Hello all, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in this. Basically, we could combine our efforts to create a historical record of sorts by giving detailed results of important Japanese 3s tournaments, as well as any highlights and other interesting notes.
I’ll do the 1st Cooperation Cup top 12, for starters. Any “???” in player names indicates kanji that I can’t read or don’t recognize from videos and such. Anyway, here we go:
Tournament: 1st Cooperation Cup
Style: 5-on-5 team tournament
Location: Beat Tribe
Date: April 28, 2002
Turnout: 37 teams
RESULTS:
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Tokido (Urien)/Nuki (Chun)/Joe (Ken)/Match (Akuma)/Xiao (Ibuki)
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K.O (Yun)/Boss (Yang)/J (Makoto)/Hitotsume (Ken)/Ryo-chin (Remy)
3a. Meta (Chun)/Pledge (Yang)/Tsubo (Yun)/Totomu (Akuma)/Nagano (Ken)
-Lost to 2nd place team
3b. Ayu (Chun)/Kanimajin (Alex)/Ochibi (Yun)/Danna (Dudley)/Masaki (Chun)
-Lost to 1st place team
5a. Spellmaster J (Ken)/Onanism (Urien)/Erotic Teacher Okumoto (Dudley)/AFM (Chun)/??? Inoue (Urien)
-Lost to 1st place team
5b. Chemuru (Makoto)/OJI (Yun)/Yukino (Chun)/Tama (Oro)/??? (Ken)
-Lost to team 3a
5c. Nitto (Yun)/Riki (Q)/Ikeda (Urien)/Remio (Remy)/Suteki (Dudley)
-Lost to 2nd place team
5d. KFG (Ken)/178 (Dudley)/Nomoto (Akuma)/Ruu (Yun)/ZON (Chun)
-Lost to team 3b
9a. Fujiwara (Dudley)/ofc (Akuma)/Georgia (Ryu)/OK (Ryu)/Pistachio (Twelve)
-Lost to team 5b
9b. Kunihiro (Urien)/Hayao (Hugo)/Deku (Yun)/??? (Akuma)/??? (Ken)
-Lost to team 5d
9c. FAQ (Q)/Gottsu (Oro)/Hiro (Chun)/Eroho (Hugo)/Yamamoto (Hugo)
-Lost to 1st place team
9d. Gohan (Oro)/BAB (Urien)/OLDMAN (Makoto)/Choko (Dudley)/Kuni (Oro)
-Lost to team 5c
NOTES & HIGHLIGHTS:
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Yes, Ruu apparently used to play Yun, wasn’t too bad either!
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Ayu OCVed KFG’s team.
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The only match Nuki lost (at least in the top 12 portion) was to J in the finals. He OCVed the double-Hugo team.
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Tokido NEVER lost a match (again, in top 12, though I doubt he or Nuki would’ve lost in the pools). He OCVed the Beat Tribe (5a) team, though Match and Xiao lost to the Inoue guy before he came in.
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Speaking of which, there were quite a few DAMN good Uriens I’ve never seen anywhere else besides this tourney…the Inoue guy (he switched to Dudley for 2nd Coop Cup, sucked in the one match he had to play), Kunihiro (ran through most of KFG’s team, before KFG himself took out the remainder of their team), and Ikeda (beat most of the double-Oro team, defeated Hitotsume and Boss in the match his team eventually lost). What’s the deal here?
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The Yamamoto in team 9c may be recognized by some of you as the same Yamamoto who dominated the Tokushima SBO2 qualifier.
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Yes, the Kuni in team 9d is THE Kuni. He gets utterly destroyed by Ikeda in the one match they show of his, though. =P
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Remio defeated Ryo-chin in what I think may be the only Remy mirror match ever put on video. Everyone was chanting his name before it started, it was pretty funny. =)
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If you’re wondering how they can have ties for 5th and 9th in a 12-team single-elimination bracket, the answer is that four teams got first-round byes. Those four were teams 2, 3a, 3b, and 5a. I have no idea how this was determined, it REALLY doesn’t seem random given the quality of these teams.
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They somehow narrowed the initial 37 teams down to 30 (probably by putting some of them in a single-elimination bracket, ala Coop3), and put them into 10 round-robin pools of 3 teams each. The winner of each pool went on to the 12-team stage, while the 2nd-place teams in each pool had to go through another stage to get there. Specifically, each of these teams picked one player, and those players were placed into two single-elimination “playoff” brackets. The winner of each bracket had his team move on to the top 12.
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The two playoff winners were Nitto, who owned a Makoto player named Tono in the bracket’s finals, and KFG, who earned his team the spot by defeating Mester in a match which is apparently still quite famous in Japan. Was it supposed to be the biggest upset ever or something? I’ve never seen anything of KFG prior to this tournament, while Mester was always a huge name…
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Besides Mester’s team, the only other notable one I know of that didn’t make top 12 was YSB’s team. They actually finished last in their pool, and thus were eliminated right off the bat…dunno who else was with him.
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Mopreme was actually in this tournament, he wins the very first match shown on the DVD (thanks to BillyKane for this factoid). His team finished 2nd in its pool and must’ve lost in the playoffs somewhere along the line…I don’t know who else was on his team.
AWARDS (as shown on the DVD):
MVP: Tokido (no surprise there)
Most tournament wins by an individual player: KFG (11, dunno if the playoff win counted or not)
Best Bout: K.O vs. Tokido (the final match of the tournament, I totally agree with this one)
??? (can’t read, it’s some individual award): KFG
OCV’s: Besides the ones I mentioned, these players all OCVed teams in the pools:
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Ayu (yes, that is two OCVs for him, I am guessing he either never played or never won in any of his other matches because that alone puts him 1 win behind KFG)
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Boss
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K.O
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??? (some Chun player whose name consists of four kanji)
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Meta
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Yamamoto
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The Inoue guy from Beat Tribe
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Match
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KFG
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Nuru (a Yun player on Mester’s team)
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??? (the Akuma player on Kunihiro’s team, beats Yamacof’s Dudley in one of the pool highlights)
So, whaddya think? I’d greatly appreciate it if anyone can translate the kanji stuff I can’t understand…
-Josh
