AXE 09
Smash Master
Before you guys read any of this, I just want to warn you guys that my memory isn't exactly the best thing in the world lol. Many times, I won't remember an event that happened and replace those memories with false ones that I think happened. If any information that I may post about you is incorrect, just let me know because chances are that I just plain don't remember. I'll try my best to post as accurately as possible though lol.
I just wanted to share what my thoughts are about each smasher in the AZ Melee community, and also the experiences that I've had with each smasher. Please do not be offended if I do not list your name. Remember, my memory is kinda bad lol. I'll try my best though.
Please don't be offended if the entry about you is shorter than someone else's. Even if I don't write much about a particular person, that person just might've had one of the greatest impacts on my Melee career. Don't worry; all of you are important to me.
Forward - 7/29/2010
The first time that I ever heard about Forward was around the same time I joined Smashboards: December of 2006. Tag and I stumbled across the AZ power ranking thread and saw the name "Forward" as number 1. We were curious, and decided to try to find any videos of him on Youtube. We found a few videos of his Falco vs Taj's Mewtwo. I remembered seeing Taj as number 2 on the rankings, and assumed that they must be double's partners and trained together all the time. As I was watching, I could tell that he was different from any other player I had ever seen. He played much slower than I thought the number 1 player in the state would. One thing that I could tell about him was that his spacing was absolutely perfect, and he never made any of the moves he did go to waste. He had a reason behind every attack and every movement, and it seemed like he kept his actions at the minimum level possible. I thought that he was trying to "save his energy" and not have to do anything unnecessary. Thoughts like that never came to my mind before I saw him play. I always thought that you should overwhelm your opponent with techskill and lock them down or confuse them with blinding movements. Watching those matches taught me that the game can be played in different kinds of ways that I never thought possible.
Tag and I decided to try and go to our first AZ tournament. We came across a tournament thread called "AZone" which was to be held in January of 2007. We decided to go, and we arrived pretty early at the venue on the day of the tournament. After about an hour or two, I heard many people yell out "Taj is here!!!" and run over to the door. I saw this very tall black guy who seemed totally gangster lol. I thought to myself, "Omg! I bet Forward probably looks exactly like him!". When somebody finally pointed out Forward to me, I was speechless. He didn't seem very loud at all like Taj was, and he was white as white can be. How could 2 people who seemed like polar opposites possibly spend so much time together?
If memory serves me correctly, then I don't think I actually got to talk to Forward at that tournament. I don't think he even knew I existed.
Honestly, I don't remember the first time that we actually got to talk and to finally play against each other. However, I think the first time when he ever actually saw me as more than just some random scrub was when we played Melee at a large Brawl tournament called "AZoneTwoStep" held in June of 2008. At the venue, I walked into a room where there was only 1 Melee setup, and Forward was playing on it. He was absolutely destroying every person who tried to play against him. I really REALLY wanted to play, but I was too scared and also felt that I wasn't worthy to be in the presence of the all-mighty legendary Forward, who was #1 in the state at both Melee and Brawl at the time. All of the other smashers who came with me from Sierra Vista were strongly encouraging me to try to play against him, and I eventually summoned enough courage to ask for the next game. When we played, I was actually winning a majority of the games against him! Words cannot describe the feeling I had when I knew that I stood a fighting chance against him. I felt like all my training that I've had with Pikachu was finally starting to pay off, and I only wanted to get better and better. Even though Forward was extremely rusty from playing brawl so much, I still never thought that I'd even get 2 stocks off of him no matter how rusty he was. It was at this moment where I found out that it's actually possible to beat him, and I wanted to train at Melee even harder to beat him even when he's not rusty and at the top of his game.
Our next big encounter was at a tournament held in Sierra Vista called "SV Twisted" (video). It was the largest tournament that SV's ever had, which is sad considering that there were only 19 entrants. This was around the time where I "started" to get slightly more comfortable around Forward, meaning that I could actually summon up the courage to approach him and talk to him. I was still afraid to ask him to play any Melee matches though, and I would freeze up sometimes when I wanted to say something to him. After all, he's a legend and one of the greatest Melee players of all time. Anyways... At this tournament, Forward and I ended up playing in grand finals. As always, I was extremely nervous... His presence alone made me feel so inferior. Anyways, the matches started. I was trying my absolute hardest to try to beat him. I knew that if I could beat him once, I could do it again. Even though he was brawled up last time, that encounter made me realize that he was beatable, and I just might have what it takes to surpass him even at his highest level. I could tell that Forward wasn't nearly as rusty as he was at AZoneTwoStep, but he definitely was not at the top of his game either. Regardless, I tried my absolute best to defeat him. For the final match, I decided to pick Pikachu instead of choosing to Falco ditto him. I thought that if any training with Pikachu would come in handy, now would be the time. I was so focused, so determined, and wanted to badly to win! And somehow... I pulled off the victory! Forward didn't seem to care much that he lost though, which I thought was kinda strange. Even though I won that set... that was only the first set. I had to win another one to win the tournament. During the second set, he picked Marth and DESTROYED me every match, 3-0. I was pretty close to beating him on the last match, but he still ended up beating me. I was a little sad... but the fact that I beat his Falco with Pikachu in what I thought was a very intense match made the entire tournament worth while. After he destroyed me, I knew that I had a very long way to go before I was at his skill level.
Not too long after this tournament, I started taking somewhat frequent trips with some others in SV to Tucson (where Forward lives) because I finally had my driver's license. This is when I started to get to know Forward on a more personal level. I specifically remember one day when Forward, I, and a few others from Tucson and SV decided to take a break from Melee and go hang out at places like Golf N' Stuff and similar places just to have fun. I learned a lot about Forward at this time. I learned that Forward's real name is Sean Benner. He is somewhere in his early 20's and he loves to just have fun. He would talk to me about how he loves to go to parties, bars, and participate and various physical activities. He is a real ladie's man and really knows how to flirt with girls. He is very talkative and loves to tell stories about his life in humorous fashions. He always stays physically fit and it seems like he always wants to work out or something. As many of you have probably guessed, one of the biggest factors about him is that he is very competitive in everything that he does whether it is sports, flirting with girls, video games, chess, or pretty much anything you can think of. It seems like he always tries to be the very best at every activity that he does, and somehow he succeeds. It's insane how gifted and talented this guy is. It wasn't too long before I started calling him "Sean" and he started calling me "Jeff", which meant that we were starting to get more comfortable with each other. One thing that made me happy was that I knew that he was starting to drift away from brawl and was starting to show much more interest in Melee.
After playing Forward in Melee for a while, I made some observations about him. First off, he is extremely good at playing many different characters. He can play a professional level Falco, Fox, Peach, Jigglypuff, Sheik, Falcon, Samus, Marth, and probably others that I haven't seen enough of. Before I started taking those trips to tucson, I thought that Forward was only able to play Spacies, and maybe Marth. I was terribly wrong. It's not that he exceeds in just 1 character, but he is just a very good player, and uses his knowledge of the characters to his advantage no matter what character he uses. The way he plays is very interesting. He will stand outside of your attack range, then wait for you to make some sort of approach. Somehow, it seems like he can magically guess which approach you are going to do and counter it with a move of his own. The moment he hits you, he will combo you, tech-chase you, or a mixture of the two for as long as he can (which can either be 0-death, or 0-high damage), then reset positions and repeat. He always knows when to stop his combos/tech-chases. It's so strange how he is always able to guess everyone's approaches, I just can't understand. Sometimes it seems like he's psychic.
In July or August of 2009, I moved from Sierra Vista to Tucson (where Forward lives) to attend the University of Arizona. During this time, tournaments were held pretty much every month. Forward and I would almost always meet in grand finals, or at least somewhere in the bracket. It wasn't long before I started being a serious threat to him. Everytime we met up in the bracket, I could tell that he would have to try harder and harder against me to win, and it eventually got to the point where I could tell that he was trying his absolute hardest and I would still win. I would RARELY win when he tries his hardest, but I was still able to win against him at least sometimes. It seemed like when we both tried our hardest, I would win maybe 15% or 20% of the time. Although those numbers are low, the fact that I had a chance of winning only made me want to train harder and harder until the matches will eventually swing in my favor. I felt special... Because whenever Forward tries his hardest, unless your name is Taj or Wobbles (or possibly Light), you will pretty much have a 0% chance of winning. At those monthly tournaments, it was extremely rare, but I actually won maybe like twice against Forward. Both of those times, I had such a strong feeling of joy and relief that my training was finally paying off. Although... I couldn't help but wonder if it was really me who was getting better, or just Forward who was starting to drift away from Melee. During this time, he had been showing signs that he wanted to do other activities instead.
Sometime in December 2009, I moved to western Phoenix. Not too long after that in early 2010, Forward moved to southern Phoenix. Ever since we both moved, we never really got to play each other much at all (not that we even played a lot when we both lived in the same town, but after we moved we played even less than that). Whenever we do get the chance to play though, every match is always really intense. Unlike almost every other smasher in AZ, I take every match that I play with Forward very seriously. Whenever I fight him, I always try super hard to win and don't act the same that I do when I play others. There's always this intense feeling when I play him. Overall, he's basically the one person in all of AZ who I fear the most. Even to this day I'm still not as good as him, but I know that I am not very far away from his skill level. One day I hope to surpass him, but until then, Forward remains as the greatest Melee player that the state of Arizona has to offer.
Taj - 7/30/2010
Similar to Forward, the first time that I heard about Taj was when I first viewed the AZ power ranking thread back in December of 2006. He carried the title of the #2 player in Arizona. While Tag and I were looking for videos of Forward, we came across a few videos of Forward's Falco vs Taj's Mewtwo. I was pretty curious what a professional Mewtwo would look like, because I had never seen any Mewtwo players before. Honestly, I hadn't really seen many videos at all, so I did not see many characters in general. At this time, I had never seen the tier list either so I had no clue where Mewtwo was on that list.
As I was watching, I thought that what I was seeing was spectacular. Yes, I was also impressed with the Falco, but the way that Taj's mewtwo could move around was insane! He was teleporting everywhere and his wavedashes were so smooth and covered such a large distance. Then... I saw him do the craziest combo on Forward's Falco on Final Destination, and I was completely speechless. I couldn't believe my eyes... I imagined how amazing it would be to maybe one day get so good that I could have the honor of teaming with him, so we could do team Pokemon (Mewtwo + Pikachu). Honestly at the time, I thought that was never ever going to happen. Not even in a million years.
Tag and I decided to go to our first AZ tournament: AZone, held in January of 2007. We arrived at the venue pretty early. After a little while, we heard someone yell "Taj is here!" and many people ran towards the door to greet him. I had no idea what to expect. Moments later... I saw a very tall, very athletic-looking, and very dark-skinned man who looked to be somewhere near 20 years old. You could tell just by looking at him that he liked to play sports or maybe some other physical activities, and you could also tell how "gangster" and "black" he really is just by hearing him talk and watching the way he acts. After I thought about it for a while, I should've seen it coming. You should be able to tell how thug Taj should be because his Mewtwo looks so gamgsta when it moves! Needless to say, the moment I first saw him, I had the feeling that I probably should not get too close to him or anything because I was afraid he might hurt me or something.
I continued to make observations about him throughout the day. The first time I saw him play in person was in a Money Match against another person playing Luigi (I totally forgot who the Luigi player was). Watching Taj's mewtwo in person was insane... Players seem so different when you watch them in person rather than watching them on Youtube. I was so fascinated by his Mewtwo, but I was also so very fearful of him as a person.
The tournament started and Pools were called. I somehow made it out of pools, and I was so happy that I made it out of pools at my first real tournament!
Then, the first round of the bracket was starting. I made sure to listen to the announcer as carefully as I could for my name. Then suddenly I heard it... "Taj vs. Axe!"
My heart skipped a beat. My body froze up and fear struck me. I slowly walked towards the TV where we were supposed to play at, and as he was sitting next to me, I felt like a small mouse looking up at a human who had the ability to destroy you in an instant. I tried my hardest to supress my emotions and just try to play. The first round was my Pikachu vs. his Mewtwo on Battlefield. I barely remember much of what happened in the match because his Mewtwo was so blindingly fast, I had no idea what to do! Do I attack? Should I try to camp? I don't know! I remember him taking a stock off of me by dragging me with his forward B under the stage, and I remember another stock he somehow teleported onto a platform right behind me, grabbed me, and threw me to my death. If I remember correctly, it was a tragic 3 stock. The next match, I played Falco against his Mewtwo on Final Destionation.... IMPOSSIBLE!!! To this day, I still can never beat his Mewtwo on FD with Falco, and I feel like I never will. Let's just say this match didn't go to well for me lol. Despite being horribly destroyed by #2 in the state of AZ, I was still absolutely fascinated and glorified by the sight of his Mewtwo, and it was such a great honor to play against it.
Later that day, I learned that he also plays a professional level Marth. I watched his set vs Wobbles and it was very intense. Marth was a character that I was very afraid of, because I knew that the best player in the world at the time was a Marth player.
A few months later, another tournament was held in AZ called "T5" held in April of 2007, where I saw Taj once again. By this time, I had taken a look at the tier list and saw that Mewtwo was bottom tier. This made me respect Taj even more. He proved that the character that you use does not matter nearly as much as the skill level of the player using the character. Knowing this, I was even more encouraged to continue playing Pikachu as my main. If memory serves me correctly, then I never got to play Taj at this tournament nor talk to him, but my best friend V3ctorman did. This was his first time seeing Taj in person, and he was as fascinated (or maybe even more fascinated) with him as I was. Taj inspired him to pick up Mewtwo, which made me have even MORE respect for Taj because he opened Vman's eyes to even more characters. Once again, watching Taj's Mewtwo at this tournament was so amazing and inspiring. However, I was always way to afraid to get anywhere close to him because of his intimidating physical appearance.
The second time that Taj and I played was at this random round robin tournament held in Tucson. I do not remember the exact date sadly, but it couldn't have been too long after T5. At this tournament, Taj and I somehow decided to do a money match. I had to take 1 stock off of him, and he had to take all 4 of mine. When I had 1 stock left, I killed him! I was so happy and yelled "I win!!!"
Then he yelled "JV counts!!!" and wrecked me the entire last stock and ended up getting the JV lol! Everyone was laughing including me, and we decided to just conclude that there was no winner of that match. At that time, I learned that Taj has an excellent sense of humor. Even so, I was still very scared of him.
I'm not sure why, but It's hard for me to remember many events that happened between T5 and AZoneTwoStep. Anyways, the next event that I can remember was at AZOTS, which was held in June of 2008. I saw Taj once again, and this tournament gave me the biggest reason ever to really be afraid of him. He decided to have a little fun at this tournament. Because Brawl was so lame and boring to watch, Taj decided to challenge as many smashers as he could to boxing matches. I watched in terror as Taj brutally destroyed every smasher who opposed him. This was the kind of guy that I (or anybody for that matter) should never mess with, or he'll tear you apart. I came to that conclusion after watching those insane boxing matches.
Later on that day, a mini Melee tournament was held. Throughout the bracket, I eventually had to go up against Taj, who I had not played against in a very long time. I was extremely nervous (especially after watching him destroy some people in boxing), and he tore up my Falco with his Marth for the first match. During the second match, I decided to try out Pikachu. This was the first match in my Melee history that I ever beat Taj in an actual game, whether a friendly or a tournament match. I couldn't believe that I won! I was so happy! I knew that my training was paying off, but according to how badly he beat me the 3rd game, I knew that I still had a long way to go.
The next big tournament that I ran into Taj at was a huge international tournament held in California called Genesis, which had 290 Melee entrants and was held in July of 2009. Taj and I did not travel there together; we actually made our own different methods of getting there. When I saw him there, even though we shared a connection with us both being from AZ, I was still pretty scared to talk to him or anything. I would pretty much only respond when spoken to. Not only was I afraid of him physically, but he also had that "Forward" effect on me because he is also a very legendary smasher. Almost every time he spoke to me, he would ask me to box him lol. Images of AZOTS came to my mind, so of course I politely refused. At this tournament, I made my first major victory by defeating Jman in the winner's bracket. I did not know this, but apparently Taj was watching the matches along with many other people. Right after I won, he gave me the biggest hug ever, and then he (along with tw1n) lifted me in the air and rejoiced for my victory. This was definitely one of the best moments of my life!! And Taj only made it better. Honestly, I wasn't even sure if Taj was really going to support me or not during any of my matches. I mean, we really didn't know each other that well and I thought he'd only be hyped for the smashers who are close to him. After what he did, I was so happy to know that he was proud of me and supported me so much
.
In January of 2010, very shortly after I moved to West Phoenix, Taj and I talked about going to the next international tournament in Maryland along with Tai and V3ctorman. This tournament was called Pound 4 and ended up having over 300 entrants. I was pretty scared/nervous about going with Taj to this, but I figured it'd be alright with both Vman and Tai there. Unfortunately, Vman was unable to go, and he was going to be my teammate. After talking with Taj for a little bit, we decided to team for the very first time. I felt so honored, but at the same time very scared. If I wasn't a good partner, I was afraid of what his reaction might be. Would he force me to box with him? Would he yell at me? I wasn't too sure exactly what his personality was like, and I had never seen him angry before.
When we left for Pound, I barely talked to him at all. I was honestly very afraid of him... I knew what he was capable of. I always tried to hide my fears from him though. We ended up doing ok in teams. We didn't do amazingly well, but we didn't do bad either, so I think we were alright with the results that we got.
While I was up for my first round in the bracket against Scar, Taj decided to watch. I was doing suprisingly well vs Scar, and Taj was cheering for me like crazy and saying the most hilarious things!!! The way that Taj supports me always makes me incredibly happy, and gives me that boost in confidence that I need to win a match. I kinda feel like if Taj is there to cheer for me, I'll never lose.
After the tournament, we had some issues. V3ctorman was supposed to cover the price for Taj and Tai to fly back to AZ, but something happend and Vman coulldn't get the tickets. I knew that both Taj and Tai were relying heavily on Vman, so I knew that they would be very upset. This was the moment of truth... Telling Taj that he might have to be stuck in Maryland. The worst part was that this was early in the morning, and Taj was still asleep. I told Tai, and he definitely didn't take it lightly. I just imagined what it would be like to wake up the all-mighty Taj, infamous indestructable giant boxer, and tell him that he has no flight ticket back (not to mention that Taj had to be at work the next day). I was WAY too afraid to wake him up, so Tai went in the room and did it for me as I followed along. He woke up Taj, and told him the knews. The look on Taj's face was a look of anger and disappointment. I was so scared... what was he going to do? Maybe he's going to stand up and start punching the wall... maybe he's going to curse out everyone staying in the room with us and start knocking things over... Or maybe worst of all... He'll take it out on me since he knows that I'm Vman's best friend.
Taj sat there for a moment... let out a disappointing sigh, then walked over to where the computers are. He ended up paying for both of their plane tickets (costing at least 5x as much as they should've been), and was very calm about it. I couldn't believe my eyes. How could such a "monster" be so calm in a situation like this? At this moment... I came to the realization that Taj has the ability to stay calm in cases where most people would throw a fit. He has incredible self-control.
In the end, V3ctorman ended up appologizing a million times and paid Taj back all of the money in full, so everything worked out alright (even though a lot of money was lost).
After I realized how much self-control Taj has, I felt like I finally had the courage to talk to him and try to get to know more about him. It wasn't long before I started seeing him maybe once every week or two (he lives in South Phoenix), and dedicating 1 entire day solely for playing melee. When we first started meeting up to play, I was actually beating him a lot more than he would beat me. I could tell that he had not been playing Melee much and was kinda rusty. He told me that the main reason was because everyone that used to live around him pretty much retired and he didn't really have anyone to play with. It makes me so sad to see such an amazingly talented player have to put Melee to rest just because others are drifting away from it. I want to work really hard to light up the fire that he has for Melee again.
During the time after Pound, I got to see more of his style of play and things that he likes to do in the game. His playstyle is so amazing!! I'm so very fascinated with the way he plays. His Mewtwo is unbelieveably fast and precise. He rarely makes any mistakes where most players would. His strong points would definitely have to be his reactions and his spacing. For spacing, he can always position himself to where he will be able to hit you, but you will not be able to hit him. Even if you are using the same character as him, he can still do this somehow. His precision on his wave dashes are amazing as well. He knows when he should do a perfect wavedash, or just a shortened wavedash, or any distance in between which puts him at the perfect spot. Taj can also react to things faster than most other people can. He can easily wait for you to do a certain action, then react to whatever you do rather than having to try to guess what you are going to do next. He does this with pretty much every character he plays. He has an extremely good Falco, Fox, Sheik, Samus, Peach, and many other characters that I know I'm forgetting. Above all of them though, his Marth and his Mewtwo stand out the most in my opinion. With his incredible spacing abilities and his amazing reaction time, he can either space his ariels perfectly with Marth so that you will almost never be able to hit him, or he can react to whatever you do and counter with a move of his own. This might sound strange, but he kind of does the same thing with Mewtwo somehow. He can space his Dtilts perfectly so that he will always hit you first. If you try to space something on him, he can somehow time his Down B so perfectly that it'll get you almost every time. Not only that, but the way he can control his Mewtwo is unlike any other. It's very hard for me to explain; it's just something you have to see for yourself. In my honest opinion, I think that Mewtwo is Taj's best character. Even when you get past the whole "not knowing how to fight Mewtwo" problem, his Mewtwo is still so solid that it doesn't need to be a gimic to win. It's like saying that you "know how to destroy Falcos" then fighting DaShizWiz. It doesn't matter if you know how to fight Falco or not, you'll still get owned. It feels the exact same with Taj's mewtwo. With Taj's gifted reaction time, he can become the greatest player of all time if he really wants to.
Taj really does have an extremely high reaction time. Just try to beat his score of 11240 points.
Outside of Melee, I was finally able to find out what he's like as a person. Yes, he is extremely talented at physical activities and is very strong and tall and seems so gangster. We all know that by now lol. However... I learned so much more about him this past half-year. A little after Pound, he gave me a call and we were just talking about the situation with Pound and Vman. I was feeling very upset because I felt like the whole situation was my fault. Taj started a very deep conversation about friendship and how I should never let it go to waste. He told me not to worry, and he thought I was a very good person. When he told me things like that, my entire view of him changed. I knew that he wasn't the "monster" that I thought he was all these years, and he's actually a very good person himself. After a few months, we started to talk more, hang out more, and play melee more and more. When we play Melee, he says the most hilarious things when we play and I always have such a blast when I play against him! He really reminds me a lot of Vman when we play, because Vman gets all crazy and stuff like that too. I love the things Taj says when we play, it just cracks me up lol. I learned very soon that he and I pretty much have the same taste in music, and we seem to have grown up with the same taste in TV shows and both love to play video games. In fact, Taj plays A LOT of games! He plays WoW, Star Craft, some random speed/reaction/etc. games online, chess, and many many other games. He is EXTREMELY talented in all the games he plays (Pro Melee player, Top level WoW player, SUPER good at chess, IMPOSSIBLE to beat him at hot hands). Also... he watches A TON of anime!!!! Lately he's been recommending certain anime shows to me and I have enjoyed all that I have watched so far.
Taj's real name is Tony Jackson, and he is currently 23 years of age. The strang thing is, most of the time I still call him "Taj" instead of Tony and he still calls me "Axe" instead of Jeff, even though we have started to grow closer together. It's funny, because I really don't mind at all. I think it's pretty cool that we still call each other by our gamer tags regardless of how close we are. It's kinda hard to explain, but it's an interesting connection. Anyways... Throughout the time that we have been spending together, we have had so many talks and deep conversations about various things in life. I can't get too much into deatil, but I will say that Taj is a very light-hearted guy and not what he appears to be. He is very kind, and I know that he would never hurt anyone unless someone hurts him first (or in a fair competition like boxing). He's actually pretty emotional. Many of the things that he's told me or talked to me about, I've really taken to heart. He's shown so many signs of trust and compassion; it's unbelieveable. He is definitely the prime example of "don't judge a book by it's cover".
One day when Taj and I were hanging out, we got into a little argument with someone who was being kinda rude to us. I wasn't gonna say anything, but Taj stood up and pretty much told him to stop acting like a fart (lol he didn't literally say those exact words). Taj and I got into his car to go eat, and while we were driving, we were talking about it. Taj told me something along these lines: "Axe, don't ever let anyone walk all over you. Summon up the courage to stand up to them! And if you can't, tell me and I'll take care of it for you". After we got down to eat, Taj then bought me a milkshake!!! =D
This experience made me realize... Taj is a true friend. He has a heart that's bigger than almost every other smasher here in AZ. He's compassionate, but will do anything to defend himself and his friends when he needs to. He's always treated me so kindly and so nice; thinking about it kinda makes me cry a bit. I've only really "known" him for about half a year now, but from what I've seen so far, he is one heck of an amazing person and definitely my most favorite smasher in the Phoenix area by far. He is slowly becoming one of the best friends I've ever had.
More players to come later.
I just wanted to share what my thoughts are about each smasher in the AZ Melee community, and also the experiences that I've had with each smasher. Please do not be offended if I do not list your name. Remember, my memory is kinda bad lol. I'll try my best though.
Please don't be offended if the entry about you is shorter than someone else's. Even if I don't write much about a particular person, that person just might've had one of the greatest impacts on my Melee career. Don't worry; all of you are important to me.
Forward - 7/29/2010
The first time that I ever heard about Forward was around the same time I joined Smashboards: December of 2006. Tag and I stumbled across the AZ power ranking thread and saw the name "Forward" as number 1. We were curious, and decided to try to find any videos of him on Youtube. We found a few videos of his Falco vs Taj's Mewtwo. I remembered seeing Taj as number 2 on the rankings, and assumed that they must be double's partners and trained together all the time. As I was watching, I could tell that he was different from any other player I had ever seen. He played much slower than I thought the number 1 player in the state would. One thing that I could tell about him was that his spacing was absolutely perfect, and he never made any of the moves he did go to waste. He had a reason behind every attack and every movement, and it seemed like he kept his actions at the minimum level possible. I thought that he was trying to "save his energy" and not have to do anything unnecessary. Thoughts like that never came to my mind before I saw him play. I always thought that you should overwhelm your opponent with techskill and lock them down or confuse them with blinding movements. Watching those matches taught me that the game can be played in different kinds of ways that I never thought possible.
Tag and I decided to try and go to our first AZ tournament. We came across a tournament thread called "AZone" which was to be held in January of 2007. We decided to go, and we arrived pretty early at the venue on the day of the tournament. After about an hour or two, I heard many people yell out "Taj is here!!!" and run over to the door. I saw this very tall black guy who seemed totally gangster lol. I thought to myself, "Omg! I bet Forward probably looks exactly like him!". When somebody finally pointed out Forward to me, I was speechless. He didn't seem very loud at all like Taj was, and he was white as white can be. How could 2 people who seemed like polar opposites possibly spend so much time together?
If memory serves me correctly, then I don't think I actually got to talk to Forward at that tournament. I don't think he even knew I existed.
Honestly, I don't remember the first time that we actually got to talk and to finally play against each other. However, I think the first time when he ever actually saw me as more than just some random scrub was when we played Melee at a large Brawl tournament called "AZoneTwoStep" held in June of 2008. At the venue, I walked into a room where there was only 1 Melee setup, and Forward was playing on it. He was absolutely destroying every person who tried to play against him. I really REALLY wanted to play, but I was too scared and also felt that I wasn't worthy to be in the presence of the all-mighty legendary Forward, who was #1 in the state at both Melee and Brawl at the time. All of the other smashers who came with me from Sierra Vista were strongly encouraging me to try to play against him, and I eventually summoned enough courage to ask for the next game. When we played, I was actually winning a majority of the games against him! Words cannot describe the feeling I had when I knew that I stood a fighting chance against him. I felt like all my training that I've had with Pikachu was finally starting to pay off, and I only wanted to get better and better. Even though Forward was extremely rusty from playing brawl so much, I still never thought that I'd even get 2 stocks off of him no matter how rusty he was. It was at this moment where I found out that it's actually possible to beat him, and I wanted to train at Melee even harder to beat him even when he's not rusty and at the top of his game.
Our next big encounter was at a tournament held in Sierra Vista called "SV Twisted" (video). It was the largest tournament that SV's ever had, which is sad considering that there were only 19 entrants. This was around the time where I "started" to get slightly more comfortable around Forward, meaning that I could actually summon up the courage to approach him and talk to him. I was still afraid to ask him to play any Melee matches though, and I would freeze up sometimes when I wanted to say something to him. After all, he's a legend and one of the greatest Melee players of all time. Anyways... At this tournament, Forward and I ended up playing in grand finals. As always, I was extremely nervous... His presence alone made me feel so inferior. Anyways, the matches started. I was trying my absolute hardest to try to beat him. I knew that if I could beat him once, I could do it again. Even though he was brawled up last time, that encounter made me realize that he was beatable, and I just might have what it takes to surpass him even at his highest level. I could tell that Forward wasn't nearly as rusty as he was at AZoneTwoStep, but he definitely was not at the top of his game either. Regardless, I tried my absolute best to defeat him. For the final match, I decided to pick Pikachu instead of choosing to Falco ditto him. I thought that if any training with Pikachu would come in handy, now would be the time. I was so focused, so determined, and wanted to badly to win! And somehow... I pulled off the victory! Forward didn't seem to care much that he lost though, which I thought was kinda strange. Even though I won that set... that was only the first set. I had to win another one to win the tournament. During the second set, he picked Marth and DESTROYED me every match, 3-0. I was pretty close to beating him on the last match, but he still ended up beating me. I was a little sad... but the fact that I beat his Falco with Pikachu in what I thought was a very intense match made the entire tournament worth while. After he destroyed me, I knew that I had a very long way to go before I was at his skill level.
Not too long after this tournament, I started taking somewhat frequent trips with some others in SV to Tucson (where Forward lives) because I finally had my driver's license. This is when I started to get to know Forward on a more personal level. I specifically remember one day when Forward, I, and a few others from Tucson and SV decided to take a break from Melee and go hang out at places like Golf N' Stuff and similar places just to have fun. I learned a lot about Forward at this time. I learned that Forward's real name is Sean Benner. He is somewhere in his early 20's and he loves to just have fun. He would talk to me about how he loves to go to parties, bars, and participate and various physical activities. He is a real ladie's man and really knows how to flirt with girls. He is very talkative and loves to tell stories about his life in humorous fashions. He always stays physically fit and it seems like he always wants to work out or something. As many of you have probably guessed, one of the biggest factors about him is that he is very competitive in everything that he does whether it is sports, flirting with girls, video games, chess, or pretty much anything you can think of. It seems like he always tries to be the very best at every activity that he does, and somehow he succeeds. It's insane how gifted and talented this guy is. It wasn't too long before I started calling him "Sean" and he started calling me "Jeff", which meant that we were starting to get more comfortable with each other. One thing that made me happy was that I knew that he was starting to drift away from brawl and was starting to show much more interest in Melee.
After playing Forward in Melee for a while, I made some observations about him. First off, he is extremely good at playing many different characters. He can play a professional level Falco, Fox, Peach, Jigglypuff, Sheik, Falcon, Samus, Marth, and probably others that I haven't seen enough of. Before I started taking those trips to tucson, I thought that Forward was only able to play Spacies, and maybe Marth. I was terribly wrong. It's not that he exceeds in just 1 character, but he is just a very good player, and uses his knowledge of the characters to his advantage no matter what character he uses. The way he plays is very interesting. He will stand outside of your attack range, then wait for you to make some sort of approach. Somehow, it seems like he can magically guess which approach you are going to do and counter it with a move of his own. The moment he hits you, he will combo you, tech-chase you, or a mixture of the two for as long as he can (which can either be 0-death, or 0-high damage), then reset positions and repeat. He always knows when to stop his combos/tech-chases. It's so strange how he is always able to guess everyone's approaches, I just can't understand. Sometimes it seems like he's psychic.
In July or August of 2009, I moved from Sierra Vista to Tucson (where Forward lives) to attend the University of Arizona. During this time, tournaments were held pretty much every month. Forward and I would almost always meet in grand finals, or at least somewhere in the bracket. It wasn't long before I started being a serious threat to him. Everytime we met up in the bracket, I could tell that he would have to try harder and harder against me to win, and it eventually got to the point where I could tell that he was trying his absolute hardest and I would still win. I would RARELY win when he tries his hardest, but I was still able to win against him at least sometimes. It seemed like when we both tried our hardest, I would win maybe 15% or 20% of the time. Although those numbers are low, the fact that I had a chance of winning only made me want to train harder and harder until the matches will eventually swing in my favor. I felt special... Because whenever Forward tries his hardest, unless your name is Taj or Wobbles (or possibly Light), you will pretty much have a 0% chance of winning. At those monthly tournaments, it was extremely rare, but I actually won maybe like twice against Forward. Both of those times, I had such a strong feeling of joy and relief that my training was finally paying off. Although... I couldn't help but wonder if it was really me who was getting better, or just Forward who was starting to drift away from Melee. During this time, he had been showing signs that he wanted to do other activities instead.
Sometime in December 2009, I moved to western Phoenix. Not too long after that in early 2010, Forward moved to southern Phoenix. Ever since we both moved, we never really got to play each other much at all (not that we even played a lot when we both lived in the same town, but after we moved we played even less than that). Whenever we do get the chance to play though, every match is always really intense. Unlike almost every other smasher in AZ, I take every match that I play with Forward very seriously. Whenever I fight him, I always try super hard to win and don't act the same that I do when I play others. There's always this intense feeling when I play him. Overall, he's basically the one person in all of AZ who I fear the most. Even to this day I'm still not as good as him, but I know that I am not very far away from his skill level. One day I hope to surpass him, but until then, Forward remains as the greatest Melee player that the state of Arizona has to offer.
Taj - 7/30/2010
Similar to Forward, the first time that I heard about Taj was when I first viewed the AZ power ranking thread back in December of 2006. He carried the title of the #2 player in Arizona. While Tag and I were looking for videos of Forward, we came across a few videos of Forward's Falco vs Taj's Mewtwo. I was pretty curious what a professional Mewtwo would look like, because I had never seen any Mewtwo players before. Honestly, I hadn't really seen many videos at all, so I did not see many characters in general. At this time, I had never seen the tier list either so I had no clue where Mewtwo was on that list.
As I was watching, I thought that what I was seeing was spectacular. Yes, I was also impressed with the Falco, but the way that Taj's mewtwo could move around was insane! He was teleporting everywhere and his wavedashes were so smooth and covered such a large distance. Then... I saw him do the craziest combo on Forward's Falco on Final Destination, and I was completely speechless. I couldn't believe my eyes... I imagined how amazing it would be to maybe one day get so good that I could have the honor of teaming with him, so we could do team Pokemon (Mewtwo + Pikachu). Honestly at the time, I thought that was never ever going to happen. Not even in a million years.
Tag and I decided to go to our first AZ tournament: AZone, held in January of 2007. We arrived at the venue pretty early. After a little while, we heard someone yell "Taj is here!" and many people ran towards the door to greet him. I had no idea what to expect. Moments later... I saw a very tall, very athletic-looking, and very dark-skinned man who looked to be somewhere near 20 years old. You could tell just by looking at him that he liked to play sports or maybe some other physical activities, and you could also tell how "gangster" and "black" he really is just by hearing him talk and watching the way he acts. After I thought about it for a while, I should've seen it coming. You should be able to tell how thug Taj should be because his Mewtwo looks so gamgsta when it moves! Needless to say, the moment I first saw him, I had the feeling that I probably should not get too close to him or anything because I was afraid he might hurt me or something.
I continued to make observations about him throughout the day. The first time I saw him play in person was in a Money Match against another person playing Luigi (I totally forgot who the Luigi player was). Watching Taj's mewtwo in person was insane... Players seem so different when you watch them in person rather than watching them on Youtube. I was so fascinated by his Mewtwo, but I was also so very fearful of him as a person.
The tournament started and Pools were called. I somehow made it out of pools, and I was so happy that I made it out of pools at my first real tournament!
Then, the first round of the bracket was starting. I made sure to listen to the announcer as carefully as I could for my name. Then suddenly I heard it... "Taj vs. Axe!"
My heart skipped a beat. My body froze up and fear struck me. I slowly walked towards the TV where we were supposed to play at, and as he was sitting next to me, I felt like a small mouse looking up at a human who had the ability to destroy you in an instant. I tried my hardest to supress my emotions and just try to play. The first round was my Pikachu vs. his Mewtwo on Battlefield. I barely remember much of what happened in the match because his Mewtwo was so blindingly fast, I had no idea what to do! Do I attack? Should I try to camp? I don't know! I remember him taking a stock off of me by dragging me with his forward B under the stage, and I remember another stock he somehow teleported onto a platform right behind me, grabbed me, and threw me to my death. If I remember correctly, it was a tragic 3 stock. The next match, I played Falco against his Mewtwo on Final Destionation.... IMPOSSIBLE!!! To this day, I still can never beat his Mewtwo on FD with Falco, and I feel like I never will. Let's just say this match didn't go to well for me lol. Despite being horribly destroyed by #2 in the state of AZ, I was still absolutely fascinated and glorified by the sight of his Mewtwo, and it was such a great honor to play against it.
Later that day, I learned that he also plays a professional level Marth. I watched his set vs Wobbles and it was very intense. Marth was a character that I was very afraid of, because I knew that the best player in the world at the time was a Marth player.
A few months later, another tournament was held in AZ called "T5" held in April of 2007, where I saw Taj once again. By this time, I had taken a look at the tier list and saw that Mewtwo was bottom tier. This made me respect Taj even more. He proved that the character that you use does not matter nearly as much as the skill level of the player using the character. Knowing this, I was even more encouraged to continue playing Pikachu as my main. If memory serves me correctly, then I never got to play Taj at this tournament nor talk to him, but my best friend V3ctorman did. This was his first time seeing Taj in person, and he was as fascinated (or maybe even more fascinated) with him as I was. Taj inspired him to pick up Mewtwo, which made me have even MORE respect for Taj because he opened Vman's eyes to even more characters. Once again, watching Taj's Mewtwo at this tournament was so amazing and inspiring. However, I was always way to afraid to get anywhere close to him because of his intimidating physical appearance.
The second time that Taj and I played was at this random round robin tournament held in Tucson. I do not remember the exact date sadly, but it couldn't have been too long after T5. At this tournament, Taj and I somehow decided to do a money match. I had to take 1 stock off of him, and he had to take all 4 of mine. When I had 1 stock left, I killed him! I was so happy and yelled "I win!!!"
Then he yelled "JV counts!!!" and wrecked me the entire last stock and ended up getting the JV lol! Everyone was laughing including me, and we decided to just conclude that there was no winner of that match. At that time, I learned that Taj has an excellent sense of humor. Even so, I was still very scared of him.
I'm not sure why, but It's hard for me to remember many events that happened between T5 and AZoneTwoStep. Anyways, the next event that I can remember was at AZOTS, which was held in June of 2008. I saw Taj once again, and this tournament gave me the biggest reason ever to really be afraid of him. He decided to have a little fun at this tournament. Because Brawl was so lame and boring to watch, Taj decided to challenge as many smashers as he could to boxing matches. I watched in terror as Taj brutally destroyed every smasher who opposed him. This was the kind of guy that I (or anybody for that matter) should never mess with, or he'll tear you apart. I came to that conclusion after watching those insane boxing matches.
Later on that day, a mini Melee tournament was held. Throughout the bracket, I eventually had to go up against Taj, who I had not played against in a very long time. I was extremely nervous (especially after watching him destroy some people in boxing), and he tore up my Falco with his Marth for the first match. During the second match, I decided to try out Pikachu. This was the first match in my Melee history that I ever beat Taj in an actual game, whether a friendly or a tournament match. I couldn't believe that I won! I was so happy! I knew that my training was paying off, but according to how badly he beat me the 3rd game, I knew that I still had a long way to go.
The next big tournament that I ran into Taj at was a huge international tournament held in California called Genesis, which had 290 Melee entrants and was held in July of 2009. Taj and I did not travel there together; we actually made our own different methods of getting there. When I saw him there, even though we shared a connection with us both being from AZ, I was still pretty scared to talk to him or anything. I would pretty much only respond when spoken to. Not only was I afraid of him physically, but he also had that "Forward" effect on me because he is also a very legendary smasher. Almost every time he spoke to me, he would ask me to box him lol. Images of AZOTS came to my mind, so of course I politely refused. At this tournament, I made my first major victory by defeating Jman in the winner's bracket. I did not know this, but apparently Taj was watching the matches along with many other people. Right after I won, he gave me the biggest hug ever, and then he (along with tw1n) lifted me in the air and rejoiced for my victory. This was definitely one of the best moments of my life!! And Taj only made it better. Honestly, I wasn't even sure if Taj was really going to support me or not during any of my matches. I mean, we really didn't know each other that well and I thought he'd only be hyped for the smashers who are close to him. After what he did, I was so happy to know that he was proud of me and supported me so much
.In January of 2010, very shortly after I moved to West Phoenix, Taj and I talked about going to the next international tournament in Maryland along with Tai and V3ctorman. This tournament was called Pound 4 and ended up having over 300 entrants. I was pretty scared/nervous about going with Taj to this, but I figured it'd be alright with both Vman and Tai there. Unfortunately, Vman was unable to go, and he was going to be my teammate. After talking with Taj for a little bit, we decided to team for the very first time. I felt so honored, but at the same time very scared. If I wasn't a good partner, I was afraid of what his reaction might be. Would he force me to box with him? Would he yell at me? I wasn't too sure exactly what his personality was like, and I had never seen him angry before.
When we left for Pound, I barely talked to him at all. I was honestly very afraid of him... I knew what he was capable of. I always tried to hide my fears from him though. We ended up doing ok in teams. We didn't do amazingly well, but we didn't do bad either, so I think we were alright with the results that we got.
While I was up for my first round in the bracket against Scar, Taj decided to watch. I was doing suprisingly well vs Scar, and Taj was cheering for me like crazy and saying the most hilarious things!!! The way that Taj supports me always makes me incredibly happy, and gives me that boost in confidence that I need to win a match. I kinda feel like if Taj is there to cheer for me, I'll never lose.
After the tournament, we had some issues. V3ctorman was supposed to cover the price for Taj and Tai to fly back to AZ, but something happend and Vman coulldn't get the tickets. I knew that both Taj and Tai were relying heavily on Vman, so I knew that they would be very upset. This was the moment of truth... Telling Taj that he might have to be stuck in Maryland. The worst part was that this was early in the morning, and Taj was still asleep. I told Tai, and he definitely didn't take it lightly. I just imagined what it would be like to wake up the all-mighty Taj, infamous indestructable giant boxer, and tell him that he has no flight ticket back (not to mention that Taj had to be at work the next day). I was WAY too afraid to wake him up, so Tai went in the room and did it for me as I followed along. He woke up Taj, and told him the knews. The look on Taj's face was a look of anger and disappointment. I was so scared... what was he going to do? Maybe he's going to stand up and start punching the wall... maybe he's going to curse out everyone staying in the room with us and start knocking things over... Or maybe worst of all... He'll take it out on me since he knows that I'm Vman's best friend.
Taj sat there for a moment... let out a disappointing sigh, then walked over to where the computers are. He ended up paying for both of their plane tickets (costing at least 5x as much as they should've been), and was very calm about it. I couldn't believe my eyes. How could such a "monster" be so calm in a situation like this? At this moment... I came to the realization that Taj has the ability to stay calm in cases where most people would throw a fit. He has incredible self-control.
In the end, V3ctorman ended up appologizing a million times and paid Taj back all of the money in full, so everything worked out alright (even though a lot of money was lost).
After I realized how much self-control Taj has, I felt like I finally had the courage to talk to him and try to get to know more about him. It wasn't long before I started seeing him maybe once every week or two (he lives in South Phoenix), and dedicating 1 entire day solely for playing melee. When we first started meeting up to play, I was actually beating him a lot more than he would beat me. I could tell that he had not been playing Melee much and was kinda rusty. He told me that the main reason was because everyone that used to live around him pretty much retired and he didn't really have anyone to play with. It makes me so sad to see such an amazingly talented player have to put Melee to rest just because others are drifting away from it. I want to work really hard to light up the fire that he has for Melee again.
During the time after Pound, I got to see more of his style of play and things that he likes to do in the game. His playstyle is so amazing!! I'm so very fascinated with the way he plays. His Mewtwo is unbelieveably fast and precise. He rarely makes any mistakes where most players would. His strong points would definitely have to be his reactions and his spacing. For spacing, he can always position himself to where he will be able to hit you, but you will not be able to hit him. Even if you are using the same character as him, he can still do this somehow. His precision on his wave dashes are amazing as well. He knows when he should do a perfect wavedash, or just a shortened wavedash, or any distance in between which puts him at the perfect spot. Taj can also react to things faster than most other people can. He can easily wait for you to do a certain action, then react to whatever you do rather than having to try to guess what you are going to do next. He does this with pretty much every character he plays. He has an extremely good Falco, Fox, Sheik, Samus, Peach, and many other characters that I know I'm forgetting. Above all of them though, his Marth and his Mewtwo stand out the most in my opinion. With his incredible spacing abilities and his amazing reaction time, he can either space his ariels perfectly with Marth so that you will almost never be able to hit him, or he can react to whatever you do and counter with a move of his own. This might sound strange, but he kind of does the same thing with Mewtwo somehow. He can space his Dtilts perfectly so that he will always hit you first. If you try to space something on him, he can somehow time his Down B so perfectly that it'll get you almost every time. Not only that, but the way he can control his Mewtwo is unlike any other. It's very hard for me to explain; it's just something you have to see for yourself. In my honest opinion, I think that Mewtwo is Taj's best character. Even when you get past the whole "not knowing how to fight Mewtwo" problem, his Mewtwo is still so solid that it doesn't need to be a gimic to win. It's like saying that you "know how to destroy Falcos" then fighting DaShizWiz. It doesn't matter if you know how to fight Falco or not, you'll still get owned. It feels the exact same with Taj's mewtwo. With Taj's gifted reaction time, he can become the greatest player of all time if he really wants to.
Taj really does have an extremely high reaction time. Just try to beat his score of 11240 points.
Outside of Melee, I was finally able to find out what he's like as a person. Yes, he is extremely talented at physical activities and is very strong and tall and seems so gangster. We all know that by now lol. However... I learned so much more about him this past half-year. A little after Pound, he gave me a call and we were just talking about the situation with Pound and Vman. I was feeling very upset because I felt like the whole situation was my fault. Taj started a very deep conversation about friendship and how I should never let it go to waste. He told me not to worry, and he thought I was a very good person. When he told me things like that, my entire view of him changed. I knew that he wasn't the "monster" that I thought he was all these years, and he's actually a very good person himself. After a few months, we started to talk more, hang out more, and play melee more and more. When we play Melee, he says the most hilarious things when we play and I always have such a blast when I play against him! He really reminds me a lot of Vman when we play, because Vman gets all crazy and stuff like that too. I love the things Taj says when we play, it just cracks me up lol. I learned very soon that he and I pretty much have the same taste in music, and we seem to have grown up with the same taste in TV shows and both love to play video games. In fact, Taj plays A LOT of games! He plays WoW, Star Craft, some random speed/reaction/etc. games online, chess, and many many other games. He is EXTREMELY talented in all the games he plays (Pro Melee player, Top level WoW player, SUPER good at chess, IMPOSSIBLE to beat him at hot hands). Also... he watches A TON of anime!!!! Lately he's been recommending certain anime shows to me and I have enjoyed all that I have watched so far.
Taj's real name is Tony Jackson, and he is currently 23 years of age. The strang thing is, most of the time I still call him "Taj" instead of Tony and he still calls me "Axe" instead of Jeff, even though we have started to grow closer together. It's funny, because I really don't mind at all. I think it's pretty cool that we still call each other by our gamer tags regardless of how close we are. It's kinda hard to explain, but it's an interesting connection. Anyways... Throughout the time that we have been spending together, we have had so many talks and deep conversations about various things in life. I can't get too much into deatil, but I will say that Taj is a very light-hearted guy and not what he appears to be. He is very kind, and I know that he would never hurt anyone unless someone hurts him first (or in a fair competition like boxing). He's actually pretty emotional. Many of the things that he's told me or talked to me about, I've really taken to heart. He's shown so many signs of trust and compassion; it's unbelieveable. He is definitely the prime example of "don't judge a book by it's cover".
One day when Taj and I were hanging out, we got into a little argument with someone who was being kinda rude to us. I wasn't gonna say anything, but Taj stood up and pretty much told him to stop acting like a fart (lol he didn't literally say those exact words). Taj and I got into his car to go eat, and while we were driving, we were talking about it. Taj told me something along these lines: "Axe, don't ever let anyone walk all over you. Summon up the courage to stand up to them! And if you can't, tell me and I'll take care of it for you". After we got down to eat, Taj then bought me a milkshake!!! =D
This experience made me realize... Taj is a true friend. He has a heart that's bigger than almost every other smasher here in AZ. He's compassionate, but will do anything to defend himself and his friends when he needs to. He's always treated me so kindly and so nice; thinking about it kinda makes me cry a bit. I've only really "known" him for about half a year now, but from what I've seen so far, he is one heck of an amazing person and definitely my most favorite smasher in the Phoenix area by far. He is slowly becoming one of the best friends I've ever had.
More players to come later.
