World Domination 4 got off to a stellar start on Friday, with six battles that were (mostly) good to great. The event went down at Toronto’s Opera House — the nicest venue that KOTD has ever thrown an event in — and it drew a big crowd with plenty of new faces and out-of-towners. T.O. Battle Blog watched the action from the first row, and in between battles, we found time to interview a selection of battlers. You’ll hear more about those later.

Without further ado, here’s a rundown of the six battles from Friday. And as always, be warned: there will be spoilers.

ARSONAL VS DIZASTER

This was the closing battle of the night, and it was the best showing from either MC in a while. In facing each other, both were clearly motivated. At times, the battle got physical, with Arsonal getting right in Dizaster’s face, and at one point, shoulder-checking him. Clearly, Arsonal was on his typical disrespectful vibe: he used a good chunk of his third round to attack Drake, who conveniently wasn’t in the building. Dizaster went personal with his second round, claiming that Arsonal ate Mystique’s asshole after Uno Lavoz had already been in there.

Diz’s third round was about witnessing/experiencing violence as a kid in the Middle East, the type of warfare that makes New Jersey look like a playground. (Whether or not it’s true, who knows?) By the end of the battle, Dizaster was at the edge of the stage, and the crowd was eating it up. Eventually, Organik cut him off, though he tried rapping as long as possible. We hear he rapped for another four minutes in his post-battle interview. It’s tough to call a winner since both guys did what they do best, so it might come down to a matter of who you prefer. Let us know who you thought won when the PPV/YouTube footage drops.

CHARRON VS DNA

By now, you’ve heard that Shotgun Suge didn’t make the battle. Not a huge surprise. His replacement was DNA, and frankly, the end result was probably better for it. (Though Charron pocket-checking Suge and jiggling his titties would’ve broken the Internet.) The KOTD staff orchestrated the DNA unveiling as a spontaneous surprise, but from what we’ve heard, the battle had been locked down for a couple weeks. Once the league got wind of Suge not being able to make it, they quickly moved to replace him. Kudos to KOTD for making it happen.

As for the battle, it was the best of the night. Charron was outstanding and likely cemented his place as the next title contender. He had a ton of memorable lines. “I’ll toss your mother in the pool: vegetable soup,” was one of them. Another: “You’re the real shotgun — it takes three cocks for you to blow.” He called out just about everyone on some Kendrick shit, including Smack, Arcane, Pat Stay, Organik, Bishop and every URL rapper for not doing judged battles. DNA was also excellent, enough so that his fan base could easily argue a 2-1 victory in his favour. He did a commendable job of controlling the crowd, given how much momentum was in Charron’s corner.

LOE PESCI VS DAYLYT

Most of you reading this will have already heard of Daylyt’s latest antics, especially the opening one: he put his hand down his pants, (appeared to have) rubbed his genitals, then touched Loe’s face with his stank-ass hand. There were other theatrics — like popping an umbrella in Pesci’s face (a throwback to Pesci’s battle against Syco) — but the ball-rub-to-face-touch action was clearly the one that got people talking.

Before writing this section, we read through the main WD4 thread on RMBVA. Most people on the forum were saying, “Why is Pesci acting like such a pussy? This is worse than his chokes.” Fair enough. If you weren’t in the building, those are some natural reactions.

But let the record stand that Pesci murdered Daylyt in the battle.

Could Pesci have swung on Daylyt? Sure. But it was more impressive that Pesci not only kept his composure, but executed his bars (which were strong) without even the slightest stumble and incorporated some clean rebuttals. Under the circumstances, very few battlers could have done that. Daylyt was clearly trying to throw Loe off his game and it didn’t work. In our opinion, that’s an automatic win for Pesci, plus he brought better writtens (and better rapping) than Daylyt.

Yes, Daylyt’s latest stunt sounds crazy — and it was — but the crowd didn’t like it. In fact, they booed him. After the event, we spoke with some big-name battlers (and some people closely affiliated with the scene) and it was unanimous in their minds: Daylyt had crossed a line. There’s no doubt that he’ll lose some fans and also gain some. Depends what you’re looking for in a rap battle, we suppose…

100 BULLETZ VS JC

After the event, Rone told us he thought Bulletz had the performance of the night. Bulletz brought the type of intricate schemes and wordplay that you’d expect, but also some funny one-liners that ripped into JC, e.g. “If you’ve ever been shot, it was the Honey I Shrunk the Kids gun.” For JC, it was a tough night. In the third round, he had a slight slip-up, which might be his first mishap to date. But on a broader scale, he had trouble controlling the crowd. He couldn’t project to the degree that Bulletz did, and throughout his rounds, the crowd grew restless. Felt like both MCs brought a level of sophistication to their bars that the crowd wasn’t catching and/or appreciating. Regardless, it’ll be interesting to see how JC’s material translates to video.

DEFFINITION VS PH

Apparently these two have bad blood from last year’s World Domination, and both addressed the beef comically. PH put on his best KOTD performance since facing The Saurus in the No. 1 contenders match. He said his last loss didn’t count because Knamelis was “comin’ off the screen like a running back,” which was the first haymaker of the night. Deffinition was hilarious, as you would expect him to be. In his introduction, he yelled: “I’m on URLLLLLL!!!!!” Then: “Team Homo in the building.” Deffinition also had arguably the top line of the battle: “It’s ironic you fucked Sara Kana and got the kid terminated.”

PIGSTY VS GIN I

Unfortunately, this battle was marred by sound issues. The volume was decent, but each battler’s rhymes were nearly unintelligible, in both the front and back rows. Gin I brought intensity to his performance, which helped him garner some crowd reaction. He also made (we think) a Robert Pickton reference, which means he likely Googled “pig + vancouver + murder.” It was especially difficult to hear Pigsty. Regardless, he took the battle on a 3-2 decision. After the event, we spoke with Mindbender, who was on stage for the battle and had an easier time of hearing the material. He agreed with the judges’ decision. Jay Hommy also heard clearly and called it for Gin I.

Also of note:

-Kid Twist was at the event, rocking some long, Kurt Cobain-ish hair.

-Bonnie Godiva is stunning in person.

-Lush wore every weird thing he could find in Los Angeles.

-Bishop Brigante did great hosting the event between battles, despite fans trying to get him as drunk as possible.

-The Saurus looked like a giddy child on Christmas morning as he listened to Dizaster’s third round.

-Rone is every bit as cool as you would expect.

-By the end of the night, everyone on stage was smoking something: cigarettes, cigars, blunts, etc.

-Once the venue cleared out, there were obviously a ton of fans/battlers hanging out on the sidewalk. Lots of cops too.

-From what we’re hearing, both Battle of the Bay 6 and Don’t Flop 5th Birthday events are sounding doooooooope.

-We interviewed Drect, Rone, The Saurus, Osa and Pass. Stay tuned for that content. *Update: Final interview count from the weekend was 30*

As always, thanks for reading. We’ll have more updates throughout Day 2 and 3 via Twitter. Follow TOBattleBlog on Instagram for more photos. We’ll have full recaps of the other days as well. BattleFix.com put out a great compilation of tweets and pictures from people at the event. Read their rundown here.
____________
TOBB’s WD4 content:
-Everything you missed at WD4 (Day 1)
-Everything you missed at WD4 (Day 2)
-Everything you missed at WD4 (Day 3)
-Final thoughts on WD4
-Overheard at WD4
-Top quotes from the WD4 press conference
-TOBB’s (mildly hilarious) WD4 predictions
-Q&A: Pat Stay speaks on his Arcane battle
-Who should come to WD4?