posted Feb 19th, 2010 - The invitational 8-way competition at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2010 does not only bring the Golden Knights, Paraclete 8 and Dallas Rogue to DeLand. Rogue member Ben Liston recently informed the NSL News that the Shamrock will also feature a reunion of the original Mass Defiance lineup.

Brian Stephens, Jim Rees and Ben Liston have been training and competing with Dallas Rogue in 2009 and placed 4th at the USPA Nationals 2009 with a 13.9 average. John Silva now confirmed that he will also make the trip to DeLand and compete with the original lineup. This lineup even includes MD videographer Steve "Scuba" Feldman who will film his team at the Shamrock Showdown.

The NSL News found videos of the original lineup in the archives. This clip features Mass Defiance at the USPA Nationals 2006, the year after the New England team had won the Advanced Class competition at the USPA Nationals 2006. It was the team's first USPA meet in the Open Class. Mass Defiance finished with a 16.7 average.

The same Mass Defiance lineup continued in 2007 and posted the famous 19.3 average in the Open Class at the USPA Nationals. The NSL News has covered this performance several times in the past, as it still stands for the highest meet average that an amateur team has posted so far.

The topic came back when Arizona Divewerkz challenged the 19.3 record average at the USPA Nationals 2008 and was stopped short with a 19.0 average.

The NSL News picked it up again when SDC Rhythm XP went after the amateur highscore at the USPA Nationals 2009. Rhythm posted an 18.1 average and has now moved up into the full time world of 4-way competition. Mass Defiance is still the unofficial weekend champion with the 19.3 average of 2007.

An interesting aspect of the Shamrock Showdown 2010 is the fact that Mass Defiance and Rhythm will compete directly with each other for the second time in DeLand. Mass Defiance had a comeback at the Paraclete Money Meet in 2008. Dennis Rook had filled the slot for Jim Rees, and the team attended the indoor and the outdoor competition.

Rhythm's 2008 lineup with Center Inside Brian Ball and Tail Laurent Beaudouin was training in the wind tunnel at the same time and joined only the indoor competition. Rhythm won this indoor meet between the two teams (22.2 - 21.6) and then later the Advanced Class gold medals at the USPA Nationals.

The Shamrock Showdown 2010 will be the first outdoor competition between the USPA Advanced Class champions of 2006 and 2008. The new full time SDC Rhythm XP lineup with Tail Thiago Muradas will probably score higher than MD's 19.3 average of 2008. However, the Mass Defiance amateur highscore will still be standing.

Mass Defiance's Center Inside, Ben Liston, also informed the NSL News that he has renewed the availability of his virtual wind tunnel training camp, which was very popular and successful when he had offered it in the summer of 2009 (Archives > 2009 > News > Search for "Tunnel DVD").

Ben Liston said that there are still no hard copies available. However, due to the ongoing demand he has renewed a download option:

"I no longer have hard copies available, but do have both a high res/highframe rate Quicktime (.mov) version and an iPod/iPhone (.m4v) version available for download. The iPod version is 320x240 and the Quicktime one is 480x360. Both are about 315MB. By making a donation to the NSL you get access to both versions. E-mail me to get the download information: Ben(at)MassDefiance(dot)org."

The download option is only available until March 2nd.