"alternatives" - KEY available from 18th April 9PM (GMT+8)
12. Stronger Yo-yo Cup EP4
As I hung out with a few of the boys until about 4 a.m. the night before, I was pretty tired even before the event started. I got to the venue early to set up – the backdrop, floor arrangements, lighting, etc., simple stuff.
It was then we encountered our first issue, which was that the music system was unable to play from my laptop. “Did you try restarting your laptop?” said the venue staff.
I was very concerned at that point, and my girlfriend said she would head back home to grab our speakers in case we couldn’t resolve it.
Thankfully, DJ JETFIRE (Christopher Lee) suddenly showed up and quickly diagnosed the problem – which was a missing cable or some shit. Chris immediately went down to the nearest electronics store to purchase the cables. Chris was actually the savior and my MVP of Episode 4.
The venue slowly filled up with more and more players. As per my usual disappointment, the majority of our local players were late, including those who always cry about others being late. Eventually, everybody arrived and EP4 was underway.
As customary, I opened the venue with a short speech where I announced the winners of the 1A & X would receive flight tickets to Expressiyon, which was held in Indonesia the following month. From that point, it was game on.
We kicked off with X-Division preliminaries, and the atmosphere was lit. There was both excitement and tenseness in the air. This time around, there was no trash talking in prelims, and players would only have the privilege at finals.
Personally, I thought prelims brought a lot of excitement to the contest – as it brought stakes to the game where anybody could mess up and not make finals. Some people told me having prelims was very cruel, but I thought it was funny seeing players who attended Worlds having flashbacks haha.
It was during prelims that we did our first live stream on Instagram for viewers who were interested to watch or players who couldn’t make it. It was quite annoying, as IG would often pick up copyrighted music from the freestyles and cut the livestream. This is where I would manually need to go back to my phone and restart it. Small stuff, but quite unpredictable when the stream cuts.
As I announced the 1A finalists, the crowd kept asking me to allow more people into finals, and so I did. I was supposed to stop at 10th place. However, I extended to 14th, which allowed Quoc Anh, Luan Xiao Guang, Thawhir, and Marcus Ee into finals. Most people have not seen the score sheet for this, as it was only sent in the MYYA WhatsApp, so I have attached it below:
X-Division Prelims
Ilhan Gabriel – 3rd
1A Division Prelims
Karthik Devaraj – 2nd
Sitta Nattasomboon – 6th
Kevin Hendrata – 7th
Ilhan Gabriel – 8th
Marcus Ee – 14th
After that, it was time for dinner, which was a buffet style with Western and Malaysian cuisine. Everybody complimented the food, but I remember Xavier telling me he was too anxious for finals to really enjoy the food.
It was during this break when Sitta told me he was happy to join the team. Yay!
Episode 4 Finals & Results
EP4 had everything – the drama, the storylines, Kevin’s trash talking, the first(?) few middle fingers on stage, the rematch of Marcus vs. Luan, the legendary stop ‘n’ jo, and of course, this Sitta freestyle.
Somehow Sitta might have confused EP4 with AP and decided to go full throttle. Sitta and I actually spoke a lot about this freestyle – he told me that he didn’t expect to go that clean, and it was probably one of his cleanest routines. He also said he was nervous, but because of good preparation and enough practice, he was able to pull through. Sitta was also planning to revamp his trick set at this point, so he wanted to do some of his tricks for the last time on stage.
To me, it was a breath of fresh air, seeing a very distinct style of yo-yoing which we don’t see that often nowadays, especially with “meta” being overbuffed.
Sitta would go on to win EP4, Karthik getting 2nd, Kevin 6th, Ilhan 8th, and Marcus 13th. Ilhan would also get 2nd for X-Division.
Sitta winning was a pretty cool moment (at least for me). Usually before yo-yo contests, it’s quite easy to predict who would be in the top 3 or who would likely be the winner. At EP4, I think it’s safe to say Sitta’s win was unpredictable and probably one of the few dark horse moments I’ve seen (the other one that comes to mind is Ahmad Kharisma at AP13).
Although EP4 was not on the same scale as other contests, it had the top competitors from SEA, which was awesome. I joked with Sitta that he should have taken up joining the team after winning so he could have more negotiating power and compare his options haha.
A sweet moment was that Sitta actually told me a strong pull factor to join was myself and Zafran being in the team, as he would always watch our freestyles when he was a noob. I told the team then that Sitta was joining, and we all took a group photo together.
Episode 4 was a wrap! I had fun organizing this, had fun at the event, and extremely grateful for all the support.
Fun fact about Stronger is that there is a cover charge per pax - which was about RM110 (USD25~) per person. Which actually meant I would be subsidizing a portion or per attendee, as registration did not cover the full cost. Adding on the two flight tickets, free admissions for helpers, and adding the pax cost minus reg fees, and you have the total damage. EP4 was the most 'loss making' event I would ever do - Right behind EP5.
I thought it was a good event… I thought so..?
Episode 4 Aftermath
Post-EP4 was not fun for me. I received complaints and accusations by multiple random people of the following:
- Rigging the event for Sitta to win
- Overclicking “alternatives” players
- Underclicking players so they wouldn’t qualify for finals
- X-Division unfairness with multipliers
- Charging too much for registration fees to earn money (RM60/USD13 for admission, RM80/USD18 for competitors)
- Not providing drinking water
At that point, I was pretty annoyed with all that heat I was getting – especially from random folks whose favorite players did not win. But this was just something I would have to learn to put up with as an organizer and brand owner.
I do look forward to seeing those brilliant individuals being head judge or top 3 at Worlds one day. With their impeccable knowledge of yo-yo judging and prodigy like raw talent, they are truly the undiscovered gem that yoyorecreation is missing out on.
Anyways! Expressiyon was up next!
To be continued…