Apex 2014 Smash Melee Champion PPMD: "Melee is a journey that's tied to myself"

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

After last year's defeat to Sweden's Adam 'Armada' Lindgren in the finals of Melee at Apex 2013, Kevin 'PPMD' Nanney, otherwise known as Dr.PeePee, was looking for redemption. Strong performances would come at Zenith 2013, The Big House 3, and EVO 2013, where Nanney would earn chants of 'USA, USA!' from the crowd, but finish fifth in a loss to the eventual EVO champion Joseph 'Mango' Marquez. Although playing well, Nanney was winless since last year's Apex. Until now. Nanney spoke with onGamers shortly after winning the finals.

Watch the Apex 2014 Smash Finals (Japanese commentary)

You've just won your first major in nearly a year, and the largest Smash tournament of all time second to only EVO 2013. What's going through your head right now?

It feels wonderful. The reality almost hasn't caught up, it's like this fantasy feeling. I had some adverse conditions I was playing under, being a little ill, and hadn't been practicing as much as I'd like, but I was still able to pull it out and I'm very happy about that. I've had such a struggle being able to win a tournament. I felt like I've overcome so much. I feel proud of myself. Even though it was winning a huge tournament, hearing all those people cheer and having everyone watch online, it was also overcoming so many of my personal demons. For me, Melee is a journey that's tied to myself, so it felt very powerful.

What are those personal demons?

I've struggled with some self-confidence issues over the years. I've had problems with being fully prepared, practicing well, not fully respecting my opponents, thinking too much of myself. These are not things I'm not very proud to admit but they are things that are there and things that other top players might not be ready to say.

Interesting you say that, Mew2King told me in our interview he just cannot get past the emotional hurdles of playing against you. Do you feel that you have him locked down?

Jason is a very talented player, he has a lot of creative ideas and I have a lot of respect for him. He gets very sad when he loses. Generally the pattern of our sets has been me having the advantage over him for a very long time, with me starting to take extremely strong wins over him. At one point, almost making him want to quit the game. I'm not his favorite person to play suffice to say.

In spite of all that, in this past half-year he's beaten me in the last few sets we've played. With that said, I feel like my potential to still do what I was doing for a very long time is still there. I felt like I had some very personal things I needed to work out that was influencing my game. Congratulations to Mew2King for being able to do those things against me for that period of time, but I feel like I've overcome a lot of that. I've matured more as a person and saw the wins come back with it.

Maybe this is a little mean to say, but I feel like I will be improving my performance against him. I'm always striving to do better. He hates losing to me to death, but it's nothing personal.

What are the main reasons you were able to take the finals over M2K? How much of it is the emotional/confidence level, and how much of it is mechanics?

The confidence, the inner aspect is largely misunderstood by a lot of people and I've been learning a lot about that recently. I came into this tournament more confident, more motivated, and less cocky than I've come into a tournament in a very long time.

Mechanically it actually wasn't really there as much as I normally am. I missed some inputs, I looked a little sloppy, I didn't finish all of my combos, I had some technical errors that got me killed. Things that are typically uncharaceristic for me. But in the finals set, I knew maintaining my composure would be most essential. As long as I keep my composure, the mechanics will take care of themselves for the most part. Even when everyone was yelling and cheering for Mew2King, I was still able to keep my head in the game in places where I'd normally be like 'oh you know am I about to lose it all, all these people are cheering against me, people still think I'm not a great player to watch' or something like that. The self doubts didn't creep in.

Did the crowd influence how you played?

The crowd got me excited and made me a bit more aggressive at times. I'm not perfect focus all the time as much as I'd like to be. There was a moment towards the very end near the last match, I had a solid lead and people were yelling and I was like 'I can win the tournament'! And of course he kills me with a very impressive combo from that point. I let myself zone out of the match and just like that Mew2King being a very talented player took full advantage of that. The crowd plays a very strong part. It's not a matter of tuning the crowd out. It's about channeling their energy into something productive for you.

With so much talent at Apex 2014, did you think you had a shot of winning it all?

Yeah, I did. People have always considered me a top player for years and years now. But people would say 'oh he's capable but he's probably not going to do it'. And I even tell myself 'I'm capable, but will I do it this time'? I've always had close sets, placing 2nd and 3rd at majors but I just can't quite finish it out. I believe tackling my demons was what really put me over the edge this tournament.

Now that you've won, do you feel you're at the top of the elite?

I'm not going to be able to convince everyone of everything and there will be people who will hate me because they don't like my character or the way I play. I used to play for that respect of people for a long time, and when I fell off I realized I wasn't too interested in that. A lot of people would probably like to see some type of repeat performance before they start betting on me winning again. But doing it this time in a rather convincing fashion has changed some minds and have some people put me as a contender to win again.

Speaking to Mew2King and Armada, they say there are seven viable characters. But on top of that, they seemed to have some legitimate concern over Fox and Falco potentially getting to the point of being the best two characters. Do you believe there's any truth to this?

The seven character rule is a pretty good rule to live by. Melee is a balanced game as long as you're playing one of those seven characters, and if you're not it's not a very fun game *laughs*.

Sometimes I think that, but more often what people typically consider the top tier - Fox, Falco, Marth, Shiek - those four are in a constant struggle with each other. I think that Fox and Falco won't reasonably be able to pull themselves away from everyone else for the forseeable future. Maybe if everyone picked up this game and we start playing it like Korea plays StarCraft, -maybe- we would have crazy things that I only think is crazy theorycraft right now coming to life and people are doing everything with the game that we even imagined could happen. Maybe in this crazy theory world sure, Fox and Falco are clearly above the other characters. But I find that unlikely right now. Marth and Shiek are a little undervalued in this metagame I feel. I hope I proved a little bit of that this weekend.

You told me before the interview that you're really excited for the future of Smash and Melee specifically. Why is that?

Melee has had a rough history. It's been deep, rich, fun, and exciting to learn about. But it has not been easy. We had to claw our way up to finally get MLG exposure and then it was taken away. Then Brawl came out and we died. Then we got this crazy rebirth from the documentary. We finally got into EVO, then almost got shut down, which then turned into the most viewers ever for a Smash tournament. It's an underdog hero story of a game if there ever was one.

I think we're now going to have the real coming of Melee. With EVO, MLG, other big names picking up this game, and the numbers for even Apex coming close to that of EVO in terms of player entrants, there's not a doubt in my mind that we're going to be looking at so much for the Melee community that we never could have dreamed we could have had.