American in the final stage

[darthvaderlim]

As you know by now, Kane Kosugi is the only American to make it to the final stage on Sasuke back in 2001, when the Cliffhanger wasn't ridiculously hard and obstacles such as the Spider Flip and Vertial Limit didn't exist back then. Since then, majority of Americans has been failing the Cliff hanger starting with Paul Anthony Terek in Sasuke 17. I was hoping You-know-who would make it to the final stage in Sasuke 38, only to be arrested and Jessie Graff has zero chance of beating the Cliffhanger transition. You could argue that David Campbell could have cleared the Third Stage in Sasuke 27 or Travis Allen Schroeder if he didn't pull the pipe off the track on the Pipe Slider in Sasuke 4. Imagine having someone attempting Stage 4 in both Sasuke and ANW. So my question is, will we see another American make it to the final stage in Sasuke or are they cursed to fail the cliff hanger for the rest of eternity?

[GlobalNinjaFan]

Sept 8, 2020 1:27:28 GMT -5 darthvaderlim said:

As you know by now, Kane Kosugi is the only American to make it to the final stage on Sasuke back in 2001, when the Cliffhanger wasn't ridiculously hard and obstacles such as the Spider Flip and Vertial Limit didn't exist back then. Since then, majority of Americans has been failing the Cliff hanger starting with Paul Anthony Terek in Sasuke 17. I was hoping You-know-who would make it to the final stage in Sasuke 38, only to be arrested and Jessie Graff has zero chance of beating the Cliffhanger transition. You could argue that David Campbell could have cleared the Third Stage in Sasuke 27 or Travis Allen Schroeder if he didn't pull the pipe off the track on the Pipe Slider in Sasuke 4. Imagine having someone attempting Stage 4 in both Sasuke and ANW. So my question is, will we see another American make it to the final stage in Sasuke or are they cursed to fail the cliff hanger for the rest of eternity?

I think certain Americans are definitely capable of clearing Stage 3... but barely due to the level of grip required.

If every American star got to take on Sasuke? Yeah, I would bet we'd see a couple of final stage attempts at least.

But with only 1-2 Americans MAX per tournament? Those odds just went from reasonable to very steep.

[tns8597]

David Campbell I think would've achieved Kanzen if he'd held on for literally 2 more seconds on the UCH. He was definitely strong enough to get through the remainder of Stage 3, and he achieved Kanzen in SASUKE Vietnam which was a much harder Final Stage than the watered-down one in SASUKE 27.

A lot of people were predicting that Jamie Rahn would have gone far in 37 if it wasn't for his early shock exit, because he's both a seasoned parkour athlete (which would help him through Stages 1 and 2) and a rock climber, which would defo help him in Stage 3. It's hard to say because he's never made it past Stage 2 in ANW, but ANW's Stage 2 is just objectively 100x harder than SASUKE's.

I think there are several in the ANW cohort who could reach the final, like Daniel Gil (who made the final in ANW11), Geoff Britten, Isaac Caldiero (though I hope not because I think he's an arrogant pr**k), Adam Rayl, and so on. It's just a case of whether whoever competes has it in them on the day, which as we saw in SASUKE 37, isn't guaranteed. It also really depends on if their weight works against them, because the only 'larger' competitor we've seen attempt the Vertical Limit was Drew and he sucked both times. We've only really seen the smaller guys, like Yuuji, Ryo, and Morimoto, do really well and their weight clearly plays to their advantage.