If Esso and Rai have reached 7 consecutive defenses they can battle vs illo. I don't think most of them will have much of a problem losing their title. If they want a permanent title they can just win tourneys

Esso
1x LBT Champion
8 Wins (1 Via No Show) - 0 Losses

Battle Record:
Vs Obey (Via No Show) - Won the LBT Title
Vs Rieper (52%) - Defended LBT Title
Vs Wonderbred (67%) - Defended LBT Title
Vs CakedOut (86%) - Defended LBT Title
Vs Celsius (62%) - Defended LBT Title
Vs Shodan (86%) - Defended LBT Title
Vs HomeSkool (67%) - Defended LBT Title
Vs Celsius (62%) - Defended LBT Title

Esso had 7 consecutive defences before being made to vacate the title in return for receiving the King award. If anyone's saying "ILLo is the only one who deserves the title" they need to have a look at his record. Wins over Lockhart, Celsius (twice), Shodan – those are all names that crop up high on most peoples lists of greatest textcees. Also, an undefeated 7-defence streak culminating in mandatory vacation of the title is pretty compelling to me.

So who's more deserving, ILLo or Esso? My answer is both. They were both undisputed champions for a very long time in their own day, which is the point of the LBT King/Legend title. It shows that a particular champion dominated throughout their day and reigned without being unseated. Whether that's for 7, 8, 9, 10 or whatever bouts is honestly irrelevant and pretty arbitrary, I think if we come up with a number now we should stick to it going forward but its pretty irrelevant looking back if someone was made to retire undefeated cos they probably would have won that one extra battle anyway.

I believe the LBT Legend title should not be an interchangeable one, we already have the LBT Champion for that. The point of the title is to reflect someone who dominated the belt during their era, and it makes sense there could be multiple legends from different eras. Also, given that someone only becomes eligible for one of these titles once every several years, expecting the previous winner to hang around in the woodwork waiting for literal years to defend 1 interchangeable title against someone from a different generation of textcees is totally unrealistic imo.

Rai is a different case, I think there are strong arguments for and against him having the title. By putting it on the line against ILLoKWENT I think he gives us all an opportunity to resolve this question though. If he wins, he's clearly on the level of other Legends and deserves the title. If he loses, he's agreed to forfeit his title. It's simple, and he's agreed to it (huge props to Rai for that btw).

I genuinely don't think the LBT King/Legend title is in the kind of crisis everyone's making it out to be. Until Rai was crowned, it was very straightforward: win 7 consecutive defences then you retire and get the permanent title. Once Rai vs ILLo is finished, I see no reason we can't return to this policy and just have Rai as an exception if he wins. The LBA is another story but its unclear if that will even exist going forwards so why not just focus on the LBT for now?

How about this;

I'm not stripping any permanent champs. If you guys want to, no problem, you can take over the LBT. But unless that's the case, I'm not doing it.

I'm going to make the decision of going against everyone else and go with my own option, option 1. I believe that is the fairest move going forward. RULE is the hardest done by in this, and I understand if anyone has any issues with that given our recent history, however RULE also amounted his 5 defences under unusual and controversial circumstances so "pausing" his defences at 5 and giving him the opportunity to win the other 2 is fair in my opinion.

Unless everyone has the world's biggest problem, in which case we can either shut the LBT or someone else can run it, I say Rai Vs Malishus/ILL for his 7th defence and RULE Vs Biz for RULE's 6th defence is the fairest way to run this without Esso or Seul being hit in the process.

Is everyone comfortable moving forward with this or are we shutting it down?

This whole things gotten way out of hand. Fact is, it's been a certain way for a min now, so that is the rule of thumb. Seven in a row, you're crowned King with a permanent title.

Fucking flip flopping nonsense. Did Illo have a good streak? Yes, he did. However, you can not punish others, take their titles away due to them conducting themselves in a manner of which they were instructed to do so.

So, You get 7 in wins in a row, you're crowned King. End of story. Simple.

7 defences*. Also it's unfair to Rai and RULE to put that point blank as there's potential for the circumstances to have changed after they got their titles. They need a chance to resume.

I personally strongly support this.

Yup. Lets get it popping then. @BizzyOne, murder this rUlE dude.
#LetHimKnowHowIllmaniaGoingToGo!!

When is Illmania? I was presuming LBA would be after Ill.

After? Thought LB_ was kicking off in Feb? After, Before, either way... @BizzyOne gone steam roll though dude.

All of this. What illo did was dope. That's my boy, but being rewarded for how long you keep a title, 5 years from now it'll be like 5 LBA/LBT Kings running around.

Wait.... too late there Is.

But as Chubby said above, you want a title for your LBT or LBA wins? Keep battling and hold onto your shit. There's gonna be a user title for everything soon.

Most active member, least active member, top poster, best mod

You're already going down on the statistics records page. Reward them by sending them an LB T-Shirt with their name and record on it or something.