A group of Rackers in Email and Apps have been training for the last year to attend and compete at Evo2012 in Las Vegas and had the crazy idea of sponsorship after Lanham stopped by one evening to what we were up to while practicing after work. We thought it would be a great story/blog to bring to Racker Talent and a possible opportunity for Rackspace to find new Rackers or customers.
The Evolution Championship Series (Evo for short) represents the largest and longest running fighting game tournament in the world. The tournament actually has it’s roots as far back as 1995, but was officially named Evo in 2002 and has grown ever since. The scene has gotten so big in the world of Esports that it is not uncommon these days for players to have sponsors who help them get to the tournaments around the world and in turn the players represent them.
Racker Mawutor Amesawu came onto the Email & Apps team and quickly found friends with a similar interest in fighting games, but it was his knowledge and excitement that got the group of Tim Hammer, Beau Bailey, Nolan Iriarte, Tom Mitchell and myself playing Street Fighter IV together daily during lunch, after work and at the local arcade. Thursday nights are reserved for “Fight Night” where we go to the arcade to compete with top players from the San Antonio area or get together at someone’s house and practice late into the night. We have even put together a tournament for Email & Apps where lots of Rackers competed, but in the end it was Tom who came out number one!
The Team has named itself the 8 Button Brawlers (8BB), a callout to the eight-button controllers that are standard in this kind of tournament. Over the coming weeks and months, stay posted for more updates from the team as we train, travel and compete in Evo 2012.
The 8 Button Brawlers are:
Keenan Sherfy – DWhisker
Tim Hammer – HammerIX
Nolan Iriarte – beatnikz
Mawutor Amesawu – TrueWu
Tom Mitchell – ThatGuyMuscle
