchINTAV. 16:48 To: I get it like...and the momentum, okay Hbox missing [unintelligible] 16:51 BS: Yeah, the momentum totallyINTAV shifted. 16:52 To: By the way HBox missing the easiestEVAJ edge guard. 16:53 BS: That was the first edge guard that I think that he's missed. 16:55 To: HBox started the topPM 8 with that exact edge guard and he made it look free! 17:00 BS: Yeah. 17:02 BS: The big stage, Toph, the big stage...is... 17:04 To: Is Clutchbox himself getting rattledEVAJ?

17:05 BS: Yeah, yeah. 17:07 BS: Dude 2018 it's a new day, a new script, a new storylineEN, new players, with new strengthsEVAJ and new weaknesses. 17:14 BS: That's allINTQ I know how to say! 17:17 BS: We've grown up with these players! 17:19 To: We have. 17:19 BS: Uhh, but they done changed! 17:22 To: They done cha- ohh not an up air, the up air! 17:23 BS: I don't understand that back air. 17:25 To: Yeah... 17:26 BS: Did he miss the yellow stick? 17:27 To: StrongEVAJ back air, it could be, it could be! 17:29 BS: Yellow stick went in the wron- oh, running up jab and HungryBox just up smashes out of shield! 17:34 To: Pretty goodEVAJ reaction from HBox, I do, I really like that choice, trying to bai-Oh! 17:35 BS: Yeah. 17:39 To: Down tilt turnaroundEN, down tilt, I love that tech! 17:40 BS: Dude, honestly HungryBox nine times out of ten DI's behind and does not tech, like... 17:45 To: Yeah, yeah. 17:47 To: And Armada knows, Armada knows. 17:48 BS: That's not a reaction from Armada right, you cannot react that fast? 17:51 To: No no no, false down throw reaction tech chases is mostlyINTAV a mythEN. 17:54 BS: Yeah. 17:54 To: If they tech to the side you can react but... 17:56 BS: Especially with turnaround and crouch and hit the A button, like that is not setting up for like a turn the other way and tech chase. 18:02 BS: That is just like...I've seen this happen soINTAV many times and HungryBox for some reason DI's behind it and doesn't tech. 18:10 To: Yeah. 18:10 BS: It is techable. 18:12 BS: He might...yeah. 18:13 To: He took...he fell for the, one of the olderEVAJ, well not oldest actually that's kind of a newer thing: Drill, don't do anything, jump. 18:18 To: Drill full jump is like...it's hotEVAJ, it's it's it's like some relativelyINTAV new stuff that's been reallyINTAV effectiveEVAJ against characters like Puff, Marth, Sheik. 18:27 To: And Armada is just...

18:28 BS: HungryBox is on his lastINTAV chance Toph. 18:30 BS: This is HungryBox's lastINTAV...chance. 18:33 BS: 78 percent, he is like a back air away from deathEN. 18:36 To: Hehehe. 18:37 BS: You know, he has to play perfectlyINTAV. 18:39 To: He does, and he's getting ni- He's taking too muchINTAV damage this is like the Wizzrobe and that's it! 18:43 BS: Yeah that's it, that's it, three stocked. 18:45 BS: Okay after...oh my word...what a, what a rollercoasterEN of momentumEN and of, uh, you know, control! 18:54 BS: HungryBox, uh, in game one and Armada's just like you know, looking...like he wasn't prepared in game one...looked like the set was gonna be a wrap you know, HungryBox was just gonna move on, business as usual. 19:07 BS: But uh, you know, and then even in game two the first couple stocks in game two looked very, veryINTAV shakyEVAJ for Armada, you know, we were talking about him "Jmanning" it, uh, looking like a Fox secondary and maybe...maybe that message went through the antrophomorphic...the "morphapagenic" field...went right into Armada's soulEN and he was like "You know what?". 19:16 To: Yeah, this is some stuff. 19:22 To: Yes. 19:23 To: Right through the screen. 19:25 To: ShadesEN of the Leffen set, Scar...shadesEN of the Leffen set, game one, commanding for HBox, but something woke up. 19:27 BS: I am... 19:34 To: Maybe allINTQ it is, maybe allINTQ it is for Armada, was like, what? He only...he's really only played Peach this tournament. 19:39 BS: Yeah. 19:41 To: Does, does Armada just need that one game? 19:43 To: Is that, is that actually allINTQ it was, does he just need the one game to warm up with Fox? 19:47 BS: He needed a game and a half for sure but, um... 19:47 To: Game and a half. 19:50 BS: Perhaps! 19:50 To: Because after that game and a half...allINTQ of – allINTQ of the complaints about him not looking like a Fox main went right out the window and he went right back to looking like...arguably the bestEVAJ of the bestEVAJ Fox on the planet.

20:01 To: Although Leffen wonder(?)-uh sorry, winners set of Grand Finals, might have something to say about that, but! 20:03 BS: Yeah, yeah, we're gonna take a look at the record right now actually we're gonna give everybody - (stream cuts off)

Appendix 2

Mauro Ranallo: Play-By-Play (MR in Transcription) Jimmy Smith: Color Commentary (JS in Transcription) Ref=Referee Phys=Cage Physician RA=Ring Announcer

00:01 JS: ...similar records, but of those six losses, Derek Campos has one from Brandon Girtz; Brandon Girtz, one from Derek Campos. 00:08 MR: And with the official introductions here once againTA Michael C. Williams! [Ring announcer starts the match] 01:46 MR: Referee "Big" John McCarthy with final instructions we are set for chapter 3 in the rivlaryEN between Derek "Stallion" Campos and "Cold Roll" Brandon Girtz. 01:57 MR: Scheduled for three five-minute rounds it's a catchweight (?) of a 158 pounds, but this one has ramifications in the Bellator MMA Lightweight division, Campos in the red gloves, Girtz in the blue gloves. 02:10 JS: Now a couple of things tacticallyINTAV to keep in mind. Girtz: This was a late notice fight for him, didn't have a fullEVAJ campEN. 02:15 JS: Also; Campos wanted the heavier weightclass, this is the guy with the last-minute notice who wants the heavier weight. Campos wanted it, I think he believes in his powerEN. 02:23 MR: Fight clock of courseMI brought to you by Miller Light, the original light beer, "Cheers! It's Miller Time." 02:28 MR: And we talk about ramifications in the lightweight division, unfinished business of courseMI, between Brent Primus', Girtz Lance and Neon Camos and Michael Chandler, as Chandler losing the title in ignominiousEVAJ fashion at Bellator NYC. I'm sure there will be a rematch. 02:45 JS: What do we say about power punches, both guys leaning into every shot. 02:51 JS: Knowing that these guys do not jab a lot anyway, when you're facing a guy who's of the opposite stance the jab is generallyINTAV harderEVAJ to use, you generallyINTAV rely on power punches facing a guy on the opposite stance.

03:02 MR: Campos! Hunting down Girtz with a couple of strikes [unintelligible] here in the first round. 03:10 MR: Mauro Ronello, Jimmy Smith, Jenn Brown and the entire Bellator MMA crew here in Winstar World Casino and Resort in Thackerville, Oklahoma. 03:22 MR: Oh, and the kick by Girtz, Campos chest got it- Campos with that superman punch! 03:22 JS: NiceEVAJ kick! 03:28 JS: He ate a hook coming in! Girtz caught him with that right hook over the top! 03:36 MR: And againTA, Girtz just leading with that left hand! Oh but he got caught with the left hook by Campos and now Campos saw bellsEN where the strike resolved 03:47 JS: This is like Rock ‘em Sock ‘em RobotsEN both guys there to be hit... not scaredEVAJ to unload. 03:59 MR: Expect them to go together like a dentistEN and a carpenterEN, no less thanTI tooth and nailEN, hammer and tongEN type action expected in this one with less thanTI...three minutes minutes in the first round and Campos scores maybe a bit of a mental victory alreadyTA, able to survive the first couple of minutes after went down the last time they met. 04:19 JS: Look at their heads whenever they're fighting. They are on a rail, they don't move them at allINTQ until they start throwing punches. Then there's some slight movement but...defensivelyINTAV they don't care at allINTQ it's... yup! 04:26 MR (Replying to JS commentary): Yeah, they're.... Center line! 04:31 JS: You're gonna have to wonder where they close your eyes in at these guys (?) 04:32 MR: Oh...the right hand by Campos, Girtz just swinging wildlyINTAV back! 04:37 MR: Just past the midpoint of the first round! 04:39 JS: Yeah, both guys are landing their power punches! 04:41 JS: Campos with the right hand, Girtz with the left hook over the top, beautifulEVAJ straight left there! 04:45 MR: Girtz from the southpaw position, firing up with a left and then the liver kick! 04:51 MR: Little low! 04:52 JS: Right hook over the top by Girtz from that Southpaw stance, that's what he keeps knocking Campos off balance with. 04:57 JS: Just like that! They come in right hand, and then right hook over the top of it. 05:03 JS: That's been the tradeoff, Girtz has eaten the right hand, and then he lands his right hand over the top with the hook. 05:11 MR: and kick by Campos! Then Girtz hits a left on the knee up the middle but then it's...Girtz landing the right hook and man they are just swinging for the fencesEN unhurriedlyINTAV (?)

05:21 MR: Girtz is leaking from the forehead, and he secures a takedown and an elbow strike to Campos! 05:27 JS: Somebody is bleeding hardlyINTAV it's Girtz, Girtz! 05:28 MR: It's Girtz from the forehead! 05:31 JS: It's Girtz! 05:33 JS: He's fighting now like he's desperateEVAJ! 05:35 MR: There will be blood in Thackerville, Oklahoma! 05:38 JS: Wow! 05:41 JS: We predicted fireworksEN, this has not disappointed! 05:45 JS: Look at the left...left eye of Campos he is blinking badlyINTAV! 05:52 MR: And these two treating each other like guests at the Red WeddingEN! 05:55 JS: He keeps pawing at that eye, Girtz is trying to wipe away the blood! 05:59 JS: Both guys are hurtEVAJ, for sure! 06:01 MR: Under a minute left in the first round! 06:04 JS: They just stand there and take it, hahahaha! 06:06 MR: Girtz and Campos delivering as advertised! 06:09 MR: Oh, beautifulEVAJ! 06:11 MR: Left hand just above the belt! 06:17 JS: Now the question here, that is a bad cu...the positioning isn't badEVAJ in terms of a stop it's just not on the lid, it's not in a vital area but it runs in the eyes, I can't see how deep it is. 06:26 JS: But Girtz might have to throw everything cause they're going to check it out in between rounds! 06:29 MR: Yeah, Girtz beginning to sport the crimsonEVAJ maskEN with thirthy seconds left in the opening round! 06:36 JS: Man, that is old-schoolEVAJ pro wrestling badEVAJ, wow. 06:41 JS: A duel with the butcherEN, anybody? Anybody, anybody get that? Nobody, alright. 06:45 MR: Oh! A liver kick by Girtz. 06:48 JS: Yep, so that was caused by...John McCarthy said it was by a knee, he turned to the judges and said "Caused by a knee!". GreatEVAJ stuff by Campos. 06:57 MR: Opening round featuring more blood than an episode of DexterEN as we go to round two! 07:07 [Transition into round two] 07:07 MR: Brandon Girtz...Derek Campos! Round two of the rubber match! 07:17 JS: This is why we watch this sport, it's for fights like this! 07:21 MR: Friday night fights, courtesy of Bellator MMA and they come out swinging! 07:27 JS: This is when you think: How do men do this for a living?

07:30 JS: Because they are NOT taking a backwards step. 07:34 MR: ...and women! 07:35 JS: And women! How does anybody do this? 07:37 MR: Heh. 07:40 MR: No you're right...it's...it's a testament to their fortitudeEN, their character, their make up and for Brandon Girtz suffering a... a vicious deep gash, but like you say the placement is almost fortuitousEVAJ for this fight to continue because it's right in the middle of the forehead and the blood dripping down on the nose, not into the eyes necessarily! 07:56 JS: And it's not a lead cut, it's not one of those that's gonna cause permanent damage from its placement. 08:03 JS: It gives a niceEVAJ target to Campos.. 08:12 JS: Girtz is swinging like Campos stole something from him. 08:16 JS: No set up punches at allINTQ, everything's a bigEVAJ haymaker! 08:19 MR: Minute gone and Campos againTA teel (?) off on Girtz! 08:24 MR: Campos won their first meeting. 08:26 MR: Girtz, knocked out Campos in thirtyseven seconds into the second...[interuppted by the referee] 08:31 JS: I don't know what he's complaining about there, he took a break for a second. I don't know what it was. 08:40 MR: He might as well put the jab on a milk cartonEN right Jimmy? 08:44 JS: It is missing my friend. 08:47 MR: Oh, a southpaw Girtz landing a one-two on Campos. 08:50 JS: This is one of those "I'll learn defense later..." kind of fights! 08:58 MR: Looks like leg kicking received from Campos. 09:01 JS: And Girtz has been a little more active this round. 09:05 MR: I think he knows time will be against him because of that cut 09:06 JS: Yeah. 09:07 MR: But...he is just winding up and unloading everything with powerEN! 09:13 MR: And there we match (?) Campos with a bout holding up (?) 09:15 JS: The left! 09:16 MR: Came on the left! 09:17 MR: Girtz coming back here, with three minutes left on the second and he holds the knockout (?) by Campos! 09:24 MR: What a fight! What a round! 09:33 JS: Man what a fight! 09:35 JS: Back and forth it goes! 09:38 JS: Girtz, bloodyEVAJ but fighting and moving forward!

09:41 MR: And they action looks fight (?) harder than Childish Gambino's Red BoneEN and both Girtz...and Campos proving that they are badEVAJ to the bone, just letting it allINTQ hang out here today Jimmy! 09:56 JS: And the question might become: Girtz with the short camp does he have the cardio to keep this going for three rounds? 10:06 JS: Cause there's been no set up, there's been no rest! 10:09 JS: Very little with the takedown in terms of staying on top and getting a breather, that has not happened! 10:15 MR: The canvasEN, resembling a Jackson Polloc paintingEN now Jimmy; with allINTQ the plasma being spilled courtesy of that gash on the forehead of Brandon Girtz! 10:24 MR: But he remains in the fight, hanging toughEVAJ against Derek Campos! 10:31 MR: And there they go againTA, defense be damned! 10:36 JS: And every time it looks like Campos has him, that right hook comes over the top and knocks him off balance. 10:43 Ref: Stop! Time, get over there! 10:45 MR: Timeout called by referee John McCarthy! 10:52 Ref: Hey! I'm just trying to get a clear loo- come here look at me. Look at me! I want to just look at it real good, you're gonna get going. 10:57 Ref: Clear out your eyes. It's no different. 11:02 Phys: Yeah as long as it don't hit the eye more. 11:04 Ref: There you go, that's what I want, let's go! 11:05 JS: And you hear what he said, as long as it doesn't get to the eyebrow. 11:08 JS: That's when you start wondering about your vision. 11:13 JS: He does not want this stopped at allINTQ! 11:18 MR: And Girtz fires off another left hand down the middle on Campos. 11:22 JS: And this one's a tougher one to score cause I think Girtz has been busier in this second round. 11:26 JS: But I think Campos has hurt Girtz a little bitINTQ more 11:28 MR: Girtz changing levels, Campos with the takedown defense! 11:41 MR: AgainTA, Girtz just coming forward left hand and you mentioned it, Jimmy, no...you know it's allINTQ in the center line! 11:47 JS: Yep. 11:48 MR: Y-your opponent is there waiting for you! 11:49 MR: Give him your bestEVAJ shot! 11:50 JS: Close your eyes and hit him. Close your eyes and hit him. 11:55 MR: Campos coming forward with 45 seconds left in the second round! 11:59 MR: Counter left hand by Girtz!

12:00 JS: What did Teddy Atlas say? 12:00 MR: Oh, nice right uppercut and left hand! 12:02 JS: Yep, Teddy Atlas said it, he said he's the kind of guy who gets offended if you don't punch him! 12:06 MR: Hehehe. 12:06 JS: Both these guys get offended if you don't punch him. 12:13 MR: UnderTI thirty seconds left of the round. 12:19 MR: Campos with a knee up the middle then gets shockedEVAJ off balance by Girtz! 12:20 JS: (Oh my god, beautifulEVAJ shot!) 12:23 JS: AlwaysTA that hook follows the shot! 12:26 JS: Girtz will take the first one and then launch that right hook over the top. 12:34 MR: It has been a blood and guts battle through two rounds! 12:37 MR: The third and final round is coming up! 12:43 MR: Now! [Transition to final results]

Appendix 3

Mauro Ranallo: Play-By-Play (MR in Transcription) Jimmy Smith: Color Commentary (JS in Transcription) RN: Roy Nelson Jimmy smith seems to refer Javy to a nickname which is difficult to make out and is inconsistent in its pronunciation, so whenever JS says that it'll be transcribed down as just "Javy".

00:00 MR: We are set for this titanicEVAJ battle! 00:02 JS: And here's why, both these guys cut to make the 265 limit, massivePSAJ heavyweights. 00:08 MR: With the official introductions, here's Michael C. Williams. [Transition to Ring Announcer] 01:24 MR: So we are set for this heavyweightEVAJ battle. 01:27 MR: Big country? Well...he asks who's ready for the debut of the "belly rub", he's the "buda(?) belly bearded brawler" ready to make his Bellator MMA debut against Javy "Eyecandy" Ayala. 01:42 MR: These two guys hit harderEVAJ than Tupacs "Hit ‘em up"EN.

01:46 MR: Fight clock brought to you by "Miller Light", the original light beer! 01:49 MR: "Cheers! It's Miller time!" 01:51 MR: But for these two it's just a matter of seconds before it's "Hammer time!" 01:56 MR: Get the Bay area references? 01:57 JS: I-I-I get allINTQ the Bay area references! Love 'em! 02:04 JS: My question is: How long will Roy "Big Country" Nelson stand? 02:07 JS: He loves the right hand, he also has greatEVAJ jiu-jutsu! 02:13 JS: Javy (?) coming out with no fearEVAJ! 02:18 JS: One thing he does do that might burn him in this fight: He likes to let those hands float down by his chest. 02:25 JS: He has to have a soundPSAJ defense in this fight. 02:28 MR: Nelson's nickname "Big country" was a one hit wonderEN in the 80s! 02:32 MR: And he's...well knownPSAJ for those one hit wondersEN of a right hand with Ted first drawn knockouts but it's Javy Ayala who is off to a greatEVAJ start here in the opening sixty seconds. 02:44 JS: Yeah, he's doing wellINTAV, just like he did against [unintelligble name], not giving you too muchINTAV respect. 02:51 MR: Ayala launching the uppecut on the beard of Nelson. 02:56 JS: Look at Nelson's reaction to getting hit, he ducks his head down! 03:00 JS: He gives him the forehead, he just gives him that uppecut. 03:03 MR: Half of Ayala's ten wins have come via form of knockout, also has four submission wins, looking for that spinning back kick. 03:14 JS: Roy Nelson not showing muchINTAV offense yet, only takes one. 03:19 MR: Only two fighters have stopped Roy Nelson, Mark Hunt and Andre Arlovsky. 03:26 JS: Those are badPSAJ boys! 03:36 JS: BigEVAJ pygmy! 03:38 JS: You know he respects the heavyweights, greatEVAJ heavyweight in his own right, can't wait to see him fight againTA! 03:43 MR: And I reallyINTAV respect what he does for social causes! 03:46 JS: FantasticEVAJ. 03:47 MR: More human beings like "The Big Pygmy" are needed on this planet. 03:51 MR: As Roy Nelson and Javy Ayalo "The superman elbow"! 03:55 JS: A humanitarian everywhere except in the cage, as [unintelligible], heh. 03:58 MR: WellINTAV said. 04:03 MR: Coming up on the midpoint of the opening round after a freneticEVAJ start, things are slowingEVAJ down a bit here, Jimmy. 04:10 JS: "Big Country" I think, building up in confidence a little.

04:13 MR: Javy lightEVAJ on his feet but...slowingEVAJ down as this round is progressing. 04:18 MR: Both possess "one hitter quitters"EN on the right hand but, now a grappling match unfolding and of course MI when we mention "Big Country" Roy Nelson as he pummels, he's a black belt in brazilian jiu-jitsu. 04:29 JS: FantasticEVAJ jiu-jitsu, going for the takedown. 04:31 JS: Javy since I've been wrestling since I was a kid! 04:35 MR: And Ayala has four submission wins but is taken down by Nelson! 04:40 JS: Ah, this is a totalEVAJ fight you do not wanna be on your back. 04:43 MR: An acknowledgeablePSAJ crowd as you would expect here in San Jose! 04:45 JS: Yep. 04:47 JS: And who favors "Big Country". 04:52 JS: Going your arm underneath there for a "half thug sweep". 04:55 JS: VeryINTAV dangerousESAJ in the heavyweight division. 04:59 MR: Nelson has recorded five submission wins. 05:03 MR: Including two right nacke- uh..rear naked chokes, one on triangle. 05:07 MR: And a hammer lock. 05:09 MR: Now with a minute and a half remaining in the opening round, he has Ayala against the fenceEN. 05:15 JS: Thought this might be the difference maker. 05:18 JS: "Big Country" getting on top, working to ground and pound the submissioning, taking the energy out of the explosiveEVAJ, athletic Javy Ayala. 05:26 MR: And Ayala had to go from being a fan of Roy Nelson to being a foe here tonight. 05:35 JS: Ooh, that short elbow. 05:37 MR: Nelson now reigning in those right hands trying to be secure, he's looking for that far side Kimura potentially the double wrist lock if he can slide that right hand through, Jimmy. 05:47 JS: Yep, Ayala trying to bury it. 05:50 JS: If he can't relieve the physical pressure- full mount! 05:52 MR: Oh, full mount, by Roy Nelson! 05:54 MR: 45 seconds left in the first! 05:58 JS: Wonder if Javy Ayala can hang on! 06:02 MR: And while… both of them are known for their striking power, this is mixed martial arts! 06:06 JS: Yep. 06:07 MR: Emphasis on mixed! And we're looking at the grappling game of Roy Nelson in fullEVAJ effect. 06:12 JS: But does Javy Ayala know he just has to survive another twenty-five seconds?

06:16 JS: Going americana! Switching to side control and out goes Javy Ayala! 06:20 MR: While going for the escape by Ayala! 06:23 MR: Muay Thai knee to the face of Nelson, what a turnaroundEVAJ here for Ayala! 06:29 JS: What a mistakeEVAJ, he got too close! 06:31 JS: He let him clinch him, wasn't able to keep distance. 06:36 MR: As expected a funEVAJ first round between the heavyweights! 06:42 MR: More excitingEVAJ action just around the corner! 06:47 JS: You see Fedor Emelianenko, "The last emperor". 06:52 JS: GreatestEVAJ MMA heavyweight of allINTQ time, I believe that. 06:56 MR: Second round underway, in the heavyweight division. 07:02 MR: And Javy Ayala coming out strongEVAJ against Roy "Big Country" Nelson. 07:07 MR: Of courseMI it was in this building that Fedor legitimatelyINTAV lost for the first time against Fabricio Werdum. 07:12 MR: And when I say legitimatelyINTAV he lost earlyINTAV in his career as Nelson clipped Ayala with a wide cross against Tsuyoshi Kosaka in ranks but… uhh yeah let's not get down that path... 07:20 JS: Elbow...let's not evenINTAV get into it (?) 07:24 MR: As Ayala try to ruin the path to Bellator MMA for Roy Nelson! 07:29 JS: Man, quickEVAJ! For a heavyweight the athleticismEVAJ for Ayala is reallyINTAV stunningEVAJ! 07:34 MR: And takedown defense on display by Ayala is...or is it?! 07:40 MR: The powerEN of Nelson scooping up Ayala and dropping him! 07:41 JS: Too muchINTAV for him...too muchINTAV for him. 07:44 MR: And, Jimmy, you and I on the trip here to the arena today, we talked about this scenario that...[unintelligible] 07:49 JS: This is...this is the difference [unintelligible] everybody talked about "Oh bigEVAJ right hands [unintelligible]. 07:54 JS: Roy Nelson has greatEVAJ jiu-jitsu and when the going gets toughEVAJ, he can go into that second offensive option. 08:00 JS: Javy Ayala cannot, that is crucialEVAJ. BigEVAJ difference maker. 08:05 MR: Nelson, a black belt under none other than Renzo Gracie, one legendaryEVAJ member of the Gracie family, you tried with uh... 08:12 JS: Never heard of him, don't know who he is. 08:15 JS: Kidding, love Renzo Gracie! 08:17 JS: I'm a Carlson Gracie guy myself, fantasticEVAJ! 08:19 JS: Renzo Gracie, greatEVAJ instructor. 08:25 MR: I wish I could buy Renzo Gracie's charisma.

08:28 JS: Hahaha! 08:28 MR: You get him... 08:28 JS: Dude...fantasticEVAJ, fantasticEVAJ. 08:29 MR: And Bas Rutten in the room, forget about it! 08:34 MR: Still to come tonight, a veryINTAV importantEVAJ well to wait matchup between Paul Daley, Lorenz Larkin and of courseMI; title implications to the lightweight division and the main event: Benson Henderson back from knee surgery, against Patricky Pitbull, the brazilian knockout artist as Nelson continues to grind away on Ayala here with two minutes gone on the second. 08:54 JS: You talk about Renzo Gracie, you talk about that old-schoolEVAJ style, what is it? 08:58 JS: Physical pressure, forget the submission; that comes when you wear a guy down in the right position. 09:03 JS: He gives up, because he's under soINTAV muchINTAV duress he'll give you something, that is the style of Roy Nelson, old schoolEVAJ. 09:14 MR: Nelson smothering Javy Ayala, as you mentioned Jimmy both having to cut weight to make the 265-pound heavyweight limit. 09:27 MR: And Ayala thinking to himself: "He ain't heavyEVAJ, he's Roy "Big Country" Nelson!". 09:29 JS: Yeep. 09:32 JS: One hook in, if he gets two...nightmareEN scenario for Javy Ayala. 09:41 MR: Nelson, has Ayala's back. 09:44 JS: Gotta turn right now to get on top. 09:47 MR: Ahhh, talk about the gutsEN and determinationEN of Javy Ayala! 09:50 JS: He's on top againTA! 09:51 MR: ResiliencyEN from the heavyweight who has Nelson's back now! 09:55 JS: He's gotta cut him loose and get in striking range. 09:59 JS: Does not wanna grapple. 10:02 JS: Ending up on top, one hook in! 10:04 MR: And Ayala, let's not forget, he has four submission wins! 10:09 MR: Wide tripod base held by Nelson momentarily, what a heavyweight fight here! 10:14 MR: MuchINTAV to the delightEN of the crowd in San Jose! 10:21 JS: Here's where that carb- OH, beautifulEVAJ! 10:23 MR: Oh, one kick in! Nelson says "Is that allINTQ you've got?!" 10:26 MR: AdamantiumEN chin! 10:31 JS: Oh, beautifulEVAJ uppercut! 10:31 MR: Oh, Ayala's showing up his whiskers! 10:37 JS: Once againTA, takedown!

10:38 JS: Here it goes! 10:42 JS: You wonder if our cages are soundlyINTAV made, you know now, cause it held up under that! 10:50 JS: That'll break a fence, my friend. 10:52 MR: And how about the heavyweights, showing off facets of MMA, continuallyINTAV! 10:57 JS: This is versatility, yeah yeah...you don't see this kind of versatility, this manyINTQ positions, in manyINTQ heavyweight fighters. 11:09 MR: Bantamweight gold is on the line with championPM Eduardo Dantas defenses title against Darrion "The Wolf" Caldwell, plus former featherweight champPM Daniel Straus faces Emanuel Sanchez Bellator MMA friday October 6th 9pm live and free on Spike, and it's Nelson now spiking Ayala with these elbows! 11:34 JS: One thing about being Roy Nelson, you'll need a lot ofINTQ room to do a lot ofINTQ damage. 11:56 MR: Ten minutes of heavyweightEVAJ actionEN tailormadeEVAJ to your satisfaction! 12:02 MR: Nelson eats a front kick, Ayala dines on these uppercuts! 12:07 MR: It's Nelson, Ayala, pillars of punishmentEN next! 12:20 MR: Like ZeusEN, Nelson and Ayala known for throwing lightning boltEN right hands, but tonight we are seeing allINTQ facets of their MMA game and yes, please do touch gloves; you guys have treated us to quiteINTAV a show Jimmy. 12:33 JS: Yeah, they certainlyINTAV have back and forth, I love what Ayala's throwing on the feet. 12:38 MR: Jimmy Smith's unofficial scorecard has it evenINTAV after two rounds. 12:42 JS: I gave it to Ayala by the barestINTAV of margins in round just cause they were on the feet longerEVAJ and I thought Ayala was more successfulEVAJ with [unintelligible] right hand! 12:52 JS: Man, look at that shineEN! 12:54 MR: UnbelievableEVAJ chins by...on the...display by both of them! 13:01 JS: He leaned allINTQ the way into that shot. 13:03 JS: He caught the forehead of Roy "Big Country" Nelson, not the chin. 13:06 MR: Ayala has never been knocked out in fifteen previous fights and we alreadyTA mentioned that Mark Hunt and Andrei Arlovsky are the only two to stop Nelson with strikes. 13:20 JS: Now we're answering some questions, who did that last run? Who did that last run? Who did that last sprint? Who put in a little moreINTAV at the chin? 13:22 MR: BeautifulEVAJ combo [unintelligible] 13:30 JS: Because both guys are in a third round and I don't think either one expected it. 13:34 MR: 41 year old Roy Nelson, 29 year old Javy Ayala, and the fans, the Bellator MMA universe enjoying the action! 13:46 MR: And I am reallyINTAV impressed (?) with Javy Ayala's resilience!

13:49 JS: And his athleticismEVAJ, his speedEVAJ, for such a big guy to...gotta stop the takedown! 13:53 MR: Nelson, changes levels explodes for the double leg! 13:57 JS: This has been the difference, Ayala's has had success on the feet, but on the ground he's had no answer to the physical pressure of Roy "Big Country" Nelson. 14:07 JS: Three and a half minutes, a tonINTQ of time. 14:17 MR: Nelson, scheduled to immediatelyINTAV fly out to Thailand to film Kickboxer 3, working on his movie career while beginning his Bellator MMA career. 14:28 MR: And in manyINTQ ways we thought maybe we would see that, not necessarily a kickboxing match but more of a... boxing match but man, this has againTA been… been MMA! 14:38 JS: And he's been smartEVAJ! 14:39 JS: I mean, Javy Ayala's looked (?) greatEVAJ on the feet, goodEVAJ combinations, fastEVAJ, athleticEVAJ. 14:44 JS: On the ground, negates allINTQ of those advantages of Javy Ayala. 14:53 JS: Being under a guy the size of Roy "Big Country" Nelson is just...it's awfulEVAJ. 15:02 JS: Knee on belly just to make it worse. 15:07 JS: I don't care how big your belly is, that sucks. 15:10 MR: Wow, Ayala grinding [unintelligible] from using the… the cage with his feet. 15:14 JS: Not gonna happen. 15:16 MR: And againTA far side Americana being attempted now by Roy Nelson. 15:20 MR: Nelson with five submissions...to his credit! 15:28 MR: He said he wanted to come out and knock out Ayala with his right hand! 15:33 MR: That's what we allINTQ expected Ayala would try to do as well and... they've already displayed their chins Jimmy! 15:39 JS: Yeah, they certainlyINTAV have! 15:41 JS: This has been the edgeEN for Roy "Big Country" Nelson, he's been (?) the jiu-jitsu, we wondered if he would go to it, he did! 15:48 MR: Now...he comes in from the UFC 19 fight veteran... 15:52 JS: Yep. 15:52 MR: Wants to make a good first impression at Bellator MMA here at 41...what do you think of his performance thus far? 15:58 JS: Hey… he's soINTAV far... it keeps going the way it is, he's gonna win this fight. 16:03 JS: That's what you need, coming in with the "W", don't come out going "Hey, I need to finish a guy to reallyINTAV impress everybody". 16:08 JS: Hey, come out, get a win...worry about getting the knockouts later. 16:12 MR: The Bellator heavyweight title has been vacant for quite a while, Frank Mir has recently joined the Bellator heavyweight ranks.

16:20 MR: But Roy Nelson, Javy Ayala, they would love to vie for the Bellator heavyweight championship but… Ayala carrying [unintelligible] carrying the weight of Roy Nelson, now Nelson with a wideEVAJ base under a minute left of the fight. 16:38 JS: Ayala needs to do something, go for broke! 16:42 JS: Because this last 45 seconds this round has been controlled "Big Country".. 16:46 JS: I think this is the fight for him. 16:56 MR: And potentially an anti-climacticPSAJ finish to what has been an entertainingEVAJ fight! 17:02 JS: Oh, fans get spoiled! 17:03 MR: Yes, they do. (?) 17:03 JS: You hear the booing from this… 17:05 MR: Commentators get spoiled [unintelligible] 17:06 JS: We get spoiled too! 17:07 MR: And here maybe Nelson heard us! 17:09 MR: Nelson reigning down some right hands in the final 15 seconds of the fight! 17:14 MR: Wanting to make that lasting impression on the judges! 17:18 MR: Here in his first fight under the Bellator MMA banner! 17:21 MR: "Big Country" and "Eyecandy" go the distance! 17:32 JS: Those are two guys who left everything in the cage tonight. 17:38 JS: If..."Big Country" thought coming to Bellator would be easy, he found out it's toughEVAJ! 17:44 JS: Javy Ayala, greatEVAJ fight! 17:46 MR: Here's our "Blackheart premium spiced rum" replay, the boldEVAJ 93 proof rum that's edgyEVAJ to the core! 17:55 JS: Javy Ayala came out throwing greatEVAJ strikes. 17:58 JS: NiceEVAJ combinations, athleticEVAJ, finishing off with the kicks a lot of the time. 18:03 JS: But when Roy Nelson went to the takedown, the jiu-jitsu, the top control, the ground and pound... 18:09 JS: He found an area of the game for which Javy Ayala had no answer. 18:14 JS: You never wanna be in that position. 18:16 JS: And that negated the successes Javy Ayala... I believe had in rounds two and three. 18:21 JS: Started out doing wellINTAV but then...Roy cou- Roy Nelson would take him down and get the fight where he wanted him. 18:28 JS: And Javy Ayala ended up this fight...in this fight on his back, getting punched, that's how it finished... 18:35 JS: That's what the judges are gonna remember...was the ground dominanceEN of Roy "Big Country" Nelson.

18:40 MR: So will Roy Nelson come up victorious in Bellator MMA debut? 18:45 MR: Or is Javy Ayala going to spoil another Bellator newcomers first fight? 18:50 MR: We've just witnessed 15 hard minutes in Bellators heavyweight division. 18:54 MR: Michael C. Williams has the official decision. [Referee announces winner] 19:28 MR: Well thankfullyINTAV the world did not end today, but Javy Ayala's two fight winning streak, unfortunately for him, ends courtesyEVAJ of Roy "Big Country" Nelson, Jimmy Smith talking to the victorious Bellator MMA newcomer.

Appendix 4

Toph=To (Play-by-play) Bobby Scar=BS (Color Commentary)

00:03 BS: Yeah, and in celebration of...what we've built together around a belovedEVAJ Nintendo franchise… 00:08 To: Yes. 00:13 BS: We are about to go into a grand finals that has two outcomes right? 00:19 BS: That are...gonna be equallyINTAV historicEVAJ I think. 00:23 To: Yeah. 00:23 BS: Uh...the thing that - It's almost funnyEVAJ like let's imagine you know what I love to do I love to say...let's assume that we live in this world, and then let's assume that we live in the other world. 00:30 To: The timelinesEN, the branchingEN timelinesEN. 00:32 BS: We're gonna go in one direction or the other. 00:35 BS: Let's assume we go in the direction of Armada wins. 00:38 To: Okay, let's go to that... *Makes a swooshing sound effect* 00:40 BS: Ohhhh my god. 00:43 BS: That is...like think about what that means for our community, it basicallyINTAV means that all of you new folks can look goodEVAJ for quiteINTAV a while. 00:56 BS: But at the end of the day... 00:56 To: Yeah, at the end of the day...like Swedish Delight! 01:00 BS: At the end of the day, you've got oh...what was the japanese saying? 01:05 BS: It's uhhh...

01:06 To: "Hyakunen! 01:07 BS: Ma..."Mada mada" 01:08 To: Well there's "まだまだ" (Mada mada), there's "百年早い" (Hyakunen Hayai)... 01:10 BS: It's like you're not there yet. 01:11 To: You're one...You're one hundred years too earlyINTAV to challenge Armada. 01:14 BS: There's that one, there's also like "You've got more work to do"...sort of thing. 01:16 To: Yeah "You've got more work to do". 01:18 BS: Uh...and that would mean a three vote for Armada, it would mean a legendaryEVAJ losers’ run. 01:24 BS: And it would mean sadlyINTAV for Leffen, another...hugeEVAJ moment, you know? 01:31 Yeah where he's the bridesmaidEN, not the brideEN. 01:31 BS: HugeEVAJ pote...where he's the- *sigh*. I'm getting chills and also feel deeplyINTAV wounded...you know, for...on behalf of Leffen at the mere possibility… 01:43 To: Yeah. 01:43 BS: And so...that is why...I hope that we live in the other world. 01:48 To: Hohohoho! 01:49 BS: Where Leffen, a man who has toiled...and fought, you know...and grown, emotionallyINTAV, personallyINTAV, in the game...cross game, mentality wise. 01:55 To: Mhm...emotionallyINTAV...personallyINTAV...spirituallyINTAV. 02:04 BS: I hope, that he has what it takes to continue the fieryEVAJ explosiveEVAJ play that we saw early, just moments ago today. 02:12 To: Yeah. 02:12 BS: And can take it to Armada, you know a man who has been a rival to him...for god knows how many years? 02:18 To: You know they're talking to each other in Swedish right now? 02:21 BS: That's crazyEVAJ. 02:22 To: You realize that, they're on the stage talking to each other in Swedish right now? 02:24 BS: That's crazyEVAJ. 02:25 To: They said Swedish Delight?! We'll show you the real Swedish Delight. 02:26 BS: Pff. 02:28 BS: Come on Swedish Delight, who do you think you are? 02:28 To: Around here...who do you think you are?! 02:31 BS: You'd be up on this stage if you're a real Swedish delight. 02:33 To: Yeah. 02:34 To: But hey top ends not bad! 02:35 BS: And we're in! 02:36 To: Going right into it we've got Fox dittos!

02:38 To: Fox Dittos grand finals, Armada in the red, Leffen in the right! 02:44 To: And this is...I mean, as-as-as...as soon as Leffen figured out that Peach matchup man, Leffen became one of the few people that like Armada just doesn't even bother with anymore, he goes straightEVAJ to Fox. 02:56 To: And when these guys play, let me tell you something, they go back and forth in sets but within the context of a single set...for whatever reason one usually disgraceEN the other, it's never close! 03:04 BS: Yeah, yeah they have crazy one sidedEVAJ gam-even games right? 03:08 To: Even within the same tournament, one will obliterate the other in winners and then get obliterated lose (?), it doesn't make any sense. 03:11 BS: Heh, yeah...yeah...it's almost like who's just on that Jome (?) level right, who's just a step ahead or who's just technicallyINTAV slightlyINTAV fasterEVAJ. 03:19 To: Yeah. 03:20 BS: It just comp- It feels like it just compounds. 03:23 To: Both of them a little slowEVAJ on that edge guard right there. 03:26 To: But Leffen picks up the first stock. 03:27 BS: Alright. 03:28 To: Leffen goes le-Leffen with... 03:30 BS: Leffen up a set, and a stock. 03:31 To: A set and a, that's right yeah no the ode is really on Armada right now but.. 03:35 To: Oh, the Armada edgeguard! 03:36 To: Armada really INTAVwas the first... 03:37 BS: Oh, but he gets punched! 03:38 To: He does, I think the wispyEVAJ action made that a little moreINTAV difficultEVAJ to wispy...reposition Leffen so that he like...misspaced his up air a little bitINTQ. 03:45 To: I'd have to go back and watch it but I'm 90% that's what happened. 03:49 To: Oooh Armada looking for the up air but he onlyINTQ gets the first hit. 03:52 To: Leffen getting out of the pressure. 03:54 To: He's gotta knock down...Armada techs but Leffen reacts! 03:56 BS: Oooh turn around up tilt! 03:57 To: Leffens reactions right now are soINTAV on point! 04:01 BS: Wow, I love that! 04:03 To: That is...in my book that is the hardestEVAJ edge guard to do that looks as easyEVAJ as it does. 04:08 BS: Yeah as soon as, if you get it, wow. 04:10 To: Leffen is playing...like a man possessedEN. 04:12 BS: And by the way Leffen in 2018 is up five sets to two versus Armada...

04:17 To: Oh. 04:17 BS: this year, allINTQ time it's 40-24 04:20 To: 40-24 for...Armada probably right? 04:20 BS: So uh, it's a totallyINTAV different story for Armada, yeah. 04:23 BS: But uh, this year has been the year of Leffen. 04:26 To: Yeah. 04:28 Leffen actuallyINTAV, I think he's up in sets this year against everyone against H-Box. 04:31 BS: Mmm. 04:31 To: And he beat H-Box commandinglyINTAV in winter so like, you know. 04:34 BS: Shine down smash! 04:36 To: Yeah it's prettyINTAV goodEVAJ by the corner, even if they tech, if they don't tech. 04:42 BS: Eminem (?) shield, the spacing! 04:45 To: Shine? Oh he goes for the... 04:46 BS: Yeah I thought [unintelligible] was coming but uh.. 04:47 To: He goes for the combo? 04:47 BS: Uh oh, bigEVAJ damageEN! 04:49 To: This is bigEVAJ damageEN, this is reallyINTAV bigEVAJ damageEN. 04:51 BS: I love that nair, I wonder if that nair like he uh...Leffen just knew that it was either a tech chase situation or... 04:58 BS: I love his shielding! 04:59 To: Yep. 04:59 BS: Holding on, DIng in so he doesn't get pushed off. 05:05 To: Straight to the left, oh he do...oh the mang!! 05:06 BS: Oh that was the bigge...that was the mostINTAV men...oh my god. 05:09 To: Hehehe that was the textbookPM mangleEN! 05:12 BS: Ohhh my god. 05:12 To: At that nair into up smashing Armada, looks (?) to lost. 05:15 BS: Leffen, blasting off at a prototractor.. protractorEN measured angle and then aerial drifting away and in around Armada's back air...to end game one. 05:28 To: Like it ain't no thing! (pronounced as thang) 05:29 BS: Wow. 05:30 To: Three stocks...three stocks! 05:35 BS: Air control. 05:36 To: Yeah. 05:37 BS: We have upgradedEVAJ our machineryEN, you know...to a new classEN of uh you know to like fighter jetsEN. 05:38 To: Decision making!

05:43 To: Yeah. 05:44 BS: The R uh...Rob 64 came around in 2017 and he's uh..he's deploying these uh... 05:50 To: [Completely unintelligible, something about lies] 05:54 To: "GreatEVAJ fox!" 05:54 BS: I love that as, I'll alwaysTA call him Rob 64 by the way cause that's the Star Fox game that I love. 05:57 To: Yeah. 05:58 BS: Oh my god, Star Fox 64, literallyINTAV one of the bestEVAJ games everTI. 06:01 To: It reallyINTAV...it reallyINTAV is. 06:02 BS: Anyway! 06:05 To: Well, you know...there's two Foxes in...oh no Armada! 06:10 To: Armada no, not like this! 06:11 BS: You'd think he wanted to down tilt, oh Leffen! 06:14 To: Leffen will take it allINTQ the way to the bankEN and cash it! 06:18 To: And spend that cash, and put it allINTQ on black, and come up bigEVAJ! 06:23 BS: Leffen is honestly looking...and... hey man! 06:27 BS: Armada, uh...I'm not calling it, I'm NOT calling it, I just want you to know that I'm not calling it but...he's two games away. 06:29 To: No I'm not gonna b- 06:34 To: Hehehe, well yup. 06:37 To: *blows raspberries* 06:37 BS: He's two games away, and the way he's playing right now...that's the path we're going. 06:42 To: Bobby that was a read. 06:43 That up smash was a read...I know a read when I see one. 06:47 BS: I believe you...as...dude...Leffen is just on top of Armada. 06:51 BS: He just...oh my...oh my god these...how do you deal...oh my god...these follow ups...are unrealEVAJ! 07:01 To: Hahaha, they're unrealEVAJ, they're actuallyINTAV unrealEVAJ! 07:04 BS: PerfectEVAJ power shield! 07:06 To: He's just playing too goodEVAJ. 07:07 BS: Spacing! 07:11 BS: Here, Armada gets an opening. 07:11 To: Armada needs something...where's the confirm?! Where's the... 07:14 To: Alright. 07:15 BS: Okay..okay! 07:16 To: Fine!

07:16 BS: Made it work. 07:17 To: Yeah, he did make it work. 07:18 BS: But it was a up throw back air, you know compared to... 07:20 To: Up throw back air DI in and it's like, you know... 07:22 BS: I mean yeah, look at this punishment, it's just a different... 07:26 To: Oooh, Leffen...going for a...yeah 07:26 BS: different...[unintelligible] 07:29 To: Actually, *laughs* I'm getting like inertialEVAJ (?) like flashbacks because I remember when SilentWolf beat Leffen at EVO 2015...sorry 14 and he told me he did that exact edge guard bait to Leffen and it worked... 07:37 BS: Oh my…! Oh my god… 07:40 To: And I'm seeing...I saw Leffen do where he drifted high and did the falling back air on Armada. 07:45 To: And just like how farINTAV Leffen has come, from getting eliminated outside of topPM 8 in EVO 2014 to SilentWolf and now destroying Armada in Fox dittos! 07:53 BS: He is destroying Armada. 07:58 To: Up throw...yep. 07:58 BS: But scoreboards says it's close! 08:00 BS: Oh that was uhh...that one was weirdEVAJ. 08:00 To: Well...*laughs* yeah... 08:03 To: Oh, sharpEVAJ back air! 08:05 To: We're gonna need some Arm...oh, the angle, the angle is just too goodEVAJ! 08:08 BS: Shield drops...yeah. 08:10 To: Armada doesn't touch the platform, goes for that mangle but...Leffen's ready for it. 08:12 BS: Forward smash..yep! 08:15 To: Oh no...Leffen- Oh! 08:17 BS: Uhh...question mark, question mark? 08:19 To: Leffen just did...Leffen just did the "Leffen Laugh", that's a bad...he just did "the Leffs" 08:23 BS: What's "the Leffs"? 08:23 To: Like uh...Asterisk "Leffs"! 08:26 BS: Oh yeah yeah yeah... 08:27 To: Yeah. 08:29 To: I had...that's the disrespectfulEVAJ Leffen from like three years ago when he just... before he like matured as a person. 08:32 BS: The disrespectfulEVAJ Leffen. 08:34 BS: Question mark question mark!

08:35 To: And he just thought everyone was beneath him! 08:37 BS: Do you think that...did Armada get Battlefield or did he just...wolf down (?)? 08:40 To: Uhh he got Battlefielded and Leffen meant to back air that 08:42 BS: Right...okay. 08:43 To: Leffen obviouslyMI meant to back air! 08:44 To: Like...look I say do it, like don't go...don't go out like this! 08:49 BS: Yeah. 08:49 To: I say do it, especially FD right? 08:51 BS: Armada's doing it, but...hey man...we'll find out! 08:55 To: Yeah look if there's one guy that like knows this matchup like the back of his hand... 09:02 To: Let's see...FD...FD could be the mostINTAV...because he gets to do this! 09:05 BS: Yeah. 09:05 To: He gets to chaingrab...the death chaingrab on Fox...and like yeah, this is the counterpick, this is good! 09:11 To: This is what he needs to do to ice him out. 09:13 To: And the slowEVAJ nature of that punish is really good for preciselyINTAV that! 09:16 BS: Yeah. 09:17 BS: He definitelyMI does needs to iceEN him out...I mean that's, that's, that is what it is, that is the current state of affairsEN. 09:25 BS: And hopefully you know...Leffen's a champPM so you know...whatever, hopefully he can just take it as it comes. 09:31 To: Yeah. 09:31 BS: Yeah you've upped soINTAV muchINTAV, you don't need to win this game. 09:36 To: Ok, oh Armada got out, good smash [unintelligible]. 09:38 BS: Yes, dude, his movements...Leffen's just moving soINTAV fastEVAJ. 09:40 BS: I've actually been watching...I've been watching his wavedashes... 09:40 To: Armada could've air dodged out of that. 09:45 BS: Leffen's...*chuckles*... 09:46 To: His Ness mod got it out of the soul dude (?) 09:48 BS: Like…dude, every wavedash I've seen from Leffen is like perfectlyINTAV timed and perfectlyINTAV uhh.. 09:54 To: PerfectEVAJ distance. 09:55 BS: Yeah. 09:56 To: The punish, the width punish on a lag less move...for... 09:57 BS: Yeah...oh my lord. 10:03 To: Like...when I say lagless I don't mean literally the lag...that!

10:03 BS: The chasedown dude. 10:07 To: That is a very very difficultEVAJ foreyard (?) to punish on reaction. 10:12 To: I heard someone in the chat say three but I don't know man... 10:13 BS: Yeah we got a chant for three rounds... 10:16 BS: It's possible but...un...look at un...dude...yeah. 10:17 To: It is possible but.. 10:20 BS: Leffen! 10:21 BS: The...yeah. 10:23 To: Every hit like, Armada dash attacking into the corner! 10:24 BS: The man who's been crawling his way to the topPM...for years. 10:28 To: He's wanted this for soINTAV long. 10:30 To: The angle! Okay he doesn't get the...heh, the reallyINTAV tightEVAJ angle to the ledge there, it's really hardEVAJ to hit. 10:36 To: Armada going for a shield grab facing the wrong way, what is Armada doing?! 10:39 To: He's falling apart at the seamsEN! 10:42 To: Are we gonna get it? 10:43 To: Okay, went for the shine edge guard, didn't quiteINTAV get it. 10:47 BS: But to this point...! 10:48 To: Leffen looking for a roll or something he doesn't bite! 10:51 To: Dash..uh sorry down smash not connecting. 10:52 BS: Yeah he got him! 10:53 To: Um, okay, um... 10:56 BS: Armada...as, as as...how do I put it? 11:01 BS: Like, as shakyEVAJ as he has looked...he has not fallen to anyone allINTQ weekend. 11:08 BS: He's come to this point multipleINTQ times. 11:10 To: Yeah! 11:11 BS: Versus some of the...versus the bestEVAJ players period in the world. 11:15 BS: Yet...we are still playing more Melee! 11:18 BS: This is Armada's last stock! 11:19 To: Last stock! 11:22 BS: Will, he, come alive? 11:25 BS: Or is Leffen too powerfulEVAJ? 11:28 To: The next moments are gonna tell us everything. 11:30 BS: That's right. 11:31 To: Leffen gets one more bit - wave...the perfectEVAJ ledge rush into up tilt he gets to Armada's able to n-air out of it. 11:36 To: Leffen goes to the ledge and Armada gives him it!

11:38 BS: Oh! 11:41 BS: That would've...oh my god! 11:45 BS: That would've been it! 11:46 To: Oh my god, if he hits that soft n-air, anything will lead into an up smash right now Bobby! 11:51 BS: 72 percent, dope (?)! 11:54 BS: Okay, there's the edge guard, last stocks! 11:57 BS: 72 percent! 11:58 To: Armada shielding the finalPSAJ littleEVAJ laser! 11:59 BS: Where's he going, he's running too slowEVAJ! 12:02 BS: 8 percent! 12:04 BS: Ahhh! 12:08 BS: Armada has no shield, Armada has no - AND THAT'S IT! 12:09 To: AHH THAT'S IT! 12:09 BS: Leffen, absolutelyINTAV tearing through everyone today Toph! 12:17 BS: Leffen is our EVO 2018 Super Smash Bros. Melee champion! 12:23 BS: Hello Ben! 12:28 BS: Oh. My. God. 12:29 BS: SeriouslyINTAV, Leffen, a man...who is, you know...the taleEN of the anti-heroEN! 12:37 BS: He is the Venom, you know in the SpidermanEN series! 12:40 To: Yeah! 12:40 BS: Where he starts out as the villain, the symbiote suit...has a change of heart, Eddie Brock ends up being an unlikely ally! 12:47 To: Yep, coolEVAJ guy! 12:49 BS: To help us take on existentialEVAJ threats, like save the world! 12:53 To: Right? 12:54 BS: That is the storyEN of Leffen and that is the feeling and emotion that he is soaking up right now! 13:00 BS: Finally! 13:04 BS: He is the heroEN of the storyEN, finallyINTAV! 13:07 BS: It ends with Leffen on topPM! 13:09 To: He's wanted this for soINTAV long. 13:11 BS: Years of struggle! 13:12 To: SoINTAV long! 13:14 BS: And familiar faces and situations, you know...where it just has slipped...through his fingertips...like grains of sandEN. 13:22 To: Mhm.

13:23 BS: But finallyINTAV it has formed and it's gonna look like an EVO trophy. 13:27 To: Oh my god. 13:27 BS: One of the most prizedEVAJ posessions of any Melee fighter. 13:30 To: And by the way...what a way to do it. 13:33 To: Two won over HungryBox. 13:34 BS: Dude. 13:34 To: Yeah he drops the first game, and that was the last game he would drop...allINTQ topPM 8. 13:39 BS: Yeah...and uh...you know... 13:39 To: With a cleanEVAJ 3-0 over Plup, and a cleanEVAJ 3-0... 13:45 BS: I make some goodEVAJ calls every once in a while but...you know, I gotta say that uhh...game one versus Plup, Bobby Scar had a premonitionEN. 13:53 To: You did. *chuckles* 13:55 To: And what a call that was, what a premonitionEN that was! 13:57 BS: Just saying. 13:58 To: Leffen today...was unquestionablyINTAV the bestEVAJ player in the world and the bestEVAJ player in the room...by miles. 14:05 BS: Just saying...sometimes people say, Bobby Scar, you know...I don't think that you know muchINTAV about the game, you're out of touch...you know? 14:12 BS: I don't think that you're actuallyINTAV that goodEVAJ as a player. 14:13 To: I don't think so. 14:15 BS: Fendy...5-2 cleanEVAJ. 14:18 BS: Leffen...called it earlyINTAV on...just saying...didn't drop a game. 14:24 To: Are you really putting...Leffen's topPM 8 victory at EVO on the same...? 14:27 BS: I...am just putting it into a broader context for the viewers. 14:31 To: That's right, that's right! 14:31 BS: Just to make a broader point, this is a discussion I've been having with the people for years! 14:36 To: They know...they allINTQ know! 14:39 To: Wow! 14:40 BS: Leffen...Armada...Plup...HungryBox...Mango and...Wizzy...S2J, Swedish Delight. 14:41 To: Leffen! Mhm...Mmm...HungryBox! Wizzrobe...and Swedish Delight! 14:56 BS: The eight bestEVAJ players in Super Smash Brothers Melee this weekend in Las Vegas! 15:01 BS: Thank you soINTQ muchINTAV for spending the time with us, we're gonna check out the awards with the players on the stage. 15:07 BS: Bobby Scar.

15:08 To: Toph...signing out. 15:10 BS: Love you guys.