Salm Speaks Out

[Smoke]

That's right!! That exactly what I was getting at. Well DirtyBunny, looks like we're on the same page.....

[Tyger]

Originally posted by blnk162

Cheating will NEVER be 100 percent out of our sport....Im just sick of everyone knocking pros....

And as long as you believe that, that will indeed be the case.

And if you're going to call yourslef the best, and compete to be the best, don't have the audacity to be shocked when you get "knocked around". ESPN does it all the time, get used to it. If you're gonna make yourslef out to be the best, expect the potshots. You can't be immune, not in a media driven culture.

-Tyger

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

TYPES OF CHEATING

Ok, we have alot of allegations flying around. Who knows FOR SURE how certain pro teams are cheating? Whoever made that remark about Legion using their cameraman, do you have proof or did they ever get officially caught for it? By all means give something to back your remarks up. Anyone else have any stories of pro players flagrantly cheating (and I mean the events that stick out) please post them, especially if they were caught or punished for it by the NPPL, sponsors, or anyone else.

Professional is a technicality. Profession as in makes income from it. Salm is a professional, true, he's also a scumbag and no matter how good he is, he's an embarrassment to the game and should not have any part in it as a professional now. What he did pushed cheating to a whole new level which is why it should be taken so seriously. If officials and other players use the idiotic mentality and think "he did it, so why shouldn't we. it's not fair. we deserve to win" or "he didn't mean it, we'll let him get away with it this time" this type of behavior will become standard just as wiping has already. They need to set an example with this, and it's not like he did something unintentional or spur of the moment. He planned it out and I don't think he really shows any remorse. He is only giving weak and immature justification for how he acted. He should never play in the NPPL or any other league that wants to have credibility again. And any other Pro or tournament played who chooses to use these tactics regularly and without remorse should be too.

[manike]

Originally posted by blnk162
Legion jus thas their camera man send them signals and such while hes on the field...

LMAO. That's absolute rubbish and was a rumour started by a paranoid American team when they kept getting beat.

Fact is they are a phenomenal team. They aren't perfect and have had questionable 'moments' but they are one of the best 'teams' out there in many respects.

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

QUESTIONABLE

Are Legion from Britain like you? Just a side note I'm curious about, I'm British but live in Boston so I keep track of teams in both areas.

By best do you mean record or by their respect for the game and lack of cheating? And I take "questionable moments" means you know they wipe if they really need to in order to win, which is still bad. A definite step up, though, from Avalanche and other teams that make cheating part of their gameplan and build such a bad reputation. How about how they behave off the field? Do they start fights, flip off spectators, act like they're better than everybody? These are the kind of off-field behaviors that need to be trimmed as well. Sure, all sports have people that do this, but paintball seems to have a strong concentration of hotheaded, immature thugs who feel they should never lose, that no one should cheat against them even if they're cheating themselves, and think they should get up in other people's faces and start fights just to act tough. These players make us look bad, prevent mainstream interest in our sport, and are the people who should be removed from the Pro leagues. Recballers are the future and the major source of pro funding and if you act like jerks to them and "Sandbag" in lower level tournaments you're killing the game's future.

[manike]

DO NOT READ THINGS INTO MY POSTS or put words into my mouth that I didn't say please!

I've never accused them of wiping and would not, I've never see nor heard of them doing that.

If by Legion he means Russian Legion then they are from Moscow in Russia

They are very nice and respectful and polite people on and off the field. I've only ever ONCE in all the time watching and photographing them seen an RL player get angry. And all he did was kick a pot when he thought he had been unfairly called out for kneeling on a ball.

They are the best because of their game play, skills and tactics and endeavours as a team on and off the field. They are the cleanest pro team I've ever seen. Watching them play is so fantastically technical that it's a testament to athletes.

Questionable moments means occasions when they have been deemed to have gone outside the rules by the judges, and they got penalised for it.

I don't think there is any player in the game of paintball that hasn't at some point 'played on' knowingly or not or broken the rules at some point. I don't believe there are many pro teams that are perfeclty squeakly clean.

manike

[Evil Bob]

Allegations against Russian Legion have gone so far as to suggest that they have subdermal implants for communicating with each other. There is alot of crap going around to explain why they are so successful, and it's all just that... crap. The plain truth is they train hard, and it clearly shows.

Russian Legion simply do not cheat. Any member of RL that gets caught cheating is off the team, no questions asked. The team as a whole holds cheating in complete contempt and feel they don't need to lower their standards to be successful, they can do better with skill and hard training.

How many other paintball teams out there trains with a coach 3 to 5 times a week? None! I have seen them train, I have played against them, these guys are a genuine class act, and above all they are very honorable.

How many pro players out there do you think would risk getting shot in a top tournament to leave the safty of their bunker at the back end of their field to run up and tell one of their front players that they've been hit by the other team? Only Russian Legion, I have never seen anyone else ever do this, everyone else just plays on. 99.9% of the time they call themselves out when they are hit. How many pro players do you know that will do that? How many will keep shooting after being hit until the ref/marshall calls them out?

-Evil Bob

[cledford]

The Russian Legion is an awesome team! If I could find a team that took practice, training and drilling to such a level I would be in heaven.

Here is a good article (link originally posted by RobAGD) on the Legion. You have to read about halfway down to get to the part about them.

http://www.p8ntballer.com/classroomcontents/ustyle.shtml

-Calvin

[blnk162]

Originally posted by manike


LMAO. That's absolute rubbish and was a rumour started by a paranoid American team when they kept getting beat.

Fact is they are a phenomenal team. They aren't perfect and have had questionable 'moments' but they are one of the best 'teams' out there in many respects.

Actually it happened at two different tournaments and against two different teams..

OK, about morals and credibility, some people dont have morals or are differant than yours, that DOESNT mean they are a bad person, I mean if you dont cheat good for you, but id like to see a show of posts of who has ever played a national event in this forum before I finish my argument.

[cphilip]

Originally posted by blnk162
...before I finish my argument.

Your argument has been finished for quite some time...

[manike]

Originally posted by Evil Bob
Russian Legion simply do not cheat. Any member of RL that gets caught cheating is off the team, no questions asked.

I don't believe that is completely true. I think you have been reading too much of PGI and Robbo's writings

But the thing about a back player calling a judge to check one his front players is true... I beleive I may have written the article where you read that and I saw it myself. I've seen many stunningly good acts from the RL, and only a few ever that were as I said 'questionable'.

There have been instances where they have been penalised for breaking the rules (is that or is it not cheating?) and rightly in my opinion. But at the level the play sometimes this occurs and certainly doesn't detract in my book from the cleanest and best technical team in Pro paintball. They suck it up and continue to play. In Portugal they made it into the finals with only 5 men in a seven man tournament when two of their guns (and thus players) were disallowed from use for getting more than 'one shot per pull' under the Millennium rules.

Blink, yeah and it was at Millennium events for which I write reports on Warpig. And everytime it comes up, anyone with any sense laughs their behind off at the accusations as being the bitter spite filled dreams of the losers... If it were true do you think they would still be yet to actually win a Millennium event? (so often second.... )

RL are the best team in Euro Paintball, and in many ways their excellent conduct in paintball makes them the best team in Pro paintball. In my opinion

manike

[ogre55]

Originally posted by blnk162
Actually it happened at two different tournaments and against two different teams.

When. Where? Against whom? I know I am waiting with baited breath for the answer.

OK, about morals and credibility, some people dont have morals or are differant than yours, that DOESNT mean they are a bad person.

Different moral code: As long as said code does not involve stealing/cheating/killing without provocation etc., I guess they are not. But since the people you speak of, apparently have a moral code that states that cheating is OK, then you are DEAD WRONG.

Lack of a moral code: People who have no moral code are not neccessarily bad? Do you know where most people without a moral code live? The answer is prison. They are called sociapaths and they are bad in every sense of the word.

"Better to stay quiet and be thought of an idiot than to speak and remove all doubt"

Abraham Lincoln

It's a great qoute isn't it. Some people can really learn from it.


Ogre

[Marchborne]

Originally posted by blnk162


OK, about morals and credibility, some people dont have morals or are differant than yours, that DOESNT mean they are a bad person, I mean if you dont cheat good for you, but id like to see a show of posts of who has ever played a national event in this forum before I finish my argument.

MORAL: "1a: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior: ethical ... e: capable of right or wrong action." Webster's 10th Collegiate Dictionary, pg. 756 (1996).

Yes, not having morals DOES make you a bad person. If you don't know right from wrong, and you cheat, then you lose credibility. Answer this: what does having played a national event have to do with credibility when discussing the morals involved in cheating?

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

POINT MADE

Before I respond to what I was going to, Blink162 you proved one of my points by how you ended your last post: you think because you played at Badlands and in many tourneys that you're better than us and more credible. You keep bringing up that point trying to say because some of us aren't veterans to tournament play our opinions aren't as important. This game is not all about tournaments! It started as a survival pasttime and has evolved into many forms, including speedball, which happens to be the one that could lead to more exposure for the sport as it is classified as an extreme sport. Giving the impression the game is owned by the top and more experienced players is exactly the stereotypical attitude on and off the field that damages are game and should be removed. Setting effective and policed rules for the game and behavior by players and enforcing them fully will start removing the bad impression spectators and rookies may get. We were all rookies once, and we need the new wave of newbies to make this game grow, and right now we're discouraging tons of them by immature behavior, arrogant attitudes, and cheating. If you found Pedro Ramirez pitching against your college baseball team you'd pitch a fit, that's the same as Sandbagging. If you were on the other team playing that kid who lied about his age, you'd complain. It's the same thing here and we have to be strict about it and set an example.


I am not talking about why cheating specifically happens on the pro level and how it's basically become expected, I am talking about how cheating at any level discourages people from investing more time and money into playing paintball, discourages amateur tournament players and recballers from working on their teams to push up the ranks and signing up for more tournaments, as well as discourages new players from playing which means our sport will remain expensive due to limited participants. Having honest, hardworking players choosing not to play tournaments because arrogant, cheating people in it only for themselves and to feel like big men and people not going back to a rec field cause the regulars with $1500 guns bossed them around and kept bunkering them are the biggest poisons to the game right now, and people doing this should reform or be removed, no matter how many tournaments they have played. It's the only way to improve the public's impression of the game. If Russian Legion are just as it has been described, I have alot of respect for them and wish them great success.

[blnk162]

Originally posted by cphilip


Your argument has been finished for quite some time...

Youve obviously never played a national tournament then...

With higher competition comes different levels of cheating and rule bending in any sport.