Four Up! Four Down¡ Week 2
Source IFL News Network
By Colin Talvitie
November 18, 2013
Ah, Week 2. Ironically, a week of firsts. The first perfect shutout of the season. The first match sweep of the season. The first of many tears shed by Team Fist Nation after their choke-job. Well played, Captain Futility, well played. An interesting note about week 2: all the 'home' teams won. Not that home vs. away matters in this league as it did in TDL. Regardless, home teams are now 5-3 (Team Fist being the only 'home' team to win in Week 1...that may prove the highlight of their season).
It's time to sit back, relax, pour yourselves a pint of SharpThorn Cider and take a look back at the highs and lows of IFL Season 3, Week 2.
Colin Talvitie
Staff Writer
Four Up!
Jake Thrash (Badside Brawlers, 5-0 Push win in 5) -- Brawlers rejoice! Captain Thrash stakes out a claim in the IFL history books as the 3rd dueler to ever score a perfect shutout in league play and the first to ever do so in a Push bout. With this dominating victory, Jake joins teammate Kelten Tarkenstone (5-0 Crutch win over Dark Warchild in Season 2, Week 10 & 5-0 Iron Fist win over Koyliak VanDuran-Simon in Season 2 Playoff Semifinals) and...it truly pains me to write this, you have no idea...Team Fist's Matthew Algiers Simon (5-0 Iron Fist win over Maria Graziano in Season 2 Playoff Quarterfinals). Without this perfect shutout, the Badside Brawlers would have been 0-2 after two weeks.
Keo Tim (Asian Invasion, 5-3 Crutch win in 12) -- For someone who frowns so much, I hope she turned that thing upside down when this bout ended. In her first-ever IFL bout, Keo knocked off league veteran Koyliak VanDuran-Simon who falls to 4-3 lifetime in Crutch bouts. Looks like Koy's caught some of whatever ails her husband but I bet Keo's not complaining (still frowning perhaps, but not complaining) as the win earned her a promotion to FlyWeight. Congrats, missie. You are a Trainee no longer.
Onyx Solare (The Rock Hards, 5-4 Anchor win in 12) -- Ah, the lows and highs of team dueling. After her rubbish performance in Week 1, Kruger busted Onyx down to the Anchor match where she very nearly let herself get pounded into the ground. Down 1-4 after 6 rounds, Onyx finally found her claws and turned the tables on Corlanthis to come out with a win. This was only the 7th bout for Corlanthis (formerly of Shots of Decadance) and knocks him to 1-2 in Anchor bouts and 1-2 in bouts decided by a single point. More importantly, with the bout win, Onyx prevented her team from a match-sweep loss. Conversely, this means Corlanthis is the 2nd dueler in as many weeks to blow a potential sweep win for Top Flight. ManToy must be seething under all that blue hairdye heading into Week 3.
Jin Sin (Mercenarii, 5-2 Anchor win in 6) -- Just about the time this bout really got going, it ended. After an opening round with nobody scoring, Jin rattled off five straight points, two for trades to start the week off with a win for his team. On the other side, Gren Blockman's probably still wondering what went wrong and buying case upon case of seasonal ale from the Red Orc Brewery to make it up to Jake, who showed the whole league who's boss.
Four Down¡
Dizzy Flores (Badside Brawlers, 2-5 Iron Fist loss in 6) -- The most experienced fighter in the league (24 bouts), Dizzy's had her share of ups and downs. Riding a 7-bout win streak at one point, Dizzy seems to do worse as the pressure mounts and she's 2-4 lifetime in Iron Fist bouts. Though Jake buggered the matchup when it came to this bout, all Dizzy needed to do for her team to win the week was score a single point. She did just that in an opening round trade. Then she proceeded to get handily trounced by Vanion Shadowcast. She's never lost more than 2 bouts in a row so history says she'll turn things around soon. She better, because a few more losses like this just might put her out to pasture.
Cassius Maximus (Mercenarii, 0-5 Push loss in 5) -- The IFL season is 2 weeks old. HeOfTheManyNames has fought twice. HeOfTheManyNames has scored a total of one point. One. To recap, in Week 1, Vincent Smith kicked, threw, kicked, punched and threw the wayward MRC Captain. This time out, Jake kicked, kicked, punched, punched and threw him around the ring. For those tallying things, that's 4 kicks, 3 tosses and 3 punches taken by HeOfTheManyNames with one traded kick given in return. It's nice to know, however, that his ego's not at all the worse for wear as he's actually slotted himself into the Iron Fist bout for Week 3 against Kheldar Drasinia. That takes a lot of gall. A lot of moxy. A lot of bollocks. It's pure rubbish, but it's a lot of bollocks.
Team Dirty (0-4 Sweep; 11-34 loss in 43 rounds): Team Dirty may take solace in the fact that this by no means was the worst sweep loss in league history. That honor's reserved for the ladies of Team SHE who set the record for uselessness with their 6-34, 31 round loss to the Badside Brawlers during Season 2, Week 4. Unfortunately for Team Dirty, a sweep loss is a sweep loss and to make matters worse, nobody from the field of Zack Alcar, Gothrak, Khoom Helston or Captain Claire Farron were even in a Sudden Death scenario. Dominated from start to finish, Team Dirty received a raw lesson in just how far they have to go to become competitive at the hands of Champions of Mythos (who happen to know what it's like to get swept out of the League Finals).
Aristotle Kruger Allen (The Rock Hards, no stats) -- Rookie captains can't afford brain-dead errors. The definition of brain-dead error? This matchup. WISE WORDS OF ADVICE TO CAPTAIN KRUGER: See, Mr. Anvil, this is why you need to go find a small part of the Aristotle part of your brain. Because what you Do. Not. Do. Ever. is put a first-time IFL Trainee...a whelp of a lad...in the Iron Fist bout against an ex-Opal and ex-Diamond with 18 prior bouts of IFL experience. To put that much pressure on a first-time dueler is pure rubbish (the fact this kid's even in the league is also rubbish, but I'll let that lie for now)! ManToy would never make that mistake. Bloody hell...Captain Futility would never make that mistake. The dueler named Minam Go thus went all right, went all the way into a 0-3 hole and an eventual 2-5 loss to Vincent Smith. Vinny gets no accolades for doing exactly what he should have done. This loss lands squarely on The Rock Hards' leadership. As bad a call as this was by Kruger, I call bollocks on Dust Cameron as well for not stepping in and righting an obvious wrong before the match submission deadline.
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