A look back at an epic and innovative contest of comic book proportions.
The OMEGE FIST TOURNAMENT (OFT) was a fantasy-based concept created for the original A.C.M.G. Facebook Group.
The idea stemmed from the idea of fantasy football, pro wrestling, and other combat competitions but consisted of comic book characters spanning from many publishers coming together in a multiversal tournament to see who would be the most powerful of them all.
The results of this led to a four-year event with each becoming bigger than the next.
Yet, this also was the first stage of downfall of a once positive social media environment as society (and its ideology) seem to be changing for the worse.
Here is a look back at how this came about
THE ORIGINAL OMEGA FIST TOURNAMENT (2014)
The first OFT (with the help of former A.C.M.G. member Quincy M. Price) was put together using fighting game characters to see if the members of ACMG would be interested in seeing who they believed was the number one character in the whole tournament. Characters from some of the most popular fighting games in history such as STREET FIGHTER, FATAL FURY, TEKKEN, MORTAL KOMBAT to name a few were paired in a fantasy fighting match up. Members of A.C.M.G. voted democratically to see who they thought was the more dominant combatant.
When it came to the FINAL FIST ROUND it came down to legendary characters RYU and the EMPEROR SHAO KAHN.
As the tournament went on the fighting game fans of A.C.M.G. began to really get invested in it as they voted and commented on who their favorite was.
Of course, the rules were as follows, the fighter with the most votes would be the winner of that fantasy fight and would move on to the next round.
It's amazing how far we have come with technology today because in 2014 we did not have a better solution to accumulate votes like we can today.
Consequently, we would have to manually count each vote by comment. Back then you didn't have a poll feature on Facebook groups, nor did we have multiple emojis that could be used for vote counts.
It was the bare minimum compared to today, and with a few hundred members (and growing) at the time it was a tedious task. But it was well worth it to see that so many people were immersed in what we were doing.
With 48 characters in two tournament brackets it somehow led to us making the semifinals a triple threat for both the A and B sides.
So, we turned it up even more as I produced videos to hype the anticipation of the SEMI-FINAL FIST round.
The videos consisted of music by the once ultra popular Kanye West (not to be confused with his alter-ego Ye) which at the time we were allowed to use on Facebook and YouTube without question.
The video edits helped greatly to hype things up. Just another reason I miss the energy of those times. Both for what social media was as well as Kanye.
The second video I used one of my favorite bands to bring the chaos of braket B. None other than System of the Down's Toxicity. Legend.
It was a fun way to bring excitement and since we were using it for commercial use of any goods and services it was made for social fun engagement. NOTE: None of the tournaments profited. All prizes were sponsored or paid for by me.
Bracket A video (Kanye West)
Bracket B video (System of a Down)
After two epic fantasy fights the members of A.C.M.G. decided that the two who would face each other in the FINAL FIST ROUND would be two legends in fighting game history.
The results were in, much like it was for 2023, Street Fighter wins over Mortal Kombat as RYU became the first ever OMEGA FIST CHAMPION.
It was remarkably interesting that virutally a decade later Street Fighter 6 would once again dominate over Mortal Kombat 1.
The result of this fun fantasy experiment after weeks among hours of production was a success. But the question is will we do it again and how we can make it more impactful for the members.
The answer to that came when I decided to up the ante.
THE OMEGA FIST TOURNAMENT 2 (2015)
A NEW CONTEST IS BORN IN THE FORM OF OFT II
With the success of the first tournament, it allowed me to make an attempt to really step it up. Making it into something that members of the group would really want to jump on. The one thing that people love to do is discuss and/or debate on who they believe is the best. People also like it even more when they can convince people of what they believe is true.
This gave me the idea of making a contest out of the concept of giving contestants a chance to debate and campaign their picks to see what the members of A.C.M.G. felt was a dominant team. YES! This time I Upp'd the stipulation with a TAG TEAM BATTLE which this time was based on US Comic Book characters. Contestants would have the chance to pick two characters with a few rules. The reason I decided on US based characters is because manga/anime characters can be a bit extreme in terms of power and ability. US based characters can be powerful but also sensical which brings the competition on the level. Also, comic book mythology was more familiar to people at the time.
HERE IS THE VIDEO THAT TALKS ABOUT THE RULES OF OFT 2
The winner of this tournament would win an assortment of prizes from VIEW FINDERS I.S.A.D. and former sponsors PRINTHEADZ: Custom Prints and Design who provided a CHAMPIONSHIP package (A T-shirt, Mug, and Mouse pad designed by VIEW FINDERS I.S.A.D.)
THE CONTESTANTS OF OFTII
12-contestants and members of the A.C.M.G. stepped up to the challenge to claim their teams as the second OMEGA FIST CHAMPION (and proclaiming them as the first ever OMEGA FIST WINNER).
The match making for the tournament was quite a challenge as I had to make sure that fantasy fights were fair and balanced at the beginning. It was especially important to give everyone a chance to make it. Now granted their pics are their own so if they pick a character that may be considered weak to the rest that is the gamble that they make. The other important thing to note is that none of the contestants know what the other contestant has picked as their chosen characters in the tournament until the very moment they compete.
OMEGA 12:
Brandon D Daniels
Quincy Price
Compound Fracture
Robert A Moore (Former co-host of TALK TIME LIVE podcast)
Logan Dobbs
Lou Johnson (Former co-host of TALK TIME LIVE podcast)
Dennis Glover
Nate Drowell
Ed Douglas
Robert Wilson
Mike Jones
Randy Green
The BATTLES:
There were some intense battles with some real power players. There were also some “interesting” picks like former member Compound Fracture (origin or such a name is unknown in the world of Goggle other than the definition) who chose Thanos and Megatron (which I can see why he chose the two).
But an interesting pick goes to one Robert Wilson who went with the fun picks of War Machine Vs. Justin Hammer (seriously he even made a campaign video for the OFT II hyping the arrival of Justin Hammer).
The battle went back and forth with fun (and sometimes intense) debating with sources of information about their characters for the voters to decide which would lead to the TRIPLE THREAT FINAL FIST ROUND (a Triple threat final round consisting of three teams due to the number of contestants that participated that year) which became a very EPIC and controversial conclusion.