Everything you missed at KOTD’s Vendetta 2
King of the Dot’s Vendetta 2 Redemption card mostly lived up to its name in Los Angeles last night. The event was to make up for Blackout 4′s six unexpected cancellations but of the three rescheduled battles, only Bender vs Big T went down. Ill Will backed out against Real Deal, citing contractual obligations to BET, and Shotty Horroh was replaced by Caustic as Aye Verb’s opponent with two weeks’ notice.
Despite those early setbacks, it was a great event with lots of impressive performances from some of the best battle MCs in the world, cheered on by a generous and well-behaved crowd. The venue was much smaller than the massive rooms we’ve seen in Toronto recently, holding around 500 people comfortably. The stage was only a couple of feet high and the battlers were surrounded by people which should result in footage similar to that of Battle of the Bay 6 — which is a good thing.
To a certain extent, this was the URL vs KOTD card that fans have been demanding for years. That no one really noticed shows how much overlap there now is between the leagues and their rosters.
Overall, the tone of the battles gave clear indication that a combination of complex wordplay, rapid-fire punches and dense lyricism is the dominant style in battling today. Our only request for the next card is that we get a bit more comedy to break up the encyclopedia’s worth of bars we’re getting shouted at us in a night.
**You can watch all these battles on PPV now, at KOTD.TV**
Bender is an over-achiever. As far as we can tell, he’s the best battle-rapping artist, as well as the most artistic battle rapper. His fierce aggression and densely-structed writing have made him a fan-favourite in KOTD and netted him invites to Flip Top, Don’t Flop and iBattle. The former KOTD champion won the league’s official “Performance of the Year” awards in both 2010 and 2012. He makes music as part of Flight Distance, whose Bad Information album is arguably the best rap record to ever come out of Ottawa. We also have it on good authority he’d destroy us in The Last of Us multi-player.