Best of BATB: Honorable Mention

It's so hard to create a High Five for all of the BATB games, so I had no choice but to create a list of battles worthy of Honorable Mention.

For starters, here are just some of my favorite moments from all the battles:
-Chris Roberts vs. Steve Berra in BATB1: Mikey and Eric as the siamese refs with some priceless opening theatrics
-Peter Ramondetta vs. Cory Kennedy in BATB2: Peter nailing two of Cory's absurd tricks to stay alive
-Cory Kennedy vs. Torey Pudwill in BATB2 for 3rd place: Cory easily had the most cutting edge group of 5 circus tricks to sweep Torey (fs nollie late flip, nollie heel spinout, switch backside double flip, triple flip, nollie big flip 360), but Torey came ridiculously close to them all and even landed the other super hard ones in between
-Felipe Gustavo vs. Jimmy Carlin in BATB4: Felipe's insane steeze will always be remembered
-Dennis Busenitz vs. Eric Koston in BATB4: Dennis's reaction to fakie inward heel is great, then proceeds to do it like it's nothing
-Torey Pudwill vs. Luan Oliveira in BATB4: without a doubt the most POPular game ever. Geoff says it at the start, "...must pop his trick. I don't think these guys are gonna have that problem."
-Davis Torgerson's surprise come up in BATB 4 against Sewa, Shane, and Ronnie won't be forgotten anytime soon.
-Jimmy Carlin's T-to-nothing comeback against Sebo Walker in BATB5, fakie big heels in both directions included, was pretty epic.

Now for just some lengthy, solid overall games of skate, with some haymaker tricks as well:
-Ishod Wair vs. Shane O'Neill in BATB4: seeing Shane nail the switch frontside bigger spin, the switch big heel, and the laser flip (and half cab heel) to stay alive were terrific.
-Tom Asta vs. Alex Mizurov in BATB4: the switch laser match was awesome.
-Morgan Smith vs. Alex Mizurov in BATB: Morgan staying alive (before winning the whole thing) on that backside double flip and nollie back heel 360 after two tries each was pretty awesome
-PJ Ladd vs. Trent McClung  in BATB 5: super long game with Trent somehow staying alive on the nollie bigger flip
-Chris Cole vs. Billy Marks in BATB 5: the triple flip, half heelflip late back foot kickflip, and the 360 underflip were all matched between these two
-Chris Cole vs. Dennis Busenitz in BATB2: Dennis landing the cab big flip, the blizzard flip (with Reda's priceless reaction), and nollie bs flip 360 were sweet, not to mention Cole's nice comeback as well.

And while the Rematch between Koston and Donovan Strain along with the very original pre-BATB game between Koston and Mike Mo are both unsanctioned, they're both legendary games at this point.

Just about every single game from a BATB Finals night has the crowd's bustling energy and some crazy tricks to make it fun to watch, but there are just too many to list. However, I need to give a special recognition to the BATB 2 Finals, Chris Cole vs. Paul Rodriguez. The moment when Chris Cole has his second try on the fakie inward heel and then proceeds to comeback with 3 straight tricks to win just helps to depict his relentlessness and legendary status. And P-Rod's smile after barely missing the back 360 kickflip is a perfect representation of his pure excitement of almost landing a hard trick and his gracious acceptance of defeat in a well-skated championship.

2014 Videos #1: Plan B Video

Not much needs to be said about the long-awaited, now cliche release of the Plan B Video. We know it's going to be good, no question there. The crew is super well-knit and the perfect size for a full length video with full parts from everyone. The question is when, or if really, the video will come out. Now after some good teaser trailers this past year, we can hopefully assume that the video will be released. The time has been long enough that a date later this year would make the most sense. And plus, how long can Plan B sit on the footage of Sheckler's backside flip down El Toro? Something's gotta give and I feel like 2014 is the year.

While I'd think the obvious contenders for last part would be Danny Way (Superfuture section above) and Ryan Sheckler, with most likely mind-blowing tricks, that doesn't mean every single other guy on the team won't have a phenomenal part. There's been so much time since Superfuture that even with some injuries and downtime, all of the guys HAVE to have some heavy footage stacked up for Plan B. And the sweetest thing is that Plan B is considered one of the best teams in skateboarding for a reason. We just need a reminder this year with the video!