The originally planned stream for Initiation 3 didn’t go as expected, with the stream being shut off after audio issues. But maybe it was a blessing in disguise as now the event gets to have its own time to shine, which is exactly the thing that these emcees need to further establish themselves. In-class warfare always is high stakes, and with everyone jockeying for better positioning, the time to make a statement is now.
Initiation 3
Rating
Event Recapped by staff Writer Q Moody
LTBR Award Recipients
Battle of the Night: JUSTISE VS OPPA | La Monsta vs Ghost
Best Individual Performances of the night: 1. GHOSTT | 2A. OPPA | 2B. JUSTISE
Upset Of The Night: Top Floor Lut over Rah
OPPA AND JUSTISE SHOW AND PROVE
A battle with two guys with such high stock and plenty of eyes on it typically is pretty dangerous. We’ve seen battles in PG classes of years past where one guy came in as the #1 ranked prospect and someone immediately came and took that shine. A bad loss could have been catastrophic for either Oppa or Justise.
But that’s just not what happened. Both guys realized the stakes going into this battle and showed up accordingly, making it a highly competitive and super entertaining back and forth.. Justise showed a bit more range, on top of the usual explosiveness and A1 projection we’ve come to expect from him. And any questions about Oppa’s ability to translate against someone like Justise got answered immediately. Oppa can continue to be himself and it will work. That wittiness and perfectly executed writing is a recipe for continued success.
Leaving that battle it becomes clearer and clearer that these are the top 2. I think a lot of us fans are ready to see these two take the next step, I have no doubts on if they’re ready to compete or not.
GHOSTT MAKES A STATEMENT & MONSTA SHINES ON THE ROAD
Ghostt saw the rankings. Saw all the talk. He went out there and let the raps speak for themselves.
He showed a ton of growth with the constant energy being one thing I noticed immediately. The ability to switch from punching a bit more rapidly and speeding up the pace, to walking everyone down into a room shaker. Ghostt heard it all and took it to heart, giving a undeniable performance. He left no room for anything about that to be interpreted as just “gas”. Ghostt left every Crucible stage as the talk of the event for a reason and with all the eyes paying attention, he made sure everyone understood that. If this is the standard he keeps, this is a dangerous guy.
La Monsta had a difficult task taking Ghostt on when he had home field advantage, but the way La Monsta was bombing in that 2nd round, you could have forgotten this battle was a road game. That’s how impressive La Monsta was. This battle has a super strong case for being battle of the night. Monsta did lose his breath and stumble his way through the end of his 2nd but it really was a phenomenal round and shows you the levels he can reach already in trying conditions.
P BLACK COLLECTING APOLOGIES
Look, someone has to be near the bottom of any list made. People are always bound to be upset or take umbrage with it. That’s the nature of the beast.
P Black being at 9 clearly pissed him off and he battled like it. He dropped the roof on Young L in the first round. It was shockingly dominant. The next two rounds are closer and leave the battle being generally pretty debatable, I had P Black pretty clearly though in the first two rounds. Black has such comfort in his style and that’s the best thing he has going for him. The level of trust he has in his ability to build to a bomb is something you don’t typically see battlers have at this stage. He clearly believes in his style and with it being one of the more unique ones we have, he’s going to turn heads.
Young L was good here and debatably won, but I think this battle showed the issue with his pacing to some extent. The material is there, but his rapping feels tailored to a crowd reaction and I think upping the pace could be very beneficial to him, even if it’s by the tiniest bit. Because what he’s writing is great and so is the way he says it, it’s going to be tightening up the other things that he has to work on.
GORILLA MONSOON IS EXPLOSIVE
I’ll admit, I had Gorilla as the underdog going into the Zeke battle. I’ve seen Zeke peak higher by that point and with Gorilla being so new, I figured experience could prevail there. I was extremely wrong. Gorilla’s first round has a case of being the best round of the entire event, that’s how good he was. Gorilla didn’t stay at that level the whole battle, but he did enough that I felt pretty comfortable saying Gorilla got the battle 2-1, winning the first and third. An extremely impressive performance from Gorilla and really showing some show stealing potential.
I’m a big fan of Zeke and I was somewhat disappointed here. His first round is good, he wins the 2nd and I have him losing the 3rd albeit being a close round and general battle. To be clear, this is a debatable battle and I don’t think it’s a clear battle at all. I just don’t think Gorilla is someone Zeke can afford to not show levels against, especially when Gorilla left with such a highlight round. I still have confidence in Zeke’s talents, but he left being one of the more underwhelming performances on the card.
TOP FLOOR LUT SLIENCES THE DOUBT
Another guy who clearly took note of what was said going into the event and did everything to make a statement was Lut. This was by the best I’ve ever seen Lut. His delivery and projection are always on point, but the writing and the level of aggression and eye contact translated super well on camera for him. If Lut can continue to build from here, there’s a very solid battler for him to bloom into. It’s all about improving where he can to match up with the intangibles he already has.
It’s needless to say Rah was the biggest disappointment of the event. Not only was he the only guy to be this bad, he also was riding the wave of the SmackTrack showings he had and being the biggest story of the tournament. There’s no way to sugarcoat it, this was not a good look for Rah. But I don’t think it means he was a flash in the pan or that he can’t recover. As long as he can learn from this and not lose confidence, there’s no reason he can’t bounce back with how talented he is.
UPDATED POWER RANKINGS OF 2026 CLASS OF URL
