Members of the EVE Online development team will battle real-life MMA fighter Gunnar “Gunni” Nelson in a series of cage matches during the 2014 EVE Fanfest.
I’m not sure if this is the best idea I’ve heard all month or the worst, but it’s certainly the most Icelandic. On the evening of May 2, the Friday night of this year’s three-day EVE Fanfest, employees of CCP Games will take part in ten back-to-back cage matches against Gunnar “Gunni” Nelson, a real-life MMA fighter with a professional record of 12-0-1.
Nelson isn’t a leading contender for the UFC championship, but he does beat people up for a living; CCP employees, on the other hand, have a somewhat less vigorous vocation. Even so, Ragnar “CCP Loki” Eðvaldsson said the matches against Nelson will be the real deal.
“The fighting itself will be very serious,” he said. “We aim to defeat this world-class athlete and the team has been training hard for many months at Mjölnir [MMA gym] to do so. What is the distance between a person at the top of the pyramid and those who strive to get there? Tune in to find out.”
Team coach and EVE Online community developer Sveinn “CCP Guard” Kjarval seemed to be of a somewhat different mindset, however, promising that his fighters will bring “flailing, half-strength maneuvers” to the cage that will “possibly, eventually have a two percent chance at best of causing this human tornado of devastation to pause and laugh just long enough that we get super-lucky.”
The good news for the CCP fighters is that the “EVE of Destruction” bouts will be wrestling matches decided by submission rather than unconsciousness or the inability to see through a busted-up face. The bad news is, that plays to Nelson’s strength: He’s a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu specialist who’s won eight of his 12 victories by submission.
Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time that an EVE Fanfest has included a martial contest: A highlight of the 2011 event was the “Brain vs. Pain” chessboxing match. The 2014 EVE Online Fanfest takes place from May 1 to 3 in Reyjavik, Iceland. If that’s a bit too far out of the way, the EVE of Destruction event, along with the rest of the Fanfest, will be broadcast on Twitch.
