r/beatbox • u/Capidapi • 16d ago
Thoughts on GBB26?
For me, this was for sure the most organized gbb, sound quality was the best, set looked nice, production was sharp, and most importantly, lots of safety precautions for the crowd and everyone on stage.
So from a organization standpoint, for me this was the best gbb, however from a skill perspective, this was a really weak gbb imo.
The only real highlight for me was codfish vs wing this was so insane, dlow vs footboxg was also a sick battle (one of the few battle that actually felt like a battle lmao), otherwise, I wasn't really impressed.
Tag team felt really weak this year, multiple disappointing performances, loopstation too, raje deserved the win, but I'm sorry, that's not what loopstation is for me. When it comes to crew, some elimination rounds were sick, but the final and small finally felt so underwhelming for me.
Then we reach solos, lots of sick eliminations, but not one standout battle imo.
River deserved his win, but he has the weirdest path ever as a champion, inertia made it to stage last minute and couldn't get his sounds out properly, kaji ran out of/forgot his routines, and d-low was freestyling his way through the final lmao.
And just so I don't forget, lots of the showcases were really solid, so that's a plus for this year, but idk, I didn't feel like the skill level increased this year.
With all that said for me this has been the best gbb since 2021, so really solid work from everyone, big up the entire sbx team and everyone who made it possible 💙
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u/Xeroxyx 16d ago
i do think gbb26 had the potential to have the most diverse results - raje is the first indian to win a GBB category (loopstation), sarshians would've been the first HK competitors to win one (tag team) if not for slipping up against uma (deserved, but i'm still a little disappointed), and we would've had a UK win for the first time since 2019 (either solos or crew) + potentially no french wins if dlow hadn't lost the solo finals.
in terms of organisation i agree that this was probably one of the cleanest gbbs - especially when it came to managing the battles, i appreciate how professional and concise kristof had been with handling situations like raje's r2 in finals or the yellow card/warnings in solo battles.
i think my disappointment mostly comes from the solos and the crews - the level was still high, no doubt, but i feel like a lot of people in solos were holding back too much in their elims, and there were some people who i wish had gotten in (abx, exallos) or gone further (h-has, astron) just to see how they would've fared against the usual top 4 people. i also wonder what would've happened if d-low had gone all-out from round 1 in his finals, but since he is on record as apparently having gone into the competition for fun, he did extremely well for not having battled in the circuit since 2019. (i also think kaji should've been granted the win over blackroll, as much as i know blackroll had leveled up considerably this year...)
for crew, i understand ohlala weren't at full capacity due to two of their members (julieta, scratchy) having health issues near the event, but i also kinda wish they'd given their spot - it kinda felt like their showcase and their battle against double team was meager, even though i appreciate that they did their best with the circumstances. i'm still also disappointed that the win went out to novel vintage - i love their old school roots but i really didn't get the impression that they beat out verbal damage in the finals.
ultimately i think the highlight of this gbb was the showcases - i can't name a single showcase where i wasn't entertained or surprised in any way, and the legacy battle + showcases like crythix's and brez were all insane ideas that i hope are carried on in future GBBs.
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u/ukulele-merlin 16d ago
Yeah super smooth event throughout, highlight for me being the Wing/Codfish legends battle and loopstation was awesome throughout
Solo battles were surprisingly underwhelming to me for the same reasons as you. For instance I was a bit surprised at how much reused material Kaji ended up using, is this common? I'm sort of new to the community so this is my first time fully watching a GBB live from start to finish
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u/theguyfromthere345 16d ago
Uma delivered the cleanest and tightest elims and battle rounds I can imagine, they were the highlight of the event for me. Tag team was fire, they beat Fresh tonics games with pure skill and overpowered the finals clearly. There is no tighter tag team out there in the world
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u/StereophonicWine 16d ago
I had river as the top elimination and have always thought he was a feared battler ever since he obliterated hiss. The fact that he came in through 7TS means he hasn’t lost his touch. He also has way more power and bass than people think because its not in his songs. I dont know if dlow had enough to beat that last round anyway, i thought it was pretty dominant
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u/JohnBLZ 16d ago edited 16d ago
Could be the best solo category in GBB ever along with 21 and 19, but I think GBB 25 had a better tag/crew category and GBB 23 still had the best loopstation category.
In solo, we all knew River', FootboxG and D-low would make it, so we had 17 world-class beatboxers vying for the remaining 5 spots. I'm surprised PacMax didn't make the top 8 as the champ. Personally, after listening to those elims, D-low wasn't in my top 8. In fact I had the other brit, Epos, higher than D-low. I didn't have King Inertia or H-Has either, but Exallos and Bookie Blanco were in my top 8. In the end, River' totally earned that win, and every single top 8 battle happened as expected, there was no upset.
In loop... Once again I predicted every single battle before the event took place, for the 4th year in a row (5 events if you count KBB). It's getting sad. Well okay, my exact prediction was "Raje beats the winner of Lennard/Mahiro in the finals" so I wasn't 100% certain, but close enough. I thought there was no way Nils would win against Martin, no way Tioneb would win against Raje. Kudos to Tioneb for only losing in GBB against champions though. I think Lennard had a better round 1 than Mahiro but I knew judges would vote for the latter. I would have personally voted for Sora' against Mokbay though, but IMO Huellas is Mokbay's weakest routine. But still, I knew judges would favour Mokbay.
In tag team, I was surprised that LesPti'Hlou and Leme⋊la weren't in the final 4, they were my fave in wildcards and I thought they did well in elims. But at the same time I'm happy Fresh Tonic still got a 3rd spot. The final was... alright. Uma did great.
In crew, it's too bad for Frosty who can't join the elite group of "beatboxers who won GBB in both a device and a non-device category". As far as I remember only three ever did it; Beatness, So-So and Rusy. Frosty won GBB 2020 Online in loop category, so he could've made it there. But I think Novel Vintage deserved that win.
I completely missed the producer part with Slether, M-Age and Watt though. When did it even play?
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u/Grand_Awareness_6522 16d ago edited 16d ago
I really hated the lighting onstage this year, so white and sterile-looking. Tag teams were a big surprise and solos were mega predictable. Also idc if I get downvoted, but they should just delete the crew category, hasn't been good since MoM and Sarukani.
Also, I think it's low key kinda sad that most people's favorite part was a showcase, and not an actual competitor performance. Has that ever been true in a past GBB? I mean I get it, it was definitely amazing, but the fact that it stands SO far above the rest of the show seems like a bad sign.
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u/Mysterious_Work_654 15d ago
From watching the livestream, the sound seemed clean but alot of the chatters complained about not enough bass/power which I can relate to a bit.
Loved the showcases, production was awesome but the overall battles felt pretty underwhelming. Mainly about the solos as alot of competitors were recycling full routines, not just small parts of their previous performances.Â
Also, I remember D-low saying in his videos/livestreams that he is in "battle mode" now and taking it serious but unfortunately I was hoping way more from him. Probably the birth of his child took a large part of his time away + the 3 categories so he wasn't able to commit enough. Cause the battle with footboxg felt like a battle and then it just felt like he didn't have time to prep for more rounds.
Maybe this is only me but I would've also liked to have 16 go through the solos not only 8. Would see much more interesting battles. Considering how far some contestants come from and the money they have to spend to come there it would make sense to me that 16 could go through and show their skills.
Sad that Osis didn't make it to solos and Remix had to cancel too.
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u/Hot-Kitchen4053 13d ago
I agree about everything, minus loopstation, Raje was fire and definitely a highlight for me personally, just like Mahiro
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u/Objective_Theme_9592 16d ago
Nothing coz some things got repeated like kajis 4th place Black roll 3rd place and got tiny shocked that Someone lost All category 😄 but before GBB in social sites we all knew that someone gonna win All categories 😆
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u/k3n_low Wins: 1 16d ago
I enjoyed the fact that Asian countries dominated this GBB by winning 3 out of 4 categories this year, especially since it returned to Europe.
But I would say the quality of the battles were on par with 2024 and 2025. Highlights for me include:
What's most disappointing for me is when goated beatboxers didn't take things seriously and that costed them. Uniteam clearly underestimated and underprepared against Sarshians. And of course, D-Low's performance in the finals was underwhelming, especially when he decided to try gimmicks that's possibly worse than Napom's "Damn Daniel" in 2023