Prog here. So, in the course of my time in Smash and other fighters, I’ve seen a lot of people whose work needs to be exalted. Glenn Cravens, known to many as “the stats guy,” has been a long time supporter of competitive gaming and has left his footprint on the Smash scene as well. Glenn, I have the honor of chatting with you and discussing something that I personally can’t wait for.

pr0g: So Glenn, first and foremost, thanks for being open to doing this. I’ve followed you on twitter for your stats and discovered a fire and a passion about gaming behind all of the numbers. But for everyone else, who are you?

Glenn: I’m a resident of Deep NorCal (Monterey Bay area) but have lived in the North State as well as the 562. I’m the founder of Get Your Tournament (2006-2012), where we covered all sorts of competitive gaming events, starting with Melee and Madden, going to Counter-Strike and Brawl and then toward fighting games. Melee was the first big venture, as the YouTube channel was one of the biggest around during its time before HD took over. Toward the end of Get Your Tournament’s time, I’ve created a fighting game database where we tracked in-game stats of matches in the Street Fighter IV series, and that’s what most of today’s competitive gaming followers know me for. Earlier this year, I published the book, “Evo Moment 37” which is about the Daigo Parry that took place 10 years ago.

pr0g: So you’ve been involved in various gaming scenes, and I hear your pen is mightier than your sword. Tell us a bit about some of your previous projects.

Glenn: I tried to do so many projects back in the day pre- and post-Get Your Tournament. Tried to do commentary in matches, stats, ghetto streaming, podcasts, picture galleries, etc. I tried anything and almost everything, even if just once. It was all terrible, ha ha, but it was a learning experience.

pr0g: So, you’ve been alluding to a Smash project on twitter for a while now. Of course, not everyone uses it, but what is on your plate in relation to Smash?

Glenn: It was about 2013 when I came to the conclusion that my future was in writing books, a lot of books. In 2006, when I wrote my first book, “Monterey Bay Thunder,” the goal was to get a book published through a ‘traditional’ publisher. I didn’t care if I made money off of it (profit turned out to be less than $50), I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. In doing some self reflections over the past year, I believe that writing books is my future. “Evo Moment 37” is my third book.

My next non-fiction book will be about Smash players and their favorite competitive gaming match that he/she has been involved with. The idea is to take wide ranges of players, from world champions, to ‘regular people’ and get their thoughts on what made their favorite match so special. The dream goal right now is stories from 100 people.

prog:  That’s a really awesome project. Every match is different to every person, some sets lead to rivalries that can last decades, others can lead to a student and disciple setup, not to mention now, legions of fans. How much Smash are you looking to cover?

Glenn: I’m guessing most of the stories will come from Melee, but I really hope I can get some from Brawl and 64 as well. For now, I’m going to decline Project M.

pr0g: 100 people, that’s an arduous task. You’ve got 15 years of Smash history, 12 years of recorded tournament history in Melee alone. Who are some names you’re looking to track down?

Glenn: It would be awesome to talk to current players like Mango, Armada, Dr. PeePee, Hugs. Then there’s the players from the past like Joel [Isai], Azen, Recipherus and Matt [Deezie]. But what would be really awesome would be if we could find those people who are well known in a non-Smash capacity who have that favorite Smash match he or she can share (and I wonder whether everyone reading this is thinking of the same person right now, flood the comments!! Ha ha.). And I really would like to talk to players from the past who competed when items were the norm and not debated about.

pr0g: Yeah, we’ve seen a lot of growth and a lot of change. Even this week, I’ve seen some Injustice players discussing stage interactions and comparing it to allowing items in Smash. Anyway, with all of this history, and you being a long time fan, what matches are some of your favorites or hope people put in the book?

Glenn: The two that I hope make it are Hugs vs. Luigi Ka-Master at UCLA III and Azen vs. Captain Jack at TG6. But those players involved might give me a different match.

pr0g: Taking it way back with those! Of course, with the future ahead, are there plans to delay writing at all? Last year, the Smash Brothers Documentary was in post production, and it got pushed back for EVO. With EVO, MLG on the way for Melee players, plus a lot of renewed interest in Brawl and 64, are there any plans to push back writing or interviewing until the summer has ended?

Glenn: The timetable for this book will be at least one year, and that’s being generous. I would not be surprised if this took two years to make it really great. Going to guess that a lot of interviews will be done during Evo week, especially since I’m going a day earlier than I normally would (that extra day was planned before I started the project). MLG/Evo won’t speed up or slow down the process unless I interview someone and then they’re involved in an epic match at one of those events and they decide to change his or her mind.

pr0g: Really awesome stuff man, and I certainly know how you’ll treat this project. Should be awesome, and I await the day that there’s an accompanying YouTube playlist with all of the matches. How can we follow your progress and such with it? How can we support?

Glenn: Go follow me on Twitter at @gyt. I’m on other social media networks (make sure you put Glenn or else I might not show up in a search, ha ha) but I prefer Twitter the best.

pr0g: Awesome, of course, we wish you the best, and I know I’m looking forward to my second autographed book. Thanks for your time!