[Diablo]

Originally Posted by KempoMRK

Baron covered off the early days nicely, so I thought I'd chip in with 2005 onwards and the period of text I remember well.

I started on B-Boys in 2005 when Lama was running the WBL as Allah. It regularly had 70+ battlers and I never wanted to enter because I was too wack, so I'd just battle in the Battle Arena, trying to improve and get good enough to join. Hensley, Butler, Resin, Richard Corey, Fracture, Timevirus, Lieutenant, ARMZ, shake-zula, Mets, Classick and ouch were some of the big names.

At the same time the other main leagues were the RBL on RapMusic, which was similar to the WBL, but I generally considered inferior in skill at the time, though historically it had been classed as better and I always felt the mods and regulars had an unwarranted sense of superiority over the WBL. Oneduh, Calefaction, Headless Verseman, ill nik-A and Serge were the main guys I remember during that time period.

Oneduh and Cale both had crazy runs in that time period. At one point Oneduh was like 21-0 or some shit. I remember him facing @ill nik-A in a champ match and Nik legit got screwed over in that battle somehow. Either dodgy mods or dodgy votes (or both) but yeah, it kind of tinted Oneduhs record run for me seeing the hat unfold. It may be no fault of his own and I don’t hold him accountable for it, but Nik legit got jerked in that one. Magus was another dope guy of that period to me. Often overlooked.

The HBL on 411Hype, which was a lesser league, but similar in style to the WBL, so people like Hensley and Butler would enter, champ it within 5 weeks then leave. The homegrown heads I remember were Pharaohe Def (who actually held the WBL and HBL championship's at the same time, and had an RBL champ match the same week that he lost) and Muffy.

Pharoah was dope and posted at several boards, I personally knew of him from Keystyling or Freestyling.com (I forget which) which is where Tettris and a couple other old NC heads originated from. I won 411’s first ever topical tourney, I beat @Deon / @hotdogvendorman in its finals and it was my first ever topical tourney win which is why I remember it. I wrote a verse about the Incredible Hulk which is terrible by today’s standards but proved a catalyst to inspire me to drift away from standard text battling which I’d done for years and try my hand at the storytelling side of things.

Then there was the LLL on RapBattles, which was different to the three sites I've mentioned, mainly in regards to taste, as on the face of it the style looked similar, but I always thought they liked some weird stuff. Hensley champed leagues all over, but he always struggled champing the LLL.

A lesser league I remember was the EBL on Emcee Battles, which I actually ran for a little while. It only had about 20 heads in, the most well known being Eddie, and the skill level wasn't great, but it was a fun site.

HollaFront had a league if I remember rightly, but I always used to check it out, see formatting like "~~~MUFU~~~CKAAA~~~##!!!" and never considered it further.

RapVerse used to run regular tournaments but around 2005 their leagues always sucked (I started the LBL there in 2006, which was incredibly fun because it mixed battlers from various different sites).

There was also RapLeagues, which I have a vague memory of visiting, but while it was similar in style, it was almost completely separated from the main sites until kungfugrip and Pulse came over to BragginWrites.

The owner of RapLeagues - MentalStamina - has owned/run way way way too many boards over time. I’ve been registered at at least 5/6 of his boards. He always got a good collective of dope to good heads on his boards, I wouldn’t really say they were completely separated from the main boards as it had heads like ill nik-a and myself that posted EVERYWHERE as well as guys like Equation, Prox, @Cimmerian and Mister Darcy (MMx) that were UPN heads. If I remember correctly RL was where @uh-oh started out texting and he loved their Battle Ranking system and started biting bars which later lead to him basically sampling/biting sections of beats and creating the production monster we know today. #FunFact

After B-Boys died in October 2005, Project Rhyme started and had the PRBA, which never took off like the WBL did. There was the B-Boys vs RapMusic site battle in early 2006. I started the LBL on RapVerse in mid-2006. Lama started BragginWrites at some point in mid-2006 and B-Boys came back in late 2006. I took over the WBL at that point. Cash prizes for champing leagues started around early 2007, I believe Lama started it, then compay and Theory on B-Boys offered $500 in prizes for winning LMS 5, which properHops won by beating Richard Corey in the final. Weekly cash prizes also started being offered for the WBL as well, then E started the RBA on BeatsRhymesLife and was offering $50 a week for champing his league. I modded that league and it had about 50-60 heads in it, but it wasn't as fun as it had been.

The RBL was still running during this time, but it was always stop-start, with some terrible modding every time a revival seemed imminent. The LLL on RapBattles continued consistently, and I just checked and it's still going, in its 22nd season by now. After I stopped modding the LBL on RapVerse at the start of 2007, DaTrusHurtz started running the GBA, Gimmick Battle Association, in which every battle was based around a gimmick, for example, 2Pac vs Biggie, where you'd diss your opponent as if he was Biggie. Trus stopped modding it and RapVerse completely and utterly died, but unbelievably, even though it's had probably 20 posts since 2012, is still up.

I stopped modding the RBA and not long later BRL died. Ex-Kal ran the WBL on B-Boys after I stopped modding it, which he ran until mid-2007, then Justify took over, and I think it ended either late 2007 or early 2008, though Hush ran it at some point during 2008. B-Boys still had a few tournaments a year for a while after, which I ran a few of, but traffic dropped considerably and it went down at some time in 2013 (though strangely Theory set up a new forum in 2016, which is still up, but he's never done anything with it).

Let’s not forget the Illesty board either, it had some dope newer heads come through like Justify, Styk Figer, D-Kom and our own @Suthaveli. At one point D-Kom was being lauded as the ‘new kungfugrip’ which is no mean feat.

After I stopped modding in mid-2007 I battled and ran tournaments, then stopped in late 2008, so everything from then on is mostly unknown to me.

At some point Lama set up Netcees after BragginWrites went down (was taken down? I never knew what happened there), and this has essentially, with the exception of RapBattles, been the only site I'd know of to battle on.