Outback News and Standings

The action took place Friday night with Kruger looking to wrest MoonBeryl from Matt's grasp; the Outback's newest Emerald vs one of our most tenured and highly decorated. The odds weighed strongly in Matt's favor, but Kruger came out in the first bout to demonstrate just how wrong those predictions were! It was 6 rounds of devestation, Kruger up 3-0 after 4. Matt managed a point with a trade of sweeps in the 5th, but then the challenger ended it with a dodge in the 6th to go up 1 bout to none. Bout two again saw Kruger take a 3-0 lead! But, Matt rallied in the 6th and took five straight points to tie them at one bout each. Matt couldn't carry that momentum into the final duel though, Kruger just perhaps being better conditioned at this time. The old man scored in the first two rounds, but that would be all he'd get in this fight. Kruger scored in four consequtive rounds and floored him with a spinkick in the 6th to bring this to an end and walk away with the yellow rock. Huge congrats to Kruger on his first Opal win.

While there was a lot of hype around the MoonBeryl challenge, the one for PathFinder almost slipped under the radar... but not quite. Hope and Andrea didn't make a lot of fuss about their fight and quietly took to the ring on Monday night. Hope showed up hungry and sent a clear message in the first bout when she shutdown Andrea entirely and won it 5-0 in 6 rounds. TeraMistress Andrea looked like she might even things up in the second bout and got out to a solid 4-2 lead by the 4th round. Hope wasn't done though and managed to swing things back in her direction with a four round streak. Sudden death going into the 7th round, Hope landed a jab to end this challenge in two bouts and claim PathFinder for herself.

In other challenge news, Shale looks to have re-issued his challenge to Charlie Nine for FireStar. Charlie's on record as accepting, but so far no word on when this one might go down.

DEBUTS: None this week

ADVANCEMENTS: Ekthbjlgke Smith advance to Ruby!

PANTHER'S CLAW: The holder of the Panther's Claw forthis cycle is Kruger Allen! ((The Claw grants the holder one extra fancy/feint maneuver above his/her current rank (excluding Emerald))).

FISTMELDA'S TUSK: The holder of the Fistmelda's Tusk for this cycle is ! ((Fistmelda's Tusk grants the holder several perks, some of which are rank dependant and and include an extra modifier for lower ranks. Please see this thread for more details.)).