Phil "Esquire" Stewart · @therealEsq
22nd Oct 2018 from TwitLonger
One Year Ago...
Around this week marks my 1 Year Anniversary of commentating in esports, specifically for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.
What an incredible journey it has been so far. I thought that with this week starting I would reflect on how things have gone during the last year and what I see for the future.
Rewind to June 2017 - I had been grinding PUBG for 18 hour days with many of the players who helped start and are still participating in the competitive leagues. I had suffered from insane nerve pain in my back and legs for the last year and finally got around to getting it checked out. Turns out I had *somehow* massively slipped 2 of the discs in my lower spine and required a pretty major, immediate back surgery to correct it.
The surgery had a recovery period of around 1 year with the first 2 months or so being incredibly restricted in mobility and the ability to sit for long periods of time. What I had once been doing for the majority of my day, grinding PUBG Leaderboards, had shifted into 1 game sessions every few hours.
A few months later...one of my truly amazing friends and old PUBG leaderboard grinding teammates, Therous (now of Trifecta), encouraged me to get into commentating, telling me that I had a good voice (which is something I heard commonly when working in Hollywood) coupled with game knowledge (over 2,000 hours played at that time).
Connecting me to Matrym and PUBGOnline, Therous helped me secure my first opportunity to cast. The good ol' days of Showdown and Contenders. JabroniMac a/k/a Bubble Daddy slayin' from the Houston offices. If not for PUBGOnline giving me this opportunity I may have missed the casting boat altogether. I can't thank them enough for that shot!
From there on I continued to take every casting opportunity I could - to get practice, experience, and exposure. I began working for the other two online leagues, Auzom and GLL. This was about the time that Mustache Dave and I became great friends and colleagues. We very quickly realized the passion that each other had for not only PUBG and Battle Royale genre games but also for the community we had spent the last year being a part of. This new "partnership" helped me escalate my commentating game to the next level. Big shout out to Dave for all of the hard work and time put in both individually and as a team throughout the online leagues and tournaments. You're a great friend.
Working a live event had been a dream. I was, and remain very humble that I was a newer caster in the scene and that live events were still a ways off. After about 7 months of working in the scene I was given my opportunity to cast the Deadmau5 Amazon Prime Unboxing Day Event in Los Angeles, California through my agent Ben Woodward @ Code Red Esports (Shout out to Ben - this man and his team are absolute beasts in what they do). Casting alongside Cameron Davis at the event was a blast, especially given the Pro/Am/Celebrity environment.
From there, the hard work did not and will not stop. Starladder Season 2 was another huge opportunity for my career. Big shout out to Vitaliy and the entire crew in Kiev, Ukraine. Eight show days and the opportunity to cast with Leigh "Deman" Smith and Toby "Tobiwan" Dawson was incredible. The experience and mastery of their craft was impressive and getting to work alongside some of these esports vets was nothing short off extraordinary.
These are some of the major highlights for me over the last year as I sit here reflecting on how things have gone. My overall mood, level of happiness, and motivation are at an all-time high and that gives me great hopes for the future.
Thank you to everyone - players, organizations, viewers, my family and friends and everyone else who has supported me this last year. It has meant the world and I will continue to work towards the never-ending goal of always improving.
I can't wait to see what the last bit of 2018 and the new year, 2019 have in store.
See you all on the Battlegrounds!