I’ll explain it firsthand.
So here’s the deal… most of it started with the World Mod Contest at the world yoyo contest in orlando.
Etorre (aka Mr. Bist) first entered in 2009 with the Stradivarius.
I was one of the judges (as I am every year) along with Eric Wolff, Alan Gray, Rob Tsao, Frank Difeo, Dave Schulte, and Bill Deboisblanc. (don’t quote me on the exact judges actually, that’s the usual team, but somebody may have missed that year).
There are 3 categories for the contest… Mod, Creation, and Overall. The difference between them is a matter of how much of the yo-yo is original parts and how much is modified from existing yoyos… for the precise rules see the world yoyo contest website… but it doesn’t really matter for this story.
Etorre took 2nd place overall, behind Yuumi Shiga’s acrylic yo-yo (named the onedrop, no relation to the company).
The first problem was that we as judges actually screwed up. We put him in the ‘creation’ category, where he took 2nd behind yuumi as well… when in fact it really -was- a mod… we had missed part of his (very long) writeup on the yoyo. He should in fact have been in the mod category, and was later moved over and won that division.
He, threw, a, fit. He tracked down Eric Wolff, myself, and others and individually threw a hissy fit that he didn’t win the overall award. He ranted, raved, screamed, and was just generally a complete asshat to everyone. He insulted every other entry, insulted us individually as judges, and ranted about how our system was completely wrong.
There was in fact only a single point difference in the scores, and it could have gone either way pretty easily, but that clearly didn’t matter to him.
Now, I should explain that there is in fact a basic disagreement over the system we use and what ‘he’ thinks we should do. We judge yo-yos on Quality, Originality, and Performance. He ONLY judges yo-yos on performance, and how difficult the mod was. To him, the amount of time spent on the mod is everything. To us, that’s nuts. You could spend 10000 hours on a yoyo and it might still suck and be a copy of another idea… we can’t reward the amount of time you spend. The problem came with how he handled the situation.
Fast forward to 2010. He enters a wheel-like mod (I forget the name).
It was in fact one of the best yo-yos ever entered in the mod contest (which is saying a -lot-). He won the overall division.
He, threw, a, fit. He again individually tracked down various judges and ranted, raved, yelled, insulted us, insulted other entries, etc. His problem was that HE DIDN’T WIN BY A LARGE ENOUGH MARGIN. That’s right, he WON the contest, but was insulted that somehow somebody placed 2nd behind him. He apparently wanted -all- of the places to himself.
He then stated that since we were all such incompetent morons (paraphrasing there), he would never again enter, and that he might just stop making yoyos all together.
Since then, he has taken every opportunity to insult the mod judges, and in particular has taken an interest in Ben McPhee of yoyofactory. Note, Ben (until this last year when Etorre didn’t even enter) has never been a mod judge. Of course, Ben does like to stir things up and he has baited Etorre on numerous occasions into arguments.
On top of all of this, he has accused basically every yo-yo company that exists, of stealing or copying his ideas. He seems to think that he did -everything- first and that all others are just stealing the fame and fortune he thinks he deserves.
So, what it comes down to…
Etorre makes amazing yo-yo creations. Nobody doubts or debates this. The problem, is that his ego is so absolutely insanely large, that he can’t accept that anybody else on the planet could possibly do anything worthwhile.
Some of his videos are kinda funny, most are direct attacks at various modders… trying to make fun of anything they do. He made an entire video dedicated to mocking Landon Balk for winning the mod contest last year (which Mr. Bist didn’t even enter).
So yea, there ya have it…
Kyle