Tournament 7: The Next Phase - The Finals!

To date it has been an elite few who contend the glory of tournament victory! Tournament 5 saw Cr0w achieve the rare feat of winning a second Tournament, launching him into a run as Undisputed Champion that has rewritten every record!

Tournament 7: The Next Phase invites a new era upon The Great Arena as sixty-four of the brightest up and coming competitors do battle with the hopes of joining the upper ranks! A random draw without seeds has delivered a Semi Final full of power players and intriguing interlopers and with Supercard 10: Tower of Power II right around the corner, they all vie for the opportunity to join the ladder that will compete for the Undisputed Championship!

Hokey, TonyTheTiger, The_Purple_Bunny, and Artanix look to join the ranks of Pink_Ranger & Ghostdragon, Shoe, Mimik, Genku and Cr0w -- the next phase of tournament champions in The Great Arena!

Semi Final Results:
1. TonyTheTiger defeated Hokey in a close fought match!
By and large he set the pace during Tournament 7, but TonyTheTiger had a convenient draw in his charge toward the Next Phase finals, including a devastating +8 decimation of odds deficient Swisher! With tournament supersticion fondly regard Hokey as the man to beat in a rise to tournament supremacy, it made perfect sense that the dominant favourite would meet the fan favourite in an exciting test of wills! Hokey had the more convincing pedigree of defeating his Duo Division Championship partner, Ninja_Mime, in a high stakes First Round encounter, with rival and former-Duo champ, Pink_Ranger, going down in kind.

Fatigue had a small role to play in this blockbuster encounter, effecting both men tremendously as they threw down in one of the biggest fights of the tournament! It was the type of fight that only a doyen of technical competition could appreciate, a complex close quarters clash as much about making a mistake as wrestling victory from the opponent. In the end, it was TonyTheTiger who found the vital opportunity, a decidedly modest win, in execution, for a fighter who decimated the lower ranks in the earlier rounds. The win over Hokey, of course, made TonyTheTiger instant favourite for the Grand Final, progressing with the hopes of being the fifth tournament winner to defeat Hokey before claiming ultimate glory!

2. The_Purple_Bunny defeated Artanix in a +5 decimation!
The Next Phase was designed to deliver opportunity to the next wave of competitors in The Great Arena, but few could have predicted it would be Artanix that seized that opportunity, rising over a very solid field of m0s, SubMan799, and Jammer2Omega! The_Purple_Bunny played much more confidently, defeating "Upset Machine" Chiefin to echo TonyTheTiger at every step as a looming challenge for any finalist!

Sadly, the Next Phase dream had to end for Artanix as he walked into an opponent who simply had too much momentum backing his return from the afterlife! The_Purple_Bunny sent a daunting message with a +5 impact, a stern warning for the man he has his truly has his sights set on -- Shoe!

To reach this stage, TonyTheTiger had to defeat: xtactics (R1), Swisher (R2), ShingoEX (R3), Ghostdragon (QF), Hokey (SF).
To reach this stage, The_Purple_Bunny had to defeat: Buster (R1), SmokeRulz (R2), Chiefin (R3), Chromatose (QF), Artanix (SF).

Tournament 7: The Next Phase Final:
1. The_Purple_Bunny defeated TonyTheTiger
They were two of the most dominant fighters throughout the field of sixty-four -- TonyTheTiger and The_Purple_Bunny have each loitered on the fringe of the top ranking contenders, but here, in The Next Phase final, they stand poised on the edge of glory!

From Round One, it seemed as if The_Purple_Bunny was in quiet competition with TonyTheTiger, responding to his upper bracket results with echoes of the same high impact victories. Semi Final opponents tipped the balance in favour of TonyTheTiger, but that simply wasn't a factor for the man returning from the afterlife! The_Purple_Bunny steamrolled a TonyTheTiger who lifted his game from the Semi Final, but simply could not compete at the level he had earlier in the tournament! The_Purple_Bunny writes his name in history -- winner of Tournament 7: The Next Phase!

Victory in Tournament 7: The Next Phase delivers The_Purple_Bunny into a prime position to contest for the Undisputed Championship and Supercard 10 when the unofficial top ten contenders are stacked in the second incarnation of one of the most compelling directives in The Great Arena -- The Tower of Power! July 24 will decide the Challenger 7 as Supercard 10: Tower of Power II looms at the end of the month, July 31!

TonyTheTiger and the other finalists from Tournament 7 will no doubt feature as they too fight their way toward the ultimate prize in The Great Arena -- a Championship that has currently been held for a record setting three months, across four defenses! The Next Phase begins now!