RBE Divide & Conquer Recap

One of the most anticipated battles of the night.  A true grudge match that was rescheduled from the Closure two card, due to A.Ward having an illness that prevented him from battling. Bigg K wins the coin toss and elects A. Ward to set the tone for the battle.  A lot to unpack with this one. 

Out the gate, A.Ward has a straightforward introduction about Bigg K being lackluster with his material, performance, and effort in his last handful of RBE battles. And instantly catches the attention of the crowd with his aggression applied. He transitions into a few dope schemes, he has a segment where he mimics Bigg K’s rap cadence, and has a few gun bars and rhyming patterns that impersonate Bigg K’s style. He brings out his signature his reverse that move. And While Ward has good material throughout the round, the peak and momentum that he present early in the round started to dwindle as the round progressed. 

Ward’s efforts in his first were ineffectual, as Bigg K starts his performance with one of the most dominant & powerful rounds we’ve heard from him in quite some time. This 1st round from Bigg K was very reminiscent of his first round vs Head Ice. Bigg K has his aggression on 10 mixed with high intervals of energy in his delivery. His method of attack was explosive as he would build up to his punchlines, with various rhyme patterns & multis, but the point of emphasis he drove home to deliver every punchline was thunderous and impactful. Bigg K’s first round deserves much praise and appreciation. It was easily the round of the night and arguably one of the best first rounds of his career. He really takes off when he jumps into a few multi-syllabic acrobats with his “Token white at the open mic local night.”  And Bigg K landed a big bomb with his “First time you shot a gun, you went out with ya big cousin/ First time I shot a gun, I closed my eyes and hit something/”  And by this point of the round, Ward was down 20 points in the first quarter of the ball game. While Ward was more tailored with his material, Bigg K had a lot more punchlines that were a bit more general that could be applicable to any opponent, but the simplicity of his punchlines rendered more effective results. It became like a crescendo of momentum that Bigg K built for himself. 

The performance was presented by the amalgamation of several intangible attributes that coincided with potent material. Bigg K’s aggression, delivery, crowd control, and presence brought full-court pressure to Ward and his first round was so well rapped, performed, and executed that it was flat-out dominant. The optics of Bigg K barking at Ward, simply was just too overpowering. Ward found himself in a deficit for the remainder of the battle. Bigg K put a mountain in front of Ward, and Ward needed to apply more strategy & have stronger rebuttals to overcome it. 

Bigg K mentioned Ward’s mother being in the comment section of battles and that Death comes in threes. And Ward instantly opens up his second round with a rebuttal in regard to this. The Rebuttal took a few seconds to really register with the room and it wasn’t necessarily the momentum-shifting rebuttal that we are used to seeing from Ward. Ward does kick up his second round with dope schemes, he has a no-limit scheme in regards to how Bigg K is strict with time limits, and he has a unique stanza of flipping Bigg K’s name (which is Ken). Ward has a bunch of wordplays that end with the sound of “Ken” which really was able to give his second round a fighting chance to compete.  “Crack Ken/Kraken  | Bro ken/Broken | Pump Ken/Pumpkin | Weak Ken/Weekend”. This was a  valiant effort by Ward, but Bigg K picks up in his second round almost exactly where he left off in his first. It almost felt like a continuation of his first round. Bigg K lands some big bombs in regards to Jesus with his “Why are you running if Jesus walks?  or his “I ain’t saying god fake, I hope he exists/ But if he made you in his image, I know he a bitch.” OUCH! my personal favorite bar was the “There is No light at the end of the tunnel but there’s a bullet in the chamber.”  A great second round from both emcees.

Objectively, the second round is competitive, but the battle still felt like Ward was down on the scoreboard. It felt much closer to a 2-0 rather than a 1-1. A big misstep by A.Ward was that he waited too long to present the angle in his third round. When Bigg K said in his first round “As dumb as a black Christian.” It would’ve been the perfect moment for Ward to call an audible and switch the placement of his second and third rounds. The Angle of Bigg K’s family owning Spooky acres was solid but the Angle of Bigg K calling a woman a MudDuck rendered some effectiveness in the room & on social media. It could’ve been a pivotal point to defuse the room or change the perception of Bigg K. But make no mistake, this doesn’t guarantee that Ward wins the round or the battle, but it gives him a better opportunity to have a competitive edge. 

Bigg K 3rd round is a solid round and can still be debated in his favor. He’s never shy of taking some shots at URL, calling them the Ultimate Rehearsal League and the room loves it. I do have ward edging the third but you can still very easily say he lost every round in this battle, as there was no stand-out or commanding round for Ward. Bigg K built up a huge lead out the gate and sustained it throughout the course of the entire battle. And Bigg K walks away being the best battler on the card that night with a vintage performance.