Voting for upcoming invitational Smash Summit 3 is heating up. We are down to the final eight nominees and this evening two more will be invited and two more will be eliminated. One such hopeful is Aaron “VwS | Professor Pro” Thomas, the current best player in the UK and ranked 34th in the world last year on SSBMRank.
The Professor’s Journey
“My journey actually begins with the slowest of slow beginnings. My first tournament ever was 2007 in London where I got 4th when tournaments were just hosted in people’s houses.” Despite being in the scene for several years, Prof’s rise to the upper echelons in Europe was by no means smooth. He says “I was pretty bad when I first started off and played Peach and a bit of Samus.”
“I became 2nd in the UK around 2009-2010 and stayed 2nd for the next 4-5 years, only taking like 3-4 sets off [former UK number 1 Charles “Fuzzyness” Kimmelman] the whole time. I was incredibly stagnant without any drive to actually get better, because the best person I ever played was Fuzzyness.” That was not to be the case forever though, as Adam “Armada” Lindgren convinced him to attend a 2014 Swedish major and “after BEAST 4 everything changed.” Since then, Prof has been on a serious improvement drive.
Recognition
It did not take long to reach acclaim in the wider community. First he was recognised for his performances in Project M, including being the first player to take a set off Armada. At his first North American tournament, SKTAR 3, we really saw his colourful personality shine through during one the most memorable money matches in Smash history.
However, Prof wants people to know he is more than just a PM player. “It’s basically a meme within the UK where they look at me and say ‘Hey it’s the PM guy’ so I am well aware that a huge chunk of people view me as a PM player.” Seemingly his strong results are getting him his wish, although he says, “I still occasionally get the ‘I didn’t know you were this good at Melee’ comment in America.” At Summit 3 he could show the world just how solid of a player he is.
Over the past few years Prof has been one of the most active travellers around Europe and across the Atlantic ocean. He has racked up top results with his technical Fox like 9th at Pound, 13th at Shine and 13th at GOML, as well as top wins including sets off Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma and William "Leffen" Hjelte. He is showing no signs of slowing down as he shoots for the Summit 3 hyperbolic time chamber and in the process has been funded for Kings of the North V and UGC Smash Open tournaments later this year.
Final Push
We are into the second round of additions and eliminations now and Prof making it this far owes a fair amount to an organised spirit bomb by the UK Melee community. Organised around the Melee UK Facebook group, they raised him over 6000 votes. The barrage of votes was dropped in the closing minutes of the race last night, lifting him from likely elimination to comfortable safety but not far enough to be locked in.
So, he still needs your votes, but hopefully you can see a vote for Prof is a vote spent wisely. Not only will he bring excellent competition and gameplay, he has the perfect entertaining flair for such an exposure intensive event and represents a region less seen that is eager to use such opportunities for growth.
Send your votes to the Smash Summit 3 smash.gg page and follow along with the voting there in real-time!
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