The official World(star) cup brawl thread.

[Walker]

Interesting.....

How many of these players will get perma banned from playing? How many will be charged with assault? Will the teams get banned for their conduct?

This is not a spontaneous reaction, but a pattern of behavior that has been accepted in the past.

Who are the teams sponsors? If this is acceptable to them, perhaps they don't deserve our patronage?


Walker

[gabe]

This is paintball for good or worse. It's adrenaline filled chest thumping competition and these things happen when everyones amped up. Granted there is a lot of childishness going on here but it's to be expected along with the partying, pranks, and other stuff that goes along with the tournament scene. Personally I like my sport with a little bit of edginess.

The aftermath and this "getting jumped" in the parking lot thing is really silly though. I don't know if the Rejects captain is telling the truth or not, seems like he's trying to smear the other guys. I heard an opposing viewpoint that the Rejects sent a guy up the middle to hit the buzzer and tie the game and the guy immediately got hit but just kept running and taking paint and his mask came off when he hit the buzzer. The Rejects then cried foul that the other team "shot his mask off" and used it as an excuse to start $hit over a game they were losing.

[KingxSlinky666]

There are two sides to every story, and the truth usually lies some where in the middle. At least thats been my experience.

[Shaftski]

Not just paintball where things like this happen. We've had so many parent/ref/coach brawls at youth hockey matches around here it's impossible to keep count. Parents have died in brawls.

Latest trend is racist chants/taunting at high school games.

[Siress]

In MA?! What part?

[Shaftski]

Google the name Thomas Junta. There was also a big brawl at a youth game in Tewksbury in the past week.

Several HS football programs state wide have had to forfeit games or ban fans after racist incidents recently.

[KingxSlinky666]

Saw this going around as well. What a shit show.

[vijil]

My theory for a bunch of years now is that paintball, by nature, somehow attracts too much testosterone.

There are plenty of people in the sport who don't have anger management issues or major insecurities, but the proportion seems low compared to other sports. Paintball has the double fail of being both appealing to macho types and a minority sport without real clout. It's a perfect recipe for macho insecurity. Angry dudes who never quite made it at "real" sports. This seems to apply equally to speed and milsim, maybe slightly less so to woodsball as the macho types tend to move to one of the others pretty quick.

That's why, I think, the sport has always been so poorly organised, and bitchy, and generally uncooperative internally. It's probably the same basic mix that makes gaming so toxic. GI are a symptom of the paintball personality mix, not the cause.

I compare this to other minority sports I play like disc golf and unicycling. They're much better organised and just calm and reasonable than paintball (yes, even unicycling, which has generally had an amazing two-yearly world champs in a different country each time). Disc golf is already a much bigger sport commercially than paintball, with the top pro on a $10mil contract, and no he doesn't have to work in the company. I've done both of those for years, and paintball is straight up embarrassing in comparison. We're the tiddlywinks of the sports world.

[gabe]

It's a sport based around shooting each other. Of course it attracts that kind of person. This isn't the world cup of chess. Some of us like that paintball is more like hockey than it is like disc golf.

[vijil]

gabe which is fair, but that same "edge" is what has arguably tanked the industry, is why GI suck as hard as they do, and is why paintball probably has no future beyond what it is now because we'll have so much infighting and BS that we'll never achieve anything. The few actually smart people in PB get drowned out in a storm of insecurity. You gotta take the good with the bad.

And not everyone is in it for the edgelording. I was attracted to PB because of the combo tech/athleticism factor, and secondly the chess like psychogeometric strategy of it all. The fact I'm pretending to shoot people never even really registered for me. I have zero interest in playing army.

[gabe]

vijil You're right on the industry side totally. There's a catch 22 situation of nobody wanting to put the money or effort out to organize events and then when they do the community just steals the gear and turns it into a total crapshoot. Certainly doesn't invite big money into the industry to put on the events we used to see like Huntington Beach or the Disney wide world of sports stuff.

On the other hand when paintball was more rough-and not this florida redneck shit starting fights-but actually like drinking beer in the pits and making it more of a combat game which brought in an older crowd. When the industry went to soften it's image and become more friendly it ended up just pandering to kids and now we have what we have today which is a race to the bottom on budget guns and the whole industry owned by a few companies than can produce things cheaply. It also firmly cemented paintball as not something akin to hockey or motocross but a softer game like bowling or frisbee golf to be played by all ages and abandoned to hobby shops and maybe the odd pro shop. I think the sport overall does need to be a little more edgy like skateboarding to bring back the players that were lost in the late 2000's. Skateboarding is making a comeback on a more restrained but still rebellious scene and I think paintball can too.

[Chuck E Ducky]

What an absolute Shit show! Gear and equipment getting stolen massive brawls breaking out. It’s just sad, pathetic and a shit stain on the sport we love.

Grow up, Respect the game or GTFO!

[Toestr]

My theory for a bunch of years now is that paintball, by nature, somehow attracts too much testosterone.

There are plenty of people in the sport who don't have anger management issues or major insecurities, but the proportion seems low compared to other sports. Paintball has the double fail of being both appealing to macho types and a minority sport without real clout. It's a perfect recipe for macho insecurity. Angry dudes who never quite made it at "real" sports. This seems to apply equally to speed and milsim, maybe slightly less so to woodsball as the macho types tend to move to one of the others pretty quick.

That's why, I think, the sport has always been so poorly organised, and bitchy, and generally uncooperative internally. It's probably the same basic mix that makes gaming so toxic. GI are a symptom of the paintball personality mix, not the cause.

I compare this to other minority sports I play like disc golf and unicycling. They're much better organised and just calm and reasonable than paintball (yes, even unicycling, which has generally had an amazing two-yearly world champs in a different country each time). Disc golf is already a much bigger sport commercially than paintball, with the top pro on a $10mil contract, and no he doesn't have to work in the company. I've done both of those for years, and paintball is straight up embarrassing in comparison. We're the tiddlywinks of the sports world.

Well said.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[Magmoormaster]

I don't know what speedball or woodsball y'all have been playing, in my experience it has been the exact opposite. Highly publicized events aside, almost every time I see poor attitudes from paintball players it's from woodsball players. I see way more insecure machismo from woodsball than speedball. Most of the speedballers I know and have played with are super chill. Maybe it's just localized, but all of the super toxic players I know are woodsballers.

I completely agree with everything else Vijil said; paintball definitely seems to attract the fragile bully type. This is one of the worst examples of that, for sure.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Toxic people are Toxic regardless of what format or sport they play. I’m guilty of it myself I have let my anger get the best of me and made a fool of myself. I’m sure we all have at some point in our lives. Some more then others the important thing is we learn from them. Some people have a hard time with that. The thing I can’t get over is after all the stupid stuff they thought it was a good idea to go to the parking lot and beat a guy down with a pipe. That and the stealing, no excuse for that, your just a scumbag if you steal.

[Cyberpyr8]

The NXL really needs to come down hard on all these guys and start putting more security around the pits. That's the only way this mess is going to stop. Regardless of how much testosterone is in the game, there needs to be some control on and off the field as well. Every year people have equipment stolen. The guys involved in this fighting as well as the thieves of the equipment need to be the example of what will happen if you pull this crap. There was a fight on the sidelines earlier this year too. Maybe this happened years ago and no one had cameras at their fingertips like they do now, but I don't remember anything like this happening.

I used to take my kids to word cup in the 2000's when it was in Tampa and it was a great event. I went to Philly and cup a few years ago and some of the lower level teams just act like a bunch of idiots. Besides that, there were 2 security guards making sure I didn't go into the wrong stands that I didn't pay for, but almost no one in the pits area. In fact, my son and I walked right in to the pits area (in Philly) and no one questioned us even though I didn't have any ID to show I should be back there and wasn't wearing paintball clothes. I even made the comment to my son that this was how equipment gets stolen every year. We walked in there to see some guys that we knew that were playing but no one even questioned me.

Maybe the NXL should have large events just be the pros and smaller events for everyone else. Less people all at once and maybe some more security could be in place. I don't know but this is terrible for the sport.

[Chuck E Ducky]

I don’t know CUP was never an event I would bring the wife and kids to. At the same time neither is ION. So it’s all relative.

[Cyberpyr8]

Back in the early 2000's cup had lots of kids out there watching. It might have been rough in the pits and other areas but it wasn't that bad watching the games in the stands or walking through the vending areas. It seemed like it was better run and organized back in those days.

[DocsMachine]

Security costs money. Correction, security costs the event money. Somebody attending the event gets something stolen? No skin off the event's nose.

Doc.

[Cyberpyr8]

I agree it all costs money but this fight really looks bad for the sport. All it's going to take is for something like this to happen and the news get ahold of it and watch them come up with the money for security. This could have been a lot worse. Thank goodness none of them had a real gun with them out in the parking lot. My point is, they already have people there but 2 guys making sure you don't sit in the premium section if you only paid for regular seating is stupid. Use the people more effectively and spend a little to be sure gear isn't stolen. Again, all it's going to take is for some mainstream news outlet to start reporting that there's thefts and fighting going on at the local event and venue's won't want to let the NXL in. Or it will cost them more to get venues and insurance.

In Philly they were at a college campus and people at the college were freaking out because players were walking around with markers out through the parking lots and dry firing around their cars. It's not a big deal to players but "muggles" (non-paintball folk) don't understand.

[Siress]

Actually, it does take skin off the event's nose. Just have look beyond the depth-1 greedy algorithm and realize that it impacts future business.

[Sdawg]

I attended World Cup for the first time, and while I personally had a great time, a few things struck me.

There were no chronos available between the pits. There was a stand for a chrono, but it was empty.

On the virtue field, the refs did not have chronos, period. They asked the team captains to lend them chronos. I had two, and my team was out, so I ended up being a chrono sponsor for NXL lol.

Earlier, I had walked up to ask the schedule, and the refs were getting chewed out for not telling the organizers that they had not had a chrono on their field the entire event I.e., since Thursday. 🤦🏻🤦🏻🤦🏻

The NXL field where we were playing our prelims Saturday were chronoing on the field.


The brawl does not surprise me. The Rejects were in our pit at the start of Sunday, and they were not the most friendly characters. And, I saw a guy who was with one of the Puerto Rican teams yelling motherfucker-ish words for a solid minute at a referee after the very first match of the day on Sunday at the Virtue field.

finally, the amount of marijuana consumption occurring in the divisional pits was frankly shocking.

In no way did NXL host a safe and family-friendly event. I would never bring my family with small children to watch anything but the pro field.


THAT ALL SAID, the vast majority of the people I met and competed against were cool and fellow paintball nerds. I had a great experience and will go back, but Tom Cole needs to do better.

[flyweightnate]

I think the use of drugs has an underestimated impact. European studies suggest ~20% of psychosis diagnoses are directly attributable to cannabis use.
In surfing and snowboarding, there's no head to head competition. Paintball is a short step from MMA as far as inflaming tension if there's already animosity. The blind eye towards drug use at events should be reconsidered.

[chrislognshot]

Paintball sure has changed since I started playing back in '82.....

same for me in 1991

[chrislognshot]

Saw this going around as well. What a shit show.

if its whole setup they could lost up to 150k per camera if stolen fully loaded also this about story of missing red camera's they are not cheap one setup could cost close to 150k in price

[Falcon16]

This is the reason I left tournaments. It's all a giant dick swinging contest and people get super stupid and do stupid things. That said if what was posted was true I can't blame the rejects player for punching a dude and knocking him out cold. After the buzzer and you're getting shot to hell laying on the ground? Yea at that point it's assault and reasonable self defense is warranted

[Meleager7]

You know what tourney looks super fun, and puts this nxl foolishness to shame? That UK Woodsball Masters tourney! Makes me want to hop the pond!

[Siress]

Let me know ahead of time so I can join the invasion.