Tell us a bit about yourselves and how you got involved in DOA4?

Jeremy: My name is Jeremy Florence. I go by the handle Black Mamba. The handle came from a movie called "Kill Bill." Black Mamba was the nickname of an assassin from that movie. Black Mamba is also the nickname of Los Angeles Laker's player Kobe Bryant. All three of us do what we do best and we do it well, we just straight up kill. I got into DOA when Dead or Alive 2:Ultimate came out for the Xbox. It became available to play online and I was able to play and learn from the best when I first started learning the game. When DOA4 came out, I was then able to take it to offline tournaments and build up my accomplishments within DOA4.

Marjorie: I've been playing video games since a very young age, always have been an introverted chick who loves to keep to herself, always will be.  I started playing DOA on the Dreamcast, starting with DOA2.  I played a little bit of DOA1 on the Sega Saturn, but not enough to qualify as actually playing it a lot.  After Dreamcast, I played DOA3 on the Xbox, then DOAU when that came out.  I discovered Doacentral.com soon after I bought DOAU.  I went to a few gatherings locally, and was lucky enough to get to go E3 2005 with some of the core Doacentral.com members on an invite from Tecmo.  I got to meet the great Itagaki, Dahlsim, Swoozie and Master.  After that, I was in and out of the community until I got a weird call from Dahlsim in the summer of 2006.  He asked me if I was interested in joining an all female clan of gamers (PMS) and if I was interested in playing DOA4 on a game show type thing on TV.  My answers were of course, yes and yes!  I got lucky in my brackets fighting Mystik first, then moving on to fight Swoozie.  I narrowly won against Swoozie and fought Master where he pretty much destroyed me (might not have been so bad if we fought now a days:-p).  I was crowned second place for CGI2, very exciting moment, and took home a nice prize check of 5g's!  After that I got very involved in the PMS Clan, starting their first fighting game division.  I got it going on mostly on my own, but I had a lot of help from people who joined soon after it started.  I went to a lot of tournaments between that time and when the draft started, representing PMS.  Made a lot of great friends with the same vision as I had--to see more than one chick at those huge fighting game tournaments, lol!

How does it feel to be apart of a World Champion Team with Chimera and representing your game, DOA4?

Jeremy: It definitely feels like you are on top of the world. It feels great and comforting knowing that you are on a team that shares the same desire of winning and have the skills to back it up. When it comes to DOA world competitions, I see it like this. I only see a few DOA players that can be considered World Class, I'm one of them. After we won the CGS World Championship and everything was said and done, it's nice to know that I can say that I almost performed to the best of my
abilities and that I represented to the fullest.

Marjorie: It's a really great thing to be on the winning team.:)  I'm really proud of all my teammates and my GM.  We all have done a lot of work to get where we are now.

Tell us about your practice schedule. Any pre-game rituals or workouts?

Jeremy: My practice schedule consists of playing DOA everyday. I used to practice for non-stop hours a day, but these past few months, I have learned not to overdo it. I believe that you don't want to burn yourself out. One example was the World Cyber Games Grand Finals. Weeks before the tournament, I wasn't playing the game nearly as much. Even when I got to the competition that week, I still wasn't playing the game and I still won WCG. One of my main and most valued keys to playing my game at a high level is mindset. When you have played the game as much as I have, you can definitely afford to just sit back and think. Coming up with theories in your head about what to do in certain situations and things like that. So when it comes to finally playing and putting it all on the line, you will be ready to go.

Whats in the bag? That is you getting your ass kicked at DOA4

Marjorie: My practice schedule is all over the place, at least right now in the off season.  When it gets closer to game time I practice everyday, all the time.  The only pre-game rituals I have is to stay pumped and don't let any seed of doubt spread in my mind.

Address competitve gaming as a sport. In the United States, people seem to be especially critical about classifying gaming as a sport as opposed to Asia and parts of Europe. Do you view gaming as a sport like Baseball and Basketball, or is it in a class of its own?

Jeremy: I don't see why it wouldn't be considered as a sport. Pro Gaming is as much of a competitive nature as basketball, baseball, or any other sport. We all have to play, practice, and get experience just as much as the next sport. We all go out there and get ours. Pro Gaming in the United States is not as big or popular like it is in other parts of the world, but what the
Championship Gaming Series is trying to do is put Pro Gaming on the U.S Map and ultimately expanding for the whole world. So far, the Championship Gaming Series has done an excellent job in revolutionizing Pro Gaming.

Marjorie: Pro Gaming is definitly a sport, I wouldn't say it's a sport like baseball or basketball.  Pro Gaming is a sport like chess is a sport, it's a mental sport.  In the US there are still many stereotypes that if you aren't running around like a mad man leaking testosterone, your not really competing in a sport.  Where in other countries, there is an understanding that if you can still be in "the zone", there's teamwork and large hurdles (physically or mentally) to be climbed over, then it is a sport.